This past week has been quite the experience for me. I've recently moved from Vancouver to Winnipeg to join Dr. Dave Barber's sea ice team as a new graduate student. For my thesis, I am studying the role of clouds in the radiative energy transfer over sea ice. In order to do this I am studying and comparing field data, satellite data and model output. Currently we are studying the changing climate in the Arctic to give the rest of the world a glimpse of the changes that are likely to occur elsewhere in the coming years. The Arctic region is changing rapidly; winter temperatures in Alaska and western Canada have risen as much as 3-4 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years. Although the arctic climate varies greatly year-to-year and region-to-region, changes in air temperature and sea ice show that the pace of arctic climate change has increased in recent years when compared to the 20th century. With the rising temperatures there is a reduction of permafrost, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice in both horizontal extent and thickness.

On board the Amundsen I am collecting observations and measurements of the atmospheric conditions and cloud properties. I've managed to damage as much equipment as I've helped fix. When the temperature is extremely cold many items become very brittle and thus fragile so we're constantly repairing equipment on board. Luckily for me, the ship is equipped with lots of tools, workshops and more importantly plenty of crew members who are willing to help us scientist out. As of yesterday I managed to set up a heated sky dome, with a camera on top that will take a picture of the sky every 15 minutes. This will give me lots of information of the cloud coverage over our ship and will be an excellent data source to compare with the satellite data. We are also fully equipped to launch weather balloons up into the atmosphere to give us vertical profile of temperature and other variables.

Weather balloon launch


Working on the ice with the ice team...

Life up in the Arctic is very different than life in a city. With such an amazing opportunity to collect data we scientists are busy during all hours of the day. We have special instruments that measure and profile the atmosphere above us running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unfortunately for us that means no weekends on board. We do however have a nice dinner every Sunday evening to keep the spirits high. After my first week here I am still really excited to have another 5 weeks on board and am looking forward to the challenges that I will soon face!