Iceland to Scotland

Daily blogs from our scientists and crew onboard ship as they sail from Iceland to Scotland, studying the Atlantic waters flowing north towards the Arctic Ocean as part of the ongoing Ellett Line scientific study

27 June - eating on the high seas

Saturday, 27th June

By Clare Johnson, a very well fed and happy scientist (PhD student at SAMS)


For my blog contribution I have decided to tell you about a very important aspect of life onboard a ship: the food!  Every day, come rain, shine, birthdays or force nines, 50 hungry scientists, crew and officers onboard RRS Discovery need feeding.  Without fail at 7.20am, 11.30am and 5.30pm as the eager hoards descend the food is always laid out and ready to go.  As someone who is a usually-make-something-edible-but-not-that-great kind of a cook it is fantastic having yummy food appear three times a day, and even better that the washing up done for you!

Being onboard a ship somewhere in the world’s oceans, where a Tesco is not just round the corner, means supreme organisation.  The food shop for Discovery is done every six months and arrives on a lorry ready to be stacked away in one of the many stores or freezers tucked away at the front of the ship.  Fresh fruit and vegetables are bought more often meaning that even though it is two and a half weeks into this trip there is still fresh salad, apples and oranges (no worries of scurvy on these ships!).  Then of course the food has to be prepared, cooked, and served altogether on time!

At the moment the weather is fantastic and it hardly feels like we are on a boat, however it is not always that way!  Bad weather makes life much more difficult.  All the tables in the mess (dining area) are fitted with removable edges that in bad weather are turned over to create a rim to the table and water is poured on the table cloths to stop your plates moving around so much.  Even so, you and your plate can go flying, and it is best not to fill your bowl of soup too full!  Cooking must also be much more problematic.  On another ship I sailed on a crew member opened a fridge as the ship rolled the wrong way and ended up decorated with the contents!

So thank you to the wonderful galley staff: John, Jeffrey and Wally who keep us all fed, contended and stoked up to do our work!

PS for all that are wondering – it is 10 minutes until dinner time, and tonight is curry followed by gateaux – yum yum yum yum! :D

 

 

Picture captions:
Our Saturday night curry cooking away.                               
The  meat freezer, one of  the many food stores on Discovery.                        

24 June - How we collect the data

Tuesday, June 24th 2009, Scottish Shelf
By Jane Read, physical oceanographer at NOCS

I’ve been skimming through the blogs and I think there is one area of work at sea which hasn’t been mentioned. All the scientists have come on board with grand plans for their research, whether its finding out about obscure elements or processes, or looking for the underlying mechanisms of global change and its effects – but where would we be without the equipment to provide us with the material we analyse?

Although some of the scientists have brought their own data collection equipment with them (Chris has his aerosol collectors, Dave has his plankton nets and Sebastian has a special “fish” to pump “clean” water in over the side of the ship), the rest of us depend to greater or lesser extent on the equipment provided for us from the national marine equipment pool. On this cruise we have depended on the shipboard instruments, such as the underway measurements of sea and air temperatures, fluorescence and wind, navigation, vessel mounted acoustic Doppler current metres, and most importantly, the over-the-side CTD (conductivity / temperature / depth).

The CTD is a more than a single instrument. The frame (as tall as a man with a diameter wider than he can reach) contains a plethora of instruments that measure conductivity (which we convert to salinity), temperature, pressure (depth), fluorescence (chlorophyll), transmittance and currents. It has an altimeter to measure height off the bottom, but that’s just to stop us bouncing the package on the seabed. It also holds a carousel of Niskin bottles, which are cleverly designed to collect water from whatever depth we require. The package is connected to a conducting cable so that as it is lowered over the side, it returns the signals from the instruments and we can see what it is measuring and choose where to sample. The CTD console, 3 separate computer monitors between two instrument racks is the hub of acitivity on board the ship. The variety and arrangement of lab space on Discovery can lead to isolation of scientists, but we all meet around the CTD. The crew look in to check what is happening and even the occasional officer has been known to make an appearance. Notices are posted and information exchanged around the CTD console. (There is also plenty of chat, backchat and laughter, It’s an important meeting place).

Once the Niskin bottles have been fired and the CTD is back on deck there is a complex procedure of sampling the water from the bottles for the analyses described in preceding blogs.

The whole process is time consuming and getting good results depends on our marine technicians and crew. The crew have the job of driving the winch (see Ian’s blog), and those who saw the CTD deployed and recovered in the rough seas we experienced mid-cruise, will appreciate just how tricky that task can be. The length of time a single CTD can take depends on the depth of the ocean where we are working. We estimate the time for a cast as 1 hour per 1000m depth (or 1km of wire paid out), so in the 3000 m water we had in the Iceland Basin it took 3 hours to complete a cast. On the Wyville Thomson Ridge, where we’ve been working the last few days, depths varied from 800 m to 1800 m. Our next stop is the continental shelf where the depths are about 100 m – CTDs every 20 minutes – eek!

(Just in case you wondered, I’m processing the data from the CTD, and it is just as time consuming, cleaning up, calibrating and making the data accessible, as it is collecting it).

The CTD package (and all the shipboard instruments) is looked after by our two technicians, Jon and Chris. Since we make CTD measurements around the clock, they have to work round the clock too, each working a 12 hour shift every day. They are responsible for maintaining the instruments, preparing the rosette before each cast “cocking the bottles”, supervising deploment, monitoring the measurements throughout the cast, bringing the package back on board and making it available for the scientists.

Throughout the cruise the package has worked flawlessly, and our only problems were with the frayed cable on the winch. These wires get worn with constant winding in and out and exposure to the elements, so it is quite normal to have to cut away lengths. It loses us time, but better that than losing the package (which has happened). So, a huge thanks to our technicians for the fantastic job they have done, and also to the crew – and has anyone mentioned the officers on the bridge, who have the task of maintaining the ship in exactly the same spot for hours on end?

Thanks guys!

23 June - important records

Tuesday, June 23rd, Wyville-Thomson Ridge
By Julia Calderwood, data scientist, BODC

Well the end of the first leg of D340 is fast approaching and we will soon be heading south again, completing a final few CTDs along the way, before reaching Oban. This has been my first experience of life on board an oceanographic research vessel and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. The regular 4am starts to staff the watch system we have in place have been a bit tough at times but working at such a northerly latitude during the month of June has meant it has always been light as I have been dragging myself out of my cabin making it a little easier to wake myself up!

I work at BODC along with Mark, who in an earlier blog explained about our role in maintaining accurate records of all of the sampling and work that takes place on ship, and so far during this cruise a lot of work has been squeezed in (as can be seen from the continuing growth of this blog). Other than a short break in sampling caused by bad weather and some rather large waves CTDs have been entering and exiting the water around the clock, the ship’s underway system has been constantly pumping water from the near surface measuring parameters such as temperature, salinity and fluorescence, and various incubations and experiments have been running on board in the numerous labs. Seeing so much going on has been a great learning experience giving me an incredibly useful insight into the exact runnings of a cruise. As a relatively new member of staff at BODC, only starting last September, seeing the work being carried out on board first hand has certainly helped put the work I have been doing back in the office for the last nine months in greater context.

Although a lot of the scientific staff are starting to get ready to leave the ship I am staying on for the second leg and have just under two weeks left on board. It is a shame that as we are all getting to know each other a lot of people are leaving as there has been a really friendly and relaxed atmosphere on board. There will be lot of new scientific staff boarding in Oban though, all ready to collect lots more data on the second leg for us to keep track of! I am just hoping that as we steam up and down the Western Isles there will be quite a few repeats of the whale watching experience we were treated to yesterday afternoon…

Photo
Taking a regular salinity sample from the ship’s underway system.

22 June - the end approaches

Monday, June 22nd 2009, Wyville-Thomson Ridge
By Sophie Richier, postdoc in molecular biology at NOCS

Well, today is my turn to tell you what’s going on the DISCO!
The atmosphere has changed the last few days, we can already feel the end of the cruise. Yesterday we talked about cruise report, schedule for the last days…we also finally booked our flight back to Southampton on the 26th.

This cruise is my first one, quite an experience! Almost everything is new for me including the machines we are using and measurements we are doing. I am learning a lot from Anna Macey, following and giving her a hand on the optimistic plans she made up for this cruise. We are part of the molecular biologists on the ship looking at the microbial communities (phytoplankton) photosynthesis at a molecular scale (nothing that could be observed by naked eyes…unfortunately).

Understanding the molecular bases of a process might help to predict what will happen at a global scale… on marine ecosystem. My interests in this cruise are really closed to what Anna described on the blog few days ago, except that I will bring a little bit of my expertise looking at genes involved in photosynthesis to try to correlate my results to what she will get from proteins… molecular stuff really.

 

 

Here is the wet lab where we are spending most of our time (night or day), filtering seawater trying to catch as much phytoplankton as we can on filters that we will analysis back to the lab at NOCS. It can take hours sometimes not for even a liter…but we do not want to complain, it means the water in really rich…lots of biomass (marine microorganisms) and a lot to analyze for us!

 

 

 

 

We are also enjoying the outside, feeling the wind on our face… a delicious marine air in our nostrils… disconnected from the reality just in the middle of nowhere… or in the middle of ….whales! Amazing we could hear them breathing this afternoon…unforgettable moments.

 

 

 

  

20th June - a net loss

By David Aldridge, 3rd year Mscii Marine Biology Student, NOCS
Almost everyone is familiar with the idea that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is contributing to rising atmospheric temperatures on Earth. A less well known impact of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, however, is the lowering of the pH of the ocean. This process, termed ocean acidification, is well-known to lower carbonate saturation states, which impacts on marine organisms which form their shells out of calcium carbonate. Understanding this process is vital in order to predict likely changes to planktonic ecosystem structure, which will in turn impact on the oceans ability to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the future.

On this research cruise I have been collecting zooplankton net samples which will later be analysed as part of my 4th year research project. The aim of the project is to look at latitudinal variations in carbonate saturation states (thank you Victoire for collecting carbon chemistry data, sometimes at quite unreasonable hours!), and compare this to the variations in shell weight of planktonic foraminifera, a free floating protozoa which forms its shell out of calcium carbonate, and is present throughout the major oceans of the world.

Although I have thoroughly enjoyed what has been my first research cruise, there was a stage, as I watched one out of my two nets sink into oblivion, that I feared my project was on the verge of disaster should anything happen to my spare net; I pictured the look on my supervisor’s face as I returned from a two week research cruise with only a couple of samples to show for it, and seriously contemplated jumping in after in order to retrieve it... that’s what man-overboard-drills are for right?

Throughout my time as an undergraduate I have heard lecturers and PhD students talking fondly of ‘going to sea’. Having spent nearly 2 weeks on one of these mysterious trips I can now see why a cancelled cruise is the source of great disappointment at NOCS. There is a great atmosphere onboard between students, academics, and members of the ship’s crew. Additionally, there are a good range of non-work related activities which help to stave off cabin fever and provide a way to unwind after time in the lab (although, admittedly, I have had more chance to experience these than many of the other research scientists onboard, some of whom are beginning to look somewhat sleep-deprived). I especially enjoy the 3 meals a day (and around the clock snacking facilities), the video room, and the lounge; I am yet to test out the gym, but thankfully I am not alone!

Although it has been great experiencing, first hand, what occurs on a research cruise, some mysteries onboard remain unanswered:
-  How is it that Jeff ‘the bed-making ninja’ Orsborn is able to sense when someone has left their room in the morning, make the bed, and be gone without a trace (even when the room has only been vacant for 30 seconds)?
And most importantly!
-  What exactly is a Dubery (a word applied ubiquitously to almost any object by the ship’s boson, DD)??


Photo: Deployment of the (spare) zooplankton net... very carefully!!

17 June -a very good day

Wednesday, June 17th 2009: Rockall Trough

By Natalie Wager, MSc Student Marine Resource Development and Protection: Heriot-Watt University.


Today is a very good day.  The sun is shining and the queasy feeling which I suffered earlier on in the week has disappeared...I think I have found my sea-legs!  After many initial complications, including Benton and Carter (Gas Chromotography machines) suffering from sea sickness (tackled with Andys GC expertise, along with with a big piece of ginger placed on top of the machines - apparently good for sea-sickness) everything seems to be flowing well (knock on wood), and nice curves are being observed from our results.  Brilliant!!!

Please let the rest of the cruise run as smoothly as the last few days!  Myself and Andy have established good team working skills to complete our experiments each day.  Today I am measuring the DMS Lyase activity.  I collected three 1 litre bottles of seawater, filtered to remove zooplankton from the samples.  The bottles are then filtered again to collect phytoplankton, along with their bacterial associates.  The filter papers from these filtrations are placed into glass vials, soaked in 4ml of buffer solution and crimped to make them air tight.  DMSP is added and then the rate at which the DMSP is converted into DMS is measured using head space gas chromotography.  To perform head space analysis a set quantity of the gases produced from the vials are extracted using a syringe and injected into the prep system where they are allowed to purge for a short period of time before being injected into Carter.  During this purge any DMS from the extracted gas will collect in a loop which has been placed in liquid Nitrogen to keep it at around -150 degrees centigrade.  The loop is placed into freshly boiled water converting the contents into a gas, allowing it to flow into the machine to be measured.  Further experiments which we have been doing I will leave for Andy to explain to you all tomorrow. 

I feel very settled on the ship, the food is amazing - I think I've eaten more meat in the last week then in the the last half year, yummy! Everyone is getting on very well.  During the day people in my lab are busy running experiments, and at night most are in the lounge playing cards.  Some unlucky ones are having to sample during the night, but luckily myself I have only had one late night in the lab so far.  Sleeping is amazing as you are rocked to sleep...but we have been very lucky in terms of weather so far, I have been warned it may not be quite so relaxing if we were to hit a storm (fingers crossed for continued good weather).  We seem to have avoided yesterdays 'bad weather warning' although it did get rather choppy last night whilst I was in the lab- this makes it quite challenging when you are trying to inject a sample into a small lid and keep being thrown around the boat.  It is funny to watch other people trying to walk from one side of the lab to the other as the Discovery hits a swell, they look like they've had a pint too many.  The bridge and the monkey island (top of the boat) has amazing views.  When the CTD goes down and we are pretty stationary it is amazing to be up there as all you can see is the Discovery and ocean surrounding you.  I have seen some beautiful sunsets on the ship and yesterday there were two whale sightings.  This is my first cruise and the experience so far makes me want to go on many more in the future.


Picture : Sampling the ocean 17.06.09
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18th June - running for Shelter

Wednesday, June 17th 2009: Rockall Trough

By Andy Mogg, PhD student in biogeochemisrty at SAMS.


Fell out of bed today to see that my cabin porthole was underwater. The sea’s been building for the last few days but is the first time we’ve been properly blown off.

As I write this we’re are running for the shelter of the outer Hebrides.

On this first leg of the cruise I’m analysing concentrations of DMS (a dissolved gas implicated in climate regulation)…
(will interrupt myself to say that the ship just turned and everyone went flying across the room, star trek style. I may continue now).
… and DMSO, the oxidation product of DMS. I’m also collecting samples to be worked up back at the lab.
On board analysis has been a running battle with the aging pair of gas chromatographs (GCs) I’ve brought with me, a battle I thought I’d won yesterday morning, only to have one of the GCs completely die. On the plus side, dinner was delicious surf and turf so all in all the day was not a total loss. Analysis will now take a bit longer, but everything’s still doable.

This is my first cruise and it’s an amazing experience.  From bathing in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland before we left, to the first few days of calm weather and sunshine, the first scientific results, the first big seas and then the first complete breakdown of pretty much every piece of equipment I’ve been using (in sequence no less!), it’s all been great and a fantastic learning experience. There’s a good crowd on board, and I enjoy seeing both how the ship is run and the different scientific disciplines in action.

Can’t wait for the next leg of the cruise when hopefully my GC will be resurrected (replacement parts en route), and I can get some intensive experiments done and masses of data collected!



Photos
1- View from the office
2- Back deck of Discovery

17 June - Sun is back!

Wednesday, June 17th 2009: Rockall Trough

By Victoire Rerolle, MSc Student Marine in Oceanography at the University of Southampton.


Sun is back!
After a raining and wavy day yesterday, the weather is nice again. Which is very good as we have some time to do sunbathing: CTD casts are interrupted to replace the cable by a new one (which may take 8 hours). Then, people enjoy this time to recover from a tiring night of sampling, use it to catch up with their work or play cards to kill time.

I am doing a MSc in Oceanography in Southampton and this cruise is part of my MSc Research Project on the carbonate chemistry in the North-Atlantic. The carbonate system is a key component of the chemical perspective of oceanography as it plays an important role in the oceans’ capacity to take up atmospheric CO2. This is important as raising levels of atmospheric CO2 are of big concern. Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) is present in seawater in three forms (CO2aq, HCO3- and CO32-) which are in equilibrium on timescale longer than a few minutes. In oceanography, the carbonate system can be determined by four parameters: DIC, carbon dioxide partial pressure (pCO2), alkalinity and pH. My aim is to determine the carbonate chemistry through DIC, alkalinity and pH. I am also measuring particulate inorganic carbon (PIC).
This is my first cruise and I really enjoy it: atmosphere is good and it is interesting to see how a scientific cruise is organized. Organization has been my main problem at the beginning and I ended up sleeping two hours per two hours to catch up: as I want to relate my data to biological and physical processes I need to follow who is sampling when, which was a bit messy at the beginning. But now it is settled and I have time to enjoy the social life of the ship, which is not really easy as everybody has a different rhythm: main moments are dinner time (really good food by the way, cheers to the cooks!) and cheathead games (quite funny card game).

Sur ce, à la prochaine!
Victoire Rerolle.

Picture : Victoire Rerolle and view of the ship from the Monkey Island

16 June - Rockall and the "clean van"

By Chris Marsay, PhD student, trace metals chemistry, NOCS

My work on this cruise is centred on the study of “trace metals” (and iron in particular) in the ocean. So-called because they are generally only found in trace amounts (just a few parts per trillion is typical for iron in open ocean waters), these elements can nevertheless play an important role in the biology of phytoplankton. But because they are present in such low concentrations in seawater, samples are easily contaminated unless special care is taken during their collection and treatment.

For this reason, most of my work takes place not in one of the ship’s laboratories, but in a specially designed “clean van” located on the back deck. This container is fitted with a filtered air supply to prevent potential contaminating particles (dust, flakes of rust, soot from the ship’s stacks) circulating inside and ruining samples.

In the couple of days before leaving port, much of the setting up time needed for the trace metal work is spent giving everything inside the van a thorough scrub down to get rid of any dust that may have settled inside while it had been unused and in storage with the power off. Then, our boxes of equipment can be moved inside, one at a time and each one wiped down beforehand. After giving the van another good clean, the equipment can finally be unpacked and set up on the benches.  Even so, when not in use, most of the equipment is kept in plastic bags to minimise chances of contamination.

Of course, all of this effort in providing a clean working environment would be pointless if the scientists working inside the van were bringing in rust and dust every time they entered the van. To prevent this the van is accessed through a small anteroom, with one door opened to get into the van, then once this is closed, a second door opened to enter the clean laboratory.

This way the laboratory area is never directly open to any gusts of wind blowing around the deck. On top of this, once it is in use, those entering the van have to don a pair of white coveralls (complete with hood) and some shoe covers whenever they enter, as well as gloves.
As well as helping to prevent contamination of the samples, this generally provides some amusement for the other scientists as they peer in through the windows……

 
Chris and Sebastian in the cleanest part of the ship, sampling for trace metals.

 

 

 

 

15 June - Hatton Bank

Monday, 15th June 2009, Hatton Bank

  By Jamie MacRae and Karl Attard, undergrad students at SAMS


I suppose this cruise started for us at 12:35pm on Friday 5th of June- when, 5 minutes after the end of our final exam of the semester, we set off on a bus to Glasgow to catch an airport connection.

No rush then!

Fifteen and a half hours later, we stepped out of Keflavik airport and, slightly dazed in the 4am daylight, breathed the air of Iceland. We were here. We were going on a scientific cruise. Three days of sightseeing around Reykjavik cured our post exam lethargy, and on Tuesday 10th we boarded the RRS Discovery ready to sail the next day.

As undergraduate students, our roles on this cruise are supplementary to the research of the various PhD students and scientists on board. We are responsible for collecting and analysing samples for dissolved Oxygen, Chlorophyll-a and Particulate Organic Carbon (POC). Our data for dissolved Oxygen will be used to calibrate the Oxygen sensor situated on the CTD so that more accurate readings can be made. The Chlorophyll-a and POC data will be used to estimate the abundance of phytoplankton in the water column.

On a typical day, we get up at seven for breakfast at 7:30 – full cooked if you’re that way inclined, or a slightly more stomach friendly fruit and cereal. Then it’s up to the wet room or main lab to process any samples taken for us by the night watch from the CTD casts that run through the night (thanks guys!). After this we prepare for the first CTD cast of the day, which usually consists of at least five people and a very orderly scramble for water samples. Then it’s back to the lab for processing, with a break for lunch at 12. The collection and processing continues throughout the day – as the CTD casting is almost continuous. A break for dinner and maybe a DVD from the mammoth collection onboard before bed and then it’s to sleep – ready to get up and do it all over again!

As budding scientists, it is interesting to see how research across various disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics are conducted. All crew and scientists onboard have been fantastic, and the vast abundance of wildlife in and above the waters has kept us on our toes! We are hugely looking forward to the next 10 days...

Finally, regards go out to friends and family- communication is limited with no internet and mobile connections!

 

 

 

 

 

14 June - Life beyond the microscope

  Ian Mills, SG1A on Discovery, here in the winch control cab, contributes today's blog.

Being a salty old seadog with a quarter of a century experience on many types and tonnages of ships, working on RRS Discovery has been something of a culture shock for me. I joined NMF as a temporary SG1A (Able Seaman in old money) in April and made permanent in December last year. This has been a whole new ball game with the diversity of work and also the social environment on board. My first major cruise was the Newfoundland /Greenland /UK trip last year which was mainly CTD water sampling but then onto a trials cruise off the Canaries which involved everything from towfish to RemoteOperatedVehicles to spar buoys, rescue missions from the deepest of depths with Hybis, even flying model aeroplanes off the bow in true Biggles fashion down to the dambusters theme tune playing in the background! It's a shame the plane had a watery end but the take off was very impressive! We are now back to CTD work on the normal 4 hours on 8 hours off 24/7 watch system. All quite mind boggling and nothing at all like six weeks painting decks on a slow steam to the Gulf on a VLCC tanker.

After the exhaustive 2 ¹/₂ weeks trial cruise where the winches were tested almost to their limits, everything seems to be running smoothly on the deck side. The CTD winch is operating wonderfully and the moorings operations have been a clean sweep with four out of four recovered. As long as the Gods stay with us on the weather side then this should be a huge success for all involved. (fingers, legs and anything else not nailed, screwed or glued down crossed please everyone!!!)

I have recently learnt that one thing us mere mortal deck apes should Never Ever do is ask a Scientist a technical question on what we are acheiving, I estimate that 10% of the answer will stick between the ears and be digested, the other 90% wiil fly very low over the close cropped barnet and embed itself in the person behind causing untold psychological scarring for life! Woe betide the unfortunate bystander!

The social side of the vessel is good even though limited by the round the clock operations, there is an excellent rapport between crew and scientists work wise, and friendly banter (though not technical banter due to threats of a visit to Davy Jones and his famous slop locker!), good music and some very confusing card games (now  we know what they all study at Uni eh???) on the down times.

It is a difficult time at sea, not just for myself but others as well with young families. We are on board as a crew for over nine weeks (unlike you part-timers, you all know who you are lol) and I know my children will be counting the days until Daddy gets home. My eldest daughter is 8 1/2, my demon son almost 3 3/4 and youngest daughter just approaching 1 1/2. Rhiannon stopped being a baby and became officially a toddler weeks before joining the ship so it is heart wrenching to leave but with contributing to this blog and my family perusing it, I'm hoping that my kids will have a better understanding of what Daddy does in his time away. In fact I am hoping my eldest daughter, Rebecca, will be able to persuade her Teacher in school to put the site on for the class as a 'hands on' Science and Geography lesson combined. As for my lunatic son, Rhys..... he'll just be well impressed that Dad’s piccie is on the 'compoota' screen from far away on the ship!

   Ian operating the CTD winch.

Before getting back to the drudgery of being housed in my rabbit hutch, sorry, winch control cab and hearing those fabled words "take it down to 2650 metres", we all wish our resident Motorman Duncan Lawes and his family congratulations on the birth of baby Ruby last month. I thought I'd left it late for sprogs (now being 43) but Duncan has beaten me hands down at nifty fifty for his firstborn.... good on yah Dunx. 

 Ian Mills SG1A

14 June - Four moorings up!

Today we successfully recovered the fourth of the moorings we had left behind on the seabed nearly two years ago to collect a time series of the biological particles, mainly microscopic plants and animals , that rain down from the sunlit surface ocean to the floor of the Iceland basin some one and three quarter miles below us.  Acting like giant funnels, the sediment traps on these moorings, collecting this particulate material, support our quest to discover how efficiently the microscopic plants of the surface ocean lock up carbon dioxide, through photosynthesis, and the cycle of life and death transports this carbon to the ocean sediments.  These moorings were designed to be recovered last year, but a combination of ship mechanical problems and fairly typical poor weather at these latitudes of the N. Atlantic scuttled all chances of recovery during 2008.

As scientists, our sincere thanks goes to all the crew, technicians, and officers of RRS Discovery; yesterday we witnessed a record breaking recovery time of three of the moorings in just 15 hours including a steaming distance of around 140 km.  This really was a great job done well.  That left just one to complete this morning, naturally this would be the only sulky one, as it refused to communicate with us despite ‘shouting’ at it with the required coded acoustic messages for over 50 minutes.  However, although mute it was obedient, and 50 minutes after we had sent the instruction to let go of the seabed, it’s buoyancy floats made a welcome appearance on the surface much to everyone’s relief.  Once back at the lab in a few weeks time, the material caught in the traps will be examined under microscopes and all manner of complex chemical processes will tease out the details of it’s composition.  Students will extract everything there is to be learnt from these data about the processes that control the natural biogeochemical cycles of this part of the ocean and expand our understanding of the blue planet a little bit further.

13 June - Two years down, one hour up

Today we had a departure from the frenzied CTD’ing that has dominated the cruise so far as we started retrieving bits of kit that had been moored in the North Atlantic for the last 2 years.  The moorings have various sensors to measure temperature, salinity and current speed, as well as large yellow plastic cones called sediment traps which collect material that has settled out from the surface layers of the ocean.  Retrieving moorings at sea is often a fraught business. After the ship has returned to the area of deployment an acoustic signal is sent out which is basically a ‘hello’ to the mooring.

The mooring, if behaving, replies with it own acoustic ‘hello’. Once electrical greetings have been exchanged, a different acoustic signal is sent out which releases the mooring wire together with the attached sensors, sediment trap and flotation spheres from its anchor.  You then wait for the sighting of a small yellow or orange buoy somewhere within a half mile radius of the ship. Sometimes there is no return ‘hello’, sometimes it returns a hello but doesn’t release and sometimes it comes up with fewer items than it went down with. But occasionally it works and so far we have recovered three out of three moorings with a fourth on its way.

Assuming this mooring retrieval business goes according to plan we’ll be resuming play along the extended Ellett Line transect by tomorrow afternoon and the happy sample collecting dance that takes place around the CTD that invariably involves hard hats and silicon rubber tubing will continue. Can’t wait…

CTD does not stand for Collecting Tube Device but it should do.

 

Tim Brand, SAMS

13 June - Voyage of Data Discovery

A voyage of (data) Discovery…

Sampling at sea doesn’t come cheap. The cost of sophisticated instrumentation onboard research vessels is only the tip of a rather large iceberg. Before any science can take place, we need a maintained ship, fuelled and fully crewed. Factor in the cost of food and flying people to and from ports and you begin to get the picture… So, why do it? The simple answer is that the wealth of data captured over time on research cruises provides scientists with a thorough and unique account of the changing state of our planet. With climate change being such a topical issue, both the collection and effective management of quality oceanographic data has never been more appropriate. It’s the second part where I come in. I work at the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) – a facility whose primary role is to securely archive and distribute marine data. My organisation exists to promote the usage of data from cruises such as D340, both now and in the future – the more the data are used, the more we justify the costs incurred in their collection. 

I came to be involved with D340 through regular trips to SAMS. I am the BODC Liaison Officer for SAMS, a role which finds me working closely with scientists in the laboratory to assist with the preservation of their data. On Discovery we have a wide range of data being collected (chemical, physical and biological) by a large number of scientists. It is my job to capture all of this work by maintaining accurate records which describe exactly where, when and how the data are collected – gathering such information greatly increases the value of any dataset.

This is my third research cruise, and the first in four years. Being aboard Discovery reminds me why I got into oceanography and how much I enjoy being at sea. Activity tends to go in waves, if you’ll excuse the pun. So far I’ve been involved in a tiring spell of watch work. With CTD casts being performed around the clock, it’s important that there are scientists present at all hours of the day to record data and collect samples. I’ve been working the 12-4 watch, together with Jane and Estelle. This involves being on duty between Midday to four o’clock in the afternoon, then Midnight until four in the morning. This work pattern does tend to play havoc with the body clock – although we’re only on day four of the cruise, I’ve already been to bed at least six times! The extensive Discovery DVD library is already proving invaluable for a bit of pre-sleep relaxation though – all those films that have managed to pass me by are now gradually getting ticked off. Working the night shift has also allowed me to witness an interesting phenomenon – the return of darkness as we head gradually south, away from the Arctic Circle. Dark nights are something of a novelty for me now, having grown accustomed to around 22 hours of daylight, and two hours of dusk, whilst in Iceland and during the start of the cruise. This all adds to the unique experience that is working at sea.

I’ll sign off now and hand over the blog-baton to my fellow shipmates…

Mark Hebden
British Oceanographic Data Centre

12 June Approaching "India"!

John Allen

Now we approach the historical ocean weather station ‘India’, some two hundred or so miles south of Iceland, it seems strange that we only left Reykjavik two and a half days ago.  Leaving the Vestmanjar, the group of islands on Iceland’s southern shores of which the young island of Surtsey (born in 1963) is a part, far behind us, the night’s are just beginning to get a little more dim, although there is still only five hours between sunset and sunrise.  Tomorrow we break our regular station work to attempt to recover four moorings left attached to the seabed two years ago to collect a time series of the biological particles, mainly microscopic plants and animals , that rain down from the sunlit surface ocean to the floor of the Iceland basin some one and three quarter miles below us.  Looking like giant funnels, the sediment traps on these moorings collecting this particulate material support our quest to discover how efficiently the microscopic plants of the surface ocean lock up carbon dioxide, through photosynthesis, and the cycle of life and death transports this carbon to the ocean sediments.  In the meantime we continue to make water column measurements of temperature, salinity and a vast range of other seawater parameters every 10-30 miles along our track.  Between these ‘stations’ we also make measurements of ocean currents to depths of up to half a mile below the ship by examining the Doppler shifted scattered sound from a number of acoustic transducers in the ship’s hull.  Much has been learnt since Martin Frobisher (~ 440 years ago) and Admiral Irminger (~150 years ago) first began to note the complex currents in these northerly regions of the Atlantic Ocean, but there is still much more to learn and the spirit of ‘Discovery’ is still as keen as ever.

12 June Day 3

Anna Macey

The last time I was aboard RRS Discovery we spent our time between 12^o and 28^o North so this cruise (between 64^o and 56^o) is a slight change for me.  Although we have been lucky with the weather so far, with sunshine and light winds, however things are slowly picking up and the boat is moving a little bit more.  On this cruise I am interested in the effect of Iron availability on phytoplankton physiology (phytoplankton are the microscopic photosynthetic organisms in the sea, which larger organisms feed on). Iron is a fundamental requirement for many cellular processes in the ocean and I will use the samples I collect to look at the effect of Iron availability on proteins involved in photosynthesis. Iron availability has the potential to limit the abundance of these proteins and set a limit on metabolic activity and hence primary production in the ocean (Iron data collected by Sebastian and Chris from the NOC – see later blogs to find out what they are getting up to on the cruise). One of my main activities on the cruise is to filter water to enable me to extract proteins from the filters. I collect this water from both the CTD (see Marie’s blog for CTD explanation!) when we are on station and from an underway sampling system, which pumps water from the surface of the ocean into the lab, when we are steaming.   

A tradition on research cruises, when CTDs are going down into deep water, is to get out our permanent markers and practise our drawing skills. Why, I hear you ask, well as you descend into the depths of the ocean pressure increases. A way to test this is to send polystyrene cups down attached to the CTD to the bottom of the sea. The air in the polystyrene gets compressed so the cups shrink to a small size. People generally adorn their cups with drawings (generally bad attempts of the ship in my case) and words to serve as a memento from the cruise.

We are only on day 3 of the cruise but I have already settled into life on board, enjoying meal times (the food is brilliant!) and catching hours of sleep when I can.
 

11 June: profiling the ocean

Day 2 of D340 and we are in the Iceland basin. We are sending instruments down to depths of nearly 2000m so that we can get a profile of what is happening in the full depth of the basin. These casts are taking a good few hours to complete so life on watch isn’t the busiest. All will change next week when we make it to the shelf edge near to Scotland, where things will be happening very quickly.

On this cruise I am looking, along with quite a big group of physical oceanographers, at temperature and salinity profiles of the ocean. These two things can tell us a lot about where water has come from and how it has changed over time. This lets us track how water moves around the oceans.

There has been a very nice, gentle introduction back into sea life with the long casts and the some beautiful calm weather. It does look like the seas might be starting to get up a bit though, but we can’t complain after the millpond that we’ve had for 2 days. Not only have we had warm, sunny, calm weather we have also had a whale sighting. As we sailed away from Iceland we had a call from the bridge for “whales on the starboard bow” we saw a few pilot whales and a lot of puffins, which were both a great sight.
So overall a brilliant start to a cruise, let’s hope it carries on.

Marie Porter  



 CTD equipment for profiling water column

10 June: underway with Toby Sherwin

The D340 blog

Day 1 (Wednesday, June 10th 2009)

Well, here I am back on RRS Discovery for another Extended Ellett Line cruise from Iceland to Scotland via the most remote small rock in any ocean, Rockall.  This research cruise, funded by UK NERC’s Oceans2025, will measure and record the ocean temperature, salinity, oxygen and many other parameters across the north-east Atlantic’s gateway to the Nordic Seas and Arctic Ocean.  The surface waters that we shall cross carry a huge quantity of heat north-eastwards towards northern Europe and help to moderate its climate (even if much of this moderating ‘heat’ is in the form of moisture and rain).  The bottom waters carry the cold return flow from the north that helps to drive the circulation of the world ocean and hence control climate on a global scale.
Since 1975 we have observed that the surface waters of our part of the Atlantic have warmed by about 1° C.  This is much faster than for the Earth as a whole, which has taken about a century to warm by the same amount.  Some of the local warming is due to the global rise, but over half can probably be accounted for by the shifting patterns of circulation in the Atlantic.  It is through cruises such as this that we continue to learn about how fast the Earth’s surface is warming, and also how the ocean circulation is changing.
On board we have 28 scientists and technicians supported by a very experienced ship’s crew.  Some of the scientists are old seagoing hands, whilst others are coming to sea for the first time, some as undergraduate trainees and others as PhD students (the powerhouses of modern science) acquiring vital data for their research.  In the next 16 days a large number of us will record our experiences on Discovery and provide a flavour of what it is like to undertake scientific research on a large multidisciplinary cruise such as this. 
When we reach Scotland on June 26 there will be a major changeover of scientific staff who will undertake further research closer to the Scottish coast.

Toby Sherwin, Principal Scientist, Scottish Association for Marine Science.


The Extended Ellett Line track overlaid on a MODIS satellite image of the average chlorophyll a concentrations over the week before the start of cruise D340.  Courtesy of the PML Remote Sensing Group.