The Ice Report: Out of Petermann, into the Basin
The Arctic Sunrise has departed Petermann Glacier. I'm writing this blog from tranquil Kane Basin, 80 nautical miles (148 km) south of the fjord where we spent the last two weeks. Texas, the Radio Operator, just looked out at the near mirror world surrounding the ship, exclaiming, "well, that's pretty freakin' close to spectacular!"
We hightailed it south on Wednesday, to evade getting closed in by a wave of tough, thick, sea ice coming down from the Lincoln Sea.
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we made it up to through Robeson Channel, and stopped at the ice edge, 445 nautical miles (824 km) from the North Pole? That's where our friend, the polar bear happened by.
After inexplicably remaining intact for 16 months, this ice has now broken up and is drifting south, five or six weeks earlier than would annually happen in a normal season. While this is odd behaviour, so is the fact that ice in the Nares Strait did not consolidate last winter. This is a first in 32 years of official records, and doesn't seem to be matched by the intermittent historical accounts from two hundred years of expeditions to this area. While it appears to be evidence of a changing climate, we can't be sure what the cause is, but something funny is going on.
Earlier, I was looking over Arne and Melanie's shoulders at yesterday's MODIS satellite pictures– you can see the ice has now drawn level with the mouth of Petermann Fjord. It was these images that gave us the early warning to get out yesterday morning, just in time, but not before Jason, Alun and Martin spotted four pods of Narwhals from the helicopter. Narwhals – the marine unicorns of old, are those strange smallish whales, famous for their distinctive spiraling tusk. Only the males have the tusk, which is actually an overgrown left tooth.
"But what about the ice", I hear you ask. "Aren't you folks floating about in an icebreaker? Should you be able to cut through sea ice like a hot knife through butter?"
Yes, the Arctic Sunrise is an icebreaker, but having a ship like this doesn't give us a free licence to go ploughing through any bit of sea ice we fancy. We can't just slide through the ice – the ship has to push and crack its way through. Even a skilled ice navigator like Arne tells me "that's it's my job to keep us out of the ice, to stop us getting stuck. Getting through lots of multi-year, several-metre-thick sea ice like the stuff coming down from the Lincoln Sea would take a lot of time to get through – maybe even a week, and would use a lot of fuel".
Last night we hit some one-year fast ice in Kane Basin; Arne was in his element, on the bridge, wiggling the Arctic Sunrise through the difficult. In the distance, an amorphous brown lump on the ice ahead gradually turned into four walrus; they took one look at us, before tumbling into the water and vanishing.
Kane Basin came at the end of a beautiful day's sail down the Nares Strait, passing Hans, Franklin and Crozier Islands. The heat of the day – up to 7 degrees Celcius - created heat inversions, so we could see mirages distorting the coastlines of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. About 8pm, after turning east into the basin, we passed through a mindboggling gallery of icebergs on our starboard side. To port was a haunting coastal landscape, of limestone cliffs and landslides looking like a mixture between Monument Valley and a gravel quarry.
We're now anchored near the mouth of Cass Fjord, below the Tailenguak Cliffs in Nygaard Bay. The ship is beside a small iceberg that looks, when doubled by its mirror images, like an ancient axehead. Off to our south east lies the 100km wide Humboldt Glacier.
Now that we're here, we'll be continuing to monitor Petermann Glacier through our "early warning" GPS and by regular cross-country helicopter flights to check on the time-lapse cameras. Petermann Glacier flows from southeast to northwest – so to reach the glacier interior From Kane Basin is a much shorter cross-country flight than it is a sea voyage.
This ensures we'll be prepared to get close to the 100 sq km ice island as it actually starts to break off. That area of ice would contain about enough ice to keep New York in fresh water for two whole years. Already this week, a three-square kilometre chunk broke off Peterman, splitting into fragments before edging out towards the mouth of the fjord. But this is still small fry compared to the big break up we expect.
- Dave
Some Notes:
Ice Bridge: In this context, an ‘ice bridge' is a curved line of sea ice that holds back the ice pack from open water. Due to support from the combined pressure of the surrounding ice pack, it maintains its structure. When viewed from above, it is reminiscent of the keystones of a bridge.
The Arctic Sunrise was at Petermann Glacier at approx 81 deg 11' north, 61 deg 50' west since early July
The Arctic Sunrise's position is 80 degrees 02' North, 65 degrees 50' west, in Nygaard Bay, below the Tailenguak Cliffs, near Cass Fjord in Kane Basin, Greenland
Farthest north reached by Arctic Sunrise on June 29th 2009: Latitude 82 deg 34' north, longitude 61 deg 13' west.
