Antarctica 2019

On Tuesday, we sent two autonomous submarine on their missions in the water (read about their big sister, the Swedish AUV of Anna Wåhlin here: Rand under Thwaites) ! They are seagliders, autonomous underwater vehicles that measure physical ocean properties automatically. Instead of propellers, they use buoyancy and wings to dive down to about 1000 m depths and up again. This means they move up and down in a zick-zack pattern. Once at the surface, they can communicate via satellite to a remote pilot to send the data and the location. The pilot can then change the route or give new commands. A seaglider can dive over several months without running out of battery, and it measures with very high precision. It is impressive, that even though we are in Antarctica, the pilots can control it from the Geophysical Institute in Bergen and even get data immediately each time the glider comes to the surface!

Those gliders will now be diving in the water for about 3 weeks. Until then, they have moved further south and we can pick them up again. Hopefully, everything goes well and they don’t hit the sea ice! We already had to change their routes, because of an increased sea ice cover in the areas where we wanted to go. One of them now dives through an area with very high primary production, where we could find a lot of biological activity!

After a delayed departure, we are rapidly heading towards the Drake Passage and into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to reach our measurement area. The captain is giving his best and keeps a velocity of 9-10kn (instead of the 8kn that we expected). Maybe we’ll catch up! You can follow our track at http://havstraum.no/dml where you can also see our stations and satellite images.

Until we are at the first station, people are preparing their labs and observations are going on. The observers have the best spot on the ship and get a lot of company up there. We have already seen a lot of birds, whales, dolphins, penguins etc!

Finally the ship has arrived and we could check in to our cabins! It is beautiful with big windows, meeting rooms, many labs, gym, sauna, hottop, great views and so far a lot of containers with instruments standing around. We are still sorting out all the equipment and getting it in place. The plan is to leave today after lunch (we are 4h behind Norwegian time), so cross the fingers we’ll manage. So far we are already one day delayed because the ship had to leave to pier the whole day on monday, but the mood is good and everyone is amazed by how efficient the crew is working. Let’s hope we can leave soon!

Yesterday after arriving in Punta Arenas, I took Maudy with me to check out the ocean and to look for RV Kronprins Haakon. It was nice to get some fresh air after a 28h travel, but we couldn’t spot the ship yet. We’ll have to wait a bit longer, so in the meanwhile I will go kayaking. See you soon!

… obviously because we want to gain more scientific knowledge about the ocean in Dronning Maud Land – both about the biodiversity (fish, mammals, plankton, benthos) and the physical aspects (water masses, currents, sea ice).
However, there is also a political reason behind it. Antarctica is nobodies land and divided into territories from different nations. To avoid exploitation of the land and the Southern Ocean, an Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by the 12 nations that were scientifically active. Today, it consists of 53 parties. Within the Antarctic Treaty, there is a Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, that started in 2008 to regulate fisheries in Antarctica and to adopt Marine Protected Areas (MPA). It is part of the global objective of UN Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 10% of coastal & marine areas by 2020.
The biggest MPA today is in the Ross Sea in Antarctica. Further MPAs are under development, but are not consensus yet. One of the discussed MPAs is in the Weddell Sea and partly contains Dronning Maud Land, under Norwegian claim. A science-based management is crucial for the planning of the extent and conditions of the MPA, which is the reason for why we are going there with people from different scientific backgrounds.

Only a few days left until I am taking off to Punta Arenas in Chile from where I will take you on a new science adventure. Me– that’s Nadine, Elin’s PhD student, I will be on the ocean for seven weeks and explore Dronning Maud Land, the Norwegian territory in Antarctica, together with scientists from different marine science disciplines. The area is far away from any civilization and the transit from Punta Arenas takes about 11 days. At the moment, I am arranging the last details for the travel and the suitcase is slowly filling up. What’s in there? A warm working suit, safety shoes, gloves, hand warmers, sea sickness medicine, chocolate, an ebook reader stuffed with books, movies, a camera, my computer and most important, Maudy my mascot! The instruments that we’ll use are already sent down, among them a mooring (long chain of instruments) that will be anchored at the ocean floor in front of Fimbul ice shelf. In two years, we will hopefully be able to get back there to pick up the instruments full of data that tell us what influences ice shelf melt, ocean currents, changes in water masses with time and much more. The other scientists on board will be looking at sea ice, mammals, fish, benthos, zooplankton and micronekton. What this all is? To be honest, I am not so sure myself, but I have a lot of time to find out and I will keep you posted. You can follow my stories about the area, the measurements, the life on board here or on twitter (@DareliusElin) and facebook (EDarelius&Team) during the next weeks. Hopefully there will be some nice pictures of penguins and ice bergs!