Xmas in Antarctica

While we're cruising through waters that are green with phytoplankton and
littered with ice flows (with more phytoplankton growing at the base) we
are getting ready for Xmas. Weeks ago the "last Xmas" was already playing
on the bridge and from Gert's speakers (and I thought I could escape that
going to Antarctica...). Then, people started making snowflakes from folded
pieces of paper. First, we made snowflakes, and cut out penguins and crabs.
Then, nerdies as we are, we made Phaeocystis, diatom (phytoplankton), and
copepod (critters that eat phytoplankton) "snowflakes". It turns out that
the Danish are most craftful in making shooting stars and braided hearts
(with more penguins). The "E-lab" where all the people watching monitors
are, looks awesome, with all these crafty decorations. There are also fake
Xmas trees in most of the labs with all kinds of colourful flickering
lights. I brought our holographic Xmas tree, thinking to be original, but
there is another one on the ship! The tree in the galley fell over when we
hit some heavy ice the other day. Luckily the decorations survived. Now,
some Danish Xmas songs are playing while Sanna and Rasmus wearing Santa
Claus hats while sorting through their zooplankton over a lighttable.

For Xmas we will "look for" a stable iceflow, where we can raft up to, and
have a party on the ice. Since we cannot drink alcohol on the vessel, we'll
go on the ice to have a beer. That should be a special way to celebrate
Xmas, and it 'll sure be a white Xmas.

In the ice...

We have been steaming through the ice to get to the place we have started
our work, yesterday. We're a bit busy right now, so I'll tell you more
about it later. Here are some pics to capture the differences in icescapes
we sailed by, it's beautiful! In addition to a lot of seals, we also saw
some penguins; adelies and emperors. But of course never when I had my
camera on hand....

Icewake

Ice sunset.

Although this one is called "sunset", the sun doesn't really set
anymore....

Seal

Iceberg

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Iron and phytoplankton

All phytoplankton need light and nutrients (nitrate and phosphate) to grow
and do photosynthesis. In almost all oceans and seas the growth of
phytoplankton is limited by light (e.g. in winter, when days are short), or
nitrate. Thus, if you take a bit of seawater from just about anywhere you
won’t find much nitrate in there. Except for the Southern Ocean, South of
about 55S. For the longest time oceanographers had no idea why there
weren’t more phytoplankton growing there, as there should be plenty of
light and nitrate available.

It was known that phytoplankton also need a little bit of iron to grow, but
the iron concentrations that researchers measured on their research ships
were so high that that had to be plenty for the phytoplankton. Then, in the
’80s, some smart researchers thought about potential contamination from
their iron research vessels. So they came up with various tricks to be able
to measure iron in water that had not been in contact with the ships hull.
They would take a zodiac out to get water away from the ship, and take this
back to measure the iron concentrations. Or they would have a pump out on
the side of the ship so they could get water away from the wake of the
ship. From these samples it became apparent that the iron concentrations in
the Southern Ocean were much lower than previously thought. And with every
subsequent trick the iron chemists came up, the concentrations became even
lower!

The next step was to prove that phytoplankton would grow better with more
iron. So phytoplankton biologists took bottles with water and phytoplankton
from the Southern Ocean, added iron, and…. Rolling drums… the
phytoplankton began to grow. In addition, researchers would dump a large
amount of iron solution in the water, hang around on their ship, and
measure if more phytoplankton would grow. In a number of cases
phytoplankton did respond to the iron, but in a number of other cases not
much happened.. It seems like in these spots phytoplankton did not have
enough light to use the extra iron/

The relation between iron and phytoplankton is very interesting, since
there are indications that during the last ice ages (when it was colder,
and there was less CO2 in the atmosphere), there was more iron in the
water. If there would be a relation, a few smarty pansies thought, we could
dump a lot of iron in the ocean, which would make the phytoplankton grow
and that would get the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Voila, greenhouse problem
solved! Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with this plan. It
turned out that phytoplankton did not always start to grow after iron was
added, so light was also a factor. And even if phytoplankton start to grow,
this doesn’t mean they will take extra CO2 out of the atmosphere. If
there are a lot of bacteria, they will convert the phytoplankton straight
back to CO2. Finally, researchers found toxic phytoplankton after iron
additions. Not a great idea for birds and whales. On top of this, you have
to drive a ship very far out on the ocean to dump your iron in the water.
This costs a lot of fuel, and thus, CO2. So even if the phytoplankton would
get the CO2 out of the atmosphere, there are countless cheaper
alternatives.

The phytoplankton that grow around Antarctica naturally do have a positive
(=cooling) effect on the climate, and form the basis of the food web for
whales and penguins. Thus, researching the effect of iron and light on
phytoplankton growth is very relevant. Especially as both may change with
global warming. Therefore, our team of Gert, Kate, and myself will
investigate the effect of iron and light on Antarctic phytoplankton.

Big birds

Soothy albatros

Giant petrel

Since it's quite a while after Thanksgiving now it is safe for the big
birds to come out! Several soothy albatrosses and some giant petrels are
circling the boat and they are amazing to watch. Both birds have a wingspan
of 70-80 inches! In the pic form the petrel you can see a prion, a pigeon
sized bird, to give some scale. We are now heading west, from the Westerns
Antarctic Peninsula in the direction of the Amundsen Sea. We have been
getting images of the ice concentration around the Amundsen and it looks
like we should not have too many problems getting there.

Since we are so far south now (66 50S, it does not get dark anymore), we'll
pass timezones rather quickly. So tonight we'll go one hour forward, in
steps of 20 min per watch, so the time change is evenly distributed for the
crew.

Close to the Antarctic peninsula.

66 26 S, 71 31 E

After a rough night in the Drake (45 kn of wind, snow, come on people,
it’s summer here!) we’ve arrived close to the peninsula and the weather
is gorgeous! The first projects on board have started, but we still have to
wait, so it’s time to play tourist. The birds here are amazing, so I’ve
just spend over 2 hours getting some nice shots. And then another 2
deleting all the bad ones. Here’s a sampler: a black browed albatross,
Cape Petrels and Southern Fulmars, and …. Rolling drum… PENGUINS!!!
Lot’s of chinstrap penguins are porpoising around the ship. The pic is
the result of about 50 pics of just the tail, only a splash, out of focus,
etc. Tomorrow I’ll try the soothy albatross again. Enjoy! And thanks so
much for all the response, it’s very cool getting email out here!

In the Drake…

60.07S, 67.37E

We are now in the Drake Passage, a.k.a. the Drake Shake. So far the wind
gods have treated us gently, with partly sunny skies and breezes in the
20-30kn range. This makes the ship move quite a bit, with water splashing
onto the lower portholes and pouring over the lower decks, so we cannot go
out there. Everyone has settled in and is preparing for their work, once we
get down to Antarctica.

Although we are sailing through the vast open ocean that reaches for as far
as you can see, there are subtle changes in going south. Once we got out of
the strait of Magellan, lots of birds were flying around the ship. We saw a
lot of giant petrels, some cape petrels, a few wandering albatrosses, a few
more black browed albatrosses and some soothy albatrosses. And I’m
pretty sure I saw two Magellan Penguins in the water, diving down as the
ship approached. This morning, when I looked out the porthole, a lot of
smaller, grey birds appeared that weren’t there yesterday, I think they
are prions of some sort.

The ships sensors that are displayed on screens all over the ship also tell
things are changing. Yesterday, the water was 5C, today it’s 1C.
Yesterday, the fluorometer that looks at algae in the water was around 0.7
with spikes around 2, now it’s been steady below 0.5 (close to Antarctica
we hope to get up to 10). There are some large scale ocean currents that
flow around Antarctica and get squeezed together in the Drake passage. This
gives the changes in the water temperature and nutrients in the order of
days of travel time. But as these large systems interact, you also may see
that you’re traveling through little patches of warmer or colder water
that last for maybe an hour. This may also be a spot where more nutrients
get mixed in, and the phytoplankton can respond. So, all of a sudden, a
patch of higher phytoplankton biomass may appear in the big blue ocean.
This patchiness is good for the bigger animals that can seek for these
patches for higher concentrations of food. But it makes life for
oceanographers hard, since we can only take little scoops out of the big
blue ocean, and have to reconstruct how things work based on those. And it
makes a big difference if you get a nice juicy phytoplankton scoop, or a
barren Drake scoop.

Due South!

Gert, Kate, Anna, and icebreaker Natahniel B. Palmer



We’re under way to Antarctica! After two hectic days at the quay of Punta
Arenas, Chile, we left last night (Fri) and sailed through the Strait of
Magellan to the east. Now we’re cruising in the sun in the southern
Atlantic, along the tip of Ushuaia to the south.

The two days in Punta Arenas we’re filled with locating your crates,
checking if everything is there, unpacking and stowing. Prior to the cruise
we had requested a list of stuff from the ships inventory, including
filtration racks, pumps and instruments. All the stuff was put in a big
pile in “our” corner of the lab. Kate worked her way through the pile
and packed everything wave-proof in cabinets and tied instruments to the
benches. The only thing missing were the C14 isotopes that we need for our
photosynthesis measurements. Gert had been working for weeks to make sure
everything was shipped on time, but due to a series of miscommunications
and lazy people the C14 didn’t make it to Chile in time. Since you
can’t really expect a ship with 45 scientists and techs to wait for
several days, normally this means this the end of that part of research.
However, we’re in the unique situation that a Swedish ship will follow us
in two weeks. Since some of the scientists will transfer from our boat to
the other ship, we will have a ‘rendez vous’ on the Antarctic ice.
That’ll be a chance for us to get our C14, and for another guy to get the
filters that disappeared from a broken crate. Pretty handy, such a back-up!


Of course we needed to taste our freedom for the last time in Punta Arenas!
So we enjoyed the last fresh food, beer and Pisco Sour. And, for good
luck, you should rub the foot of the statue of Magellan in Punta Arenas. Or
kiss it, the legend isn’t exactly clear on that. Just to be sure Kate and
I did both. It didn’t help us to get our isotopes in time, but hopefully
the rest of the trip will be smooth!

Getting ready to leave...

We are preparing to go down South again to revisit the Amundsen Sea, where we were 2 years ago. One would expect this would encompass frantic packing and stressing about stuff that doesn't fit, but fortunately the packing was done months ago when we shipped our stuff to Punta Arenas, Chile. So now we are left wondering: Did I pack everything? Did I pack those forceps that are absolutely essential??? Luckily, everything is on packing lists (even the forceps!), so stress levels are manageable. Now we wait for the algae!

The ice in Antarctica starts to break open/ melt in early November. This allows the light to penetrate the water, where the algae are waiting in a soup of nutrients that accumulated over the winter. Thus, all ingredients are present for happy algae. The accumulation of nutrients is rather stable from year to year, however, the light is the variable factor since it is dependent on cloud cover and ice cover. Lots of ice and cloud may delay the start of the algae bloom by several weeks.

Since we want as many algae as possible for our experiments, we are keeping a close watch on the algae and ice conditions in the Amundsen Sea. As you can see on the image of 15 Nov 2010, there is still lots of grey ice and few algae (the blue is a low concentration of chlorophyll in the water). The black parts are open water, but because of cloud cover we can't see if there are any algae. What we would like to see is on the picture of 13 Jan last year. Lots of algae (red=good) and not much ice cover. Fortunately, an algae bloom can develop within 2 weeks and we won't be in our research area until 16 Dec, so we still have some time. Until that time we're stuck watching the algae grow.