I arrived at the ice camp three weeks ago and during that time many things changed: the nearby mountain tops lost the remainder of their snow cover, the sea ice’s snow vanished and melt ponds just appeared, there are many more birds and seals than there had been, the phytoplankton bloom started, … But to me the most prominent trace of change was the access to the “Polarhaven” tent at the ice camp, where I went for water sampling and CTD operations every other day.
Tag Archives: Ice-thickness
Pre-camp ice and snow thickness survey
“April 20, 2016
Yesterday, Jaypootie Moesesie (Qikiqtarjuaq, GreenEdge team member), Eric Brossier (Captain of the Vagabond / GreenEdge camp manager) and I returned from a four-day, pre-icecamp ice thickness survey of the fast ice southeast of Qikiqtarjuaq. The objective of the survey was to map the variability of sea ice in the region, and to identify regions of thin ice where strong ocean currents erode the ice from underneath. Those regions are important for the ice and water ecosystem because they open up early in the melt season. They also create slush which makes over-ice travel slower and less safe.