Part of my job is make sea ice observations and to provide sea ice imagery to the scientists and to the Lawrence M. Gould (our vessel). The observations are encoded into a 5 digit number where each number describes one of the following:
1. The concentration or arrangement of sea ice (e.g. 7/10 to 8/10 close pack ice or strips and patches of sea ice with open water in between).
2. Stage of development (e.g. new ice, young ice, first year or old ice)
3. Amount of ice of land origin (e.g. 1-5 icebergs with growlers and bergy bits) Gowerlers are almost clear ice that floats at the surface. Bergy bits are pieces of iceberg that do not rise more than 15 feet above the surface of the water.
4. The direction of the principle ice edge. (e.g. the edge of the ice faces west)
5. Present Ice Situation and Trend of Conditions (e.g. Ship in open water, ship in easily penetrable ice: conditions worsening)
Some of the imagery I provide to the station and vessels helps with knowing how hard it will be for the ship to get into our harbor or if it will be possible to have zodiacs in the water to drop off scientist at certain areas around the Antarctic Peninsula.
Here we can see Anvers Island just right of center with a large amount of sea ice south of station.
After just one day of strong winds from the south south west the full southern face of Anvers island accumulated at least 6 miles of sea ice. No zodiac boating for a while, unless we get a good strong wind storm from the north. Our vessel won't have any issue with this amount of ice, their final approach will just take a bit longer than usual.
1. The concentration or arrangement of sea ice (e.g. 7/10 to 8/10 close pack ice or strips and patches of sea ice with open water in between).
2. Stage of development (e.g. new ice, young ice, first year or old ice)
3. Amount of ice of land origin (e.g. 1-5 icebergs with growlers and bergy bits) Gowerlers are almost clear ice that floats at the surface. Bergy bits are pieces of iceberg that do not rise more than 15 feet above the surface of the water.
4. The direction of the principle ice edge. (e.g. the edge of the ice faces west)
5. Present Ice Situation and Trend of Conditions (e.g. Ship in open water, ship in easily penetrable ice: conditions worsening)
Some of the imagery I provide to the station and vessels helps with knowing how hard it will be for the ship to get into our harbor or if it will be possible to have zodiacs in the water to drop off scientist at certain areas around the Antarctic Peninsula.
