Continuing Across the Southern Ocean

Wednesday, 4 February 2015
At Sea — Southern Ocean
Position @ 1:30p (UTC +12): 62°02’ S / 170°41’ E
Temps: 39F (4C) @ 7:30a (UTC +12)
Distance Since Ushuaia: 5,117 NM (5,890 miles / 9,477 km)

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Oscar Wilde

A surprisingly calm ocean today — and this in waters that are notoriously stormy.  Very little wind as well — certainly not the norm for the Screaming Sixties.  Our luck couldn’t possibly hold, so I spent most of the day on deck to take advantage of Mother Nature’s weather gift to us.

Expedition Day 27 … we’re further north than indicated here, but I neglected to visit
the bridge to take my final reading for the day before changing into my jammies for the night.

With the winds staying below 10 knots (12 mph/19 kph), there was very little birdlife on the wing to entertain us.  That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as I could read without distraction.  The Bridge Deck, where the sun mitigated the light windchill, was the perfect spot for sitting out much of the day.

The three mates — [from the right] Sam, Yury, and Matei — with two of the helmsmen …
on a quiet morning on the bridge.  Out of the ice, everyone is more relaxed.

A mere shadow of myself!

There were two lectures on the agenda for today.  I was enjoying the sunshine so much that I skipped Michael’s presentation on fishing in the Ross Sea.  The afternoon lecture — delivered by Gill — was about climate change as it relates to the Great White Continent.

In addition to reviewing the difference between climate and weather — think of the former as the long-term average of weather patterns — Gill shared lots of interesting graphics that answered the question of whether the climate has changed.  The short answer is … yes, the climate has changed.  And regardless of the cause, it continues to do so at an unusual rate, with a vast majority of the scientific community agreeing that many of the changes are human-induced.  I wholeheartedly agree with both these points.

Self explanatory.  The bottom line is that since the advent of the industrial
age, more infrared emissions are being reflected back into the atmosphere.
[Graphic: Philippe Rekacewicz; courtesy of the Okanagan University College, Canada.]

Each of the black dots represent a glacier front.
[more on this here.]

This chart documents the percentage of ice loss due to basal melting (from the
bottom of the shelf) versus calving (from the top of the shelf).  IMHO, it Leaves no doubt
that, for the most part, basal melting of the ice shelves creates more loss than calving.
[Original chart and accompanying article from NASA.gov]

Climate change impacts Antarctic Pack Ice … and that in turn impacts Adélie penguin populations.

An interesting mini-lecture at today’s recap was Dmitri’s talk on albatrosses.  For most people, the word albatross brings to mind the wandering albatross, one of the largest birds in the world, and certainly one of the best known and studied.  In reality, worldwide there are 22 species — some say 24; some reduce the number to 13 or 14.  The lecture was timely as we hope to see some new-to-us species when we reach Campbell Island in a few days’ time.

A fun bit of activity today was a photo treasure hunt, the results of which were announced at recap.  Earlier in the day, we were given a series of 10 photographs and had to identify the subject and the location.  Some of them were obvious — like the pots and pans in the galley; others not so much.  The most cryptic was an image that looked like it was taken on a shore landing in the Peninsula Region.  It had us stumped for a while, but then we started wandering around the ship and looking at the photos that decorate the walls.  Turns out it was a picture from IAATO’s  “Don’t Pack a Pest” poster in the forward stairwell between decks 3 and 4.  Petra and I were the joint winners, identifying all 10 photos correctly.

Too bad I didn’t think to duplicate the photos as I scavenged around the ship to find where these images were taken.  The image that stumped me for a while is magnified. From Top Left: Railing; reception desk Helicopter Hangar magnets; Bar Bulletin Board medical instruments; Clinic Deck 6 Funnel (heli muster) Don’t pack a Pest Poster Stairwell Decks 3 to 4 Forward water bottles; Lecture Hall (Rear of the room) nets; Foredeck Mast Galley (Deck 3) Starboard Tender (deck 6)

Wrapped up the day in the Ortelius Cinema where part II of the Shackleton docu-drama was screened.

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