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Arctic 100 Expedition  The Modern Tools of the Ice Navigator

 Over the years, the art of ice navigation has been primarily looking out over the rail (or today, looking out the window) and tactically manoeuvering a vessel through the ice with competence.  As technology advanced we were soon afforded the added range of vision provided by radar, then added even longer range awareness provided by ice charts received by radio-facsimile receivers from ashore.  Today the modern tools that an experienced Ice Navigator uses in voyage planning and execution are vital to a successful voyage.

 Onboard, we utilize modern high speed ice radars that may use vertically and horizontally polarized emissions to obtain better definition of ice conditions around the ship. New technology is focusing on forward looking sonar to identify older sea ice and glacial ice ahead by its keel below the surface.  Still, the human eye remains the most infallible tool in ice detection. During the long hours of Arctic night, powerful, controllable searchlights are necessary to break the hold of the darkness.  

 The greatest technological change in the Ice Navigator’s took box is the quality of external information available and the methods for receiving it and displaying it onboard.  Receipt of timely and accurate ice charts and imagery is the vital core of modern passage planning in ice.  

 We use a wide variety of charts and images to plan and execute effective ice passages.  These range from ice charts provided by any number of national or regional ice services right across the Arctic to advanced satellite imagery. Often Ice Navigators prefer to have access to the raw satellite images to make their own assessments.  Most prefer high resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) such as RadarSat and Sentinel that is useful regardless of cloud cover.  However high resolution visual images when cloud cover is absent can be equally useful. MODIS images often fill this niche. Other satellite data includes thermosensitive imagery.  In some cases, ice services still utilize aircraft overflights using either airborne SAR or human observation.  In many ships these images and charts are simply received by email and printed onboard.

 Onboard the most frequent visitors to the polar regions, more advanced image reception and manipulation equipment is used.  Onboard MSV Nordica we use an ENFOTEC IceNav system. Several times a day the computer links via the satellite communication system, polls the servers ashore and downloads compressed image, chart and text files appropriate to our voyage and our present position.  The system can display whatever information the Ice Navigator desires on a standard GIS coastline outline map that is linked directly to onboard navigational equipment providing ship position, heading, course and speed (and a real-time radar overlay if so equipped).  The layers of ice imagery, weather and other information are then overlaid and used to plot planned courses through the ice.  Waypoint positions are then either directly or manually transferred to onboard ECDIS displays for transit.  

 Getting this valuable information to the ship remains a challenge in the polar regions.  Access to good broadband high capacity communication is limited particularly above 76º.  Most broadband capable communications satellites are positioned to serve the massive majority of shipping and general communications needs well below the high polar latitudes.  Though ships in the high north or south can fall back on low earth orbiting systems such as Iridium that do provide coverage, their much slower data transfer rates make reception of the larger more detailed images difficult and expensive to download.  During #Arctic100Expedition, though we lost broadband internet connectivity mid voyage, we were still able to communicate effectively via Iridium (which allowed to download required ice information), INMARSAT Sat-C and the last fallback, HF radio.

 In the end, a safe ice passage still relies on the professional competence and experience of the mariners that guide the ship, regardless of the ship and the tools at their disposal.  It takes many years to gain the experience necessary to build that competence.  The Ice Navigator works with the team to ensure all contingencies are covered and the voyage is completed efficiently and safely.

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Arctic 100 Expedition Unimak Pass - that was then, this is now

 The Nordicans passed another #Arctic100Expedition milestone today, passing through Unimak Pass in the Aleutians into the Bering Sea.  For many onboard (certainly for all the researchers) this a first-time experience. Watching the excitement of some made me pause for a moment to think back to my first traverse of Unimak.

 My first crossing of the Arctic Circle was onboard the shallow draft Canadian Coast Guard buoy tender CCGS Nahidik as she sailed down the Mackenzie for western Arctic Operations.  My first passage through Unimak came two years later onboard the light icebreaker CCGS Martha L Black.  

 Onboard Nahidik, we joined the ship in June to take her out of winter layup in Hay River, Northwest Territories, then sailed her down the mighty Mackenzie river assisting the three river buoy tenders reactivating fixed lights and racons and placing the hundreds of buoys.  Nahidik then spent the remainder of here 6-month season based in Tuktoyaktuk working navaids in the lower Mackenzie and in the coastal Arctic waters from Herschel Island to Taloyoak (then still called Spence Bay).  Our six months onboard ended when we followed the last NTCL resupply tugs and barges back up the river to Hay River at the end of the season, pulling the buoys as we went.  It was a grand experience particularly as we “tied up” virtually every night by driving up against a soft beach, grounding the ship with flat bottomed bow and tying off to a “deadman”.  Of course, there were no trees north of the treeline to secure.

 Two years after that assignment I had transferred to CCGS Martha L Black as Second Officer.  Nahidik had wet my appetite for the north, and switching to the icebreakers guaranteed me time in ice.  The voyage routine for the Arctic icebreakers in the 80’s was still full season.  You sailed from Victoria beginning of July and returned mid to late October.  No internet or email in those days.  Once in the Arctic, communication was by HF voice or teletype.  Calls home were through HAM Radio. Sometimes we actually had mail delivery from the south.  More often than not the mailbags would arrive at the DEW Line stations we had just left, then followed us as we moved about the Arctic on our various missions.

 During that first Arctic voyage, sailing as Second Officer, the passage plans were my responsibility.  I was excited about putting together the trans-pacific voyage plans, anticipating even more exciting learning ahead of me.  I was excited about passing through the famous Unimak Pass as I knew full well of its importance in commercial transpacific shipping for it lies directly along the Vancouver/Seattle to northern Asia great circle route.  For that reason, Unimak pass is a convergence point for traffic eastward and westward bound. The small American Arctic community of Dutch Harbor lies just west of the pass and remains today as the last stop for fuelling, storing or repairing ships on the way across the Pacific or into the Arctic through the Bering Sea.

 Unfortunately for that first voyage I wasn't able to “see” much of Unimak Pass.  As we neared the Pass from the southeast, fog slowly began to close and the best look I had was in the radar.  None the less, passing that navigational milestone as a young Second Officer remains a high point in my career.  Though there are many other higher points (crossing the Arctic Circle in the Bering for example), Unimak still counts up there.

 Today the Western Region Icebreaker, CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, sister to the Black, operates on 6 week cycles for Arctic Ops. With that rotation one crew transits the ship into the Arctic and begins the Arctic work program.  The second crew takes over usually in the vicinity of Kugluktuk or Cambridge Bay and works the “middle trip”.  They rarely see ice in the middle trip as the ops are generally well inside the archipelago that usually clears completely of ice.  The middle trip crew then hands back over to the transit crew near the end of September for them to bring the ship back down to her base in Victoria, BC.  The following year the crew rotations are such that the crew that transited then takes the middle trip, and the other crew brings the ship into the Arctic and takes it home.  During a full summer of operation Laurier typically steams 15000 miles …. As Nordica continues northward the Laurier is enroute to her summer operations in the Arctic and as we pass through Unimak Pass is in Dutch Harbor having departed Victoria ahead of us on the 3rd of July.  

 It has been many years since I have repeated the run through Unimak.  I have entered the Bering many times west of the Aleutians onboard ships from Asia bound for the Arctic and have embarked or disembarked many more inside the Bering in Nome or Dutch Harbor.  My last Unimak Pass voyage was likely onboard Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 2001 or 2002.

 It is almost 30 years after my first passage through Unimak Pass. There was been a great deal of water pass beneath the hull and ice pass alongside.  Today we have GPS, FOG gyros, and satellite communications providing almost uninterrupted connectivity to the rest of the world.  I enjoy the excitement that the newcomers to the Northwest Passage so unashamedly exhibit...not only because I remember my own first so clearly, but because I still feel the excitement.  We are now well and truly Arctic bound.

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When the Sea is a Kind Mistress

The noon position of MSV Nordica 08 July puts us about 440nm west of Cape St. James on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii.  We continue under partly sunny skies with little wind and almost no swell.  The ship’s motion is only the gentle rock of a baby’s crib under the loving hand of a mother.  It is certainly NOT the leaping jumping dervish of insanity that an icebreaker with its un-sea kindly shape can take on in even just slightly rougher conditions. Those of us with more experience know only too well how quickly that can happen, but for now we quietly let those newer to shipboard life settle in and get their sea legs before that other reality hits. For now, the sea is a kind mistress.

 The noon position of MSV Nordica 08 July puts us about 440nm west of Cape St. James on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii.  We continue under partly sunny skies with little wind and almost no swell.  The ship’s motion is only the gentle rock of a baby’s crib under the loving hand of a mother.  It is certainly NOT the leaping jumping dervish of insanity that an icebreaker with its un-sea kindly shape can take on in even just slightly rougher conditions. Those of us with more experience know only too well how quickly that can happen, but for now we quietly let those newer to shipboard life settle in and get their sea legs before that other reality hits. For now, the sea is a kind mistress.

The noon position of MSV Nordica 08 July puts us about 440nm west of Cape St. James on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii.  We continue under partly sunny skies with little wind and almost no swell.  The ship’s motion is only the gentle rock of a baby’s crib under the loving hand of a mother.  It is certainly NOT the leaping jumping dervish of insanity that an icebreaker with its un-sea kindly shape can take on in even just slightly rougher conditions. Those of us with more experience know only too well how quickly that can happen, but for now we quietly let those newer to shipboard life settle in and get their sea legs before that other reality hits. For now, the sea is a kind mistress.

For the ship’s crew, most who have been onboard for weeks already, routine simply switches from alongside to sea mode.  Even those crew that have just joined the ship in Vancouver, as well as the Martech Polar team and some of the more experienced “special crew”, have already settled into sea mode.  Gear is secure, hours of rest and work sorted out in our minds, adjustment to reduced connectivity already made.  We know the next deep low is somewhere just over the horizon, waiting to hammer us with high winds and waves as we challenge the sea.  Nuuk, Greenland, the next port of call is weeks and an adventure away and we know much can happen to change our plans, cause us to deviate or slow and make that hoped for estimated time of arrival a forgotten dream.  

Voyaging through the Northwest Passage is not for someone on a tight timeline.  We get lulled into complacency on these days when the sea remains that kind mistress. Nothing around for miles and miles but blue ocean below and either blue sky or occasional cloud above.  We have more than 5000 miles to cover and even before we meet ice, a deep depression in the North Pacific, the Bering Sea or the cold Arctic Chukchi Sea can turn our peaceful passage into the maelstrom that will pitch this blunt bowed queen of the ice into a slowly lurching, crawling supplicant.  Speed reduced to almost nothing to reduce pounding of the highly efficient icebreaking bow that is a gross hindrance in the open sea would soon obliterate planned arrivals.  Polar Lows can form quickly and unexpectedly.  As they do they are often accompanied by rapid increases in wind speed and in the shallower waters north of the Aleutians, can whip up steep high seas that truly test the metal of the ship and the mettle of those onboard.

Then comes the ice.  We expect to meet our first significant sea ice well east of Point Barrow.  The polar pack has now retreated significantly northward west of Barrow, but remnants persist eastward towards Barter and Herschel Islands where we will once again encounter mostly open water. Open water doesn't mean ice free. We will still see ice, up to 1/10th and more east of Herschel Island.  Further to the east, the latest ice information we have onboard indicates that fast ice remains from northern Coronation Gulf through Dolphin and Union Strait, to Queen Maud, Victoria Strait, Franklin Strait to Peel Sound. Though this won’t stop us in our tracks given Nordica’s incredible icebreaking capability, the possibility of slowing our eastward progress still persists.  

We are at the mercy of the sea, and the sea ice. We must be patient and if necessary, wait out weather and ice for conditions kindlier to our hearty vessel. For now, we sail on, warming ourselves in deck with faces turned to the sun, drawing in the grandeur of a mistress that has granted us kindness these past few days, and with luck well into our voyage.

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An Arctic Expedition

I hope that I never lose this wonderful feeling that being alongside with a ship is fine, but it is always better to be back at sea again.  I love the feeling of a ship moving beneath my feet, even if at times it throws my internals into a rebellion of discomfort.  Even more, I like the feeling of a ship in ice, but that isn’t in the present.  That is more than a week away.  Today is the feeling of being at sea.  It is a combination of the movement, the freedom, the freshness of the air, the vast open sea all around, and yes, the escape from the hectic life dealing with the many issues that invariably exist when alongside.  Here onboard MSV Nordica as Ice Navigator, bound for the Northwest Passage, I am not the only one that has a smile on their face as we head out on this voyage.

 MSV Nordica is a Finnish flag icebreaker, built in the late 1990’s that has seen service around the globe.  She has been through the Northwest Passage before, in 2015. She was in company with her sister ship MSV Fennica as they executed the latest ever transit of the Northwest Passage in October/November after completing a charter off Alaska, heading home to Finland.  I was there as Ice Navigator and am very happy to be back again.  This year, Nordica is alone, headed home in re-positioning transit back to Finland after work in Sakhalin.  We have more than the usual crew onboard however.  

 Along with Captain Jyri Viljanen and his crew, there are observers from the Canadian and United States Coast Guard, Captain Victor Gronmyr and Commander Bill Woityra, myself and  trainee Ice Navigator Nigel Greenwood, two young Inuit work experience students from Nunavut, a number of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Finland, United States, and New Zealand and a team of journalists from Associated Press. Though the short notice for this voyage did not permit mobilizing (and permitting) of a more robust research voyage to take advantage of the re-positioning transit the researchers onboard are quite excited about the opportunity to at least experience the Canadian Arctic and observe from onboard and within the vessel, a Northwest Passage Voyage.  This voyage has been advertised as the “Arctic 100 Expedition” in honour of Finland’s 100th anniversary as a modern nation.  The ship proudly flies both the Finland 100 and Canada’s 150 flags as Canada is also in full celebratory mode for it’s 150th year as a nation.

 The latest ice information we have from Fednav’s ENFOTEC, contracted to provide ice charts and ice imagery for the voyage indicates we should have no problem in the transit.  The pack ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas is already well clear of Point Barrow as the summer melt continues in earnest.  Thick first year that lies off the Alaskan coast east of Point Barrow would not pose a problem to this heavy icebreaker even if were still to be there when we arrive.  There is little likelihood of that however.  Very open water conditions already prevail east of the Canada/US border to the entrance to Amundsen Gulf, though the central Arctic from northern Coronation Gulf, Dolphin and Union Strait, Queen Maud Gulf, Victoria Strait and Peel Sound remains fast.  Signs of melt and fracture are evident in the latest satellite imagery so we do not expect any significant difficulty there either.  Once into Lancaster Sound the conditions are well open already as well, making the last legs of the voyage to our next stop, Nuuk Greenland almost effortless.  We continue to watch ice conditions as the melt continues ahead of us.  We remind those less experienced that the Arctic can change in a heartbeat, and what looked like a good route today could be blocked by mobile ice tomorrow.  But for now, we are enjoying being at sea in the North Pacific on a sunny July day.

 #arcticshipping #arctic #arctic100 #Canada150 #Finland100

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Every Day Should be “Day of Seafarer” or How to Convince Jeff Bezos to Help Stranded Seafarers

 This year on 25 June, IMO’s “Day of the Seafarer”, fell upon on a Sunday.  I have not seen any statistics, but I have wondered if this day of recognition, falling as it did on a Sunday, was observed to the same degree as previous years.  I only know from likes and retweets of my own posts that there seemed to be somewhat more individual interest but it appeared to me that corporate interest was low. Perhaps IMO has watched the internet more closely and noticed any trend that may have existed.  At any rate, I wondered if this year’s theme “Seafarers Matter” caught much attention, as it should.

 Depending on which statistics you refer to, between 80 to 90% of all the world’s goods travel by sea.  To do that, the International Chamber of Shipping estimates almost 1.7 million women and men sail on ships globally on internationally trading ships.  That huge number does NOT include the many hundreds of thousands more that trade on purely coastal or cabotage trades.  That's an incredible number of seafarers who are generally out of sight, out of mind. How many think that the Toyota they are driving, the television they are watching, the clothes they are wearing or the food they are eating has arrived under the silent and unseen care of any number of those faceless seafarers?  Suddenly it seems weak to think of giving a thought to those seafarers for only one day a year.  What of the other 364 days, each as lonely or as challenging to those seafarers as 25 June? Their situation, so far from home, family and friends is no less demanding for the remainder of the year.

 I suppose where I am going with this is towards trying to get more of humanity to think a little more regularly about those 1.7 million unseen seafarers.  Perhaps think of passing donations to welfare funds, support organizations and other seafarer charities on more than one day a year. It doesn’t take much of a Google search to come up with many reputable charities that provide a little comfort to seafarers who find themselves apart from families, ill, stranded or simply alone in port.  

 Statistics are hard to pin down, but many reports seem to indicate that upwards of 5000 to 10000 seafarers around the world are stranded or unpaid.  Which brings me to another reason for writing this.  I am also urging some of you to join a new initiative to provide aid and repatriation to stranded or unpaid seafarers.

 Some days ago, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) tweeted asking for great philanthropic ideas, somewhere he could make a difference.  On a spur of a moment, a number of us (@icenav57, @carsjam33 and @o_merk) began a thread in response to Mr. Bezos’ tweet suggesting he support a fund and organization to assist in repatriating seafarers who find themselves stranded, through no fault of their own, far from home. Even a gesture as simple as providing a seat on one of the many aircraft shuttling just-in-time deliveries for Mr. Bezos’ vast Amazon empire could make a huge difference.  So please, to help make every day of the year a Day of the Seafarer, help us by sending your own tweet to Jeff Bezos, supporting the effort to support repatriating stranded seafarers.  

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New Study Says Sex Sells

 Got your attention? Amazing isn’t it how a headline grabs you and makes you click on a news item, whatever the social or news media source. The headline may have very little to do with the actual content of the article itself, such as in this case. But it grabs you and can subconsciously be registered as “fact”.  When a reader clicks on the headline, that simple click on a smart phone, a computer or a tablet, not only links you forever to the story behind the headline, it registers another statistical click for the source.  That’s why they use sensational headlines, to gain clicks, to prove readership.  

 What continues to frustrate me is that sensational headlines often have little to do with the story underneath.  That’s not too bad if we take the time to actually read the article and find out the true story, but in this rapid paced world, we are more apt to either click and speed read through the accompanying article not catching the irrelevance of the headline, or more egregiously, our eyes pop wide and we “share” the story, shocked by the headline.  After all, others have to know.  The story continues to be reposted and begins to build a false sense of accuracy as others grab hold and redistribute.

 OK, so why am on this one again?  It was another series of blog/RSS/internet media posts that yet again headlined the “coming conflict in the Arctic” due to global climate change.  Of course, the story beneath the headline had almost nothing to do with “conflict”, in fact buried deep within the article was a short sentence saying that the 5 Arctic coastal nations of Canada, Greenland/Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States have in fact, been working collaboratively on many issues and that UNCLOS was slowly taking care of the marine “borders” that were as yet undecided (not, I hasten to say “disputed”, as the few borders that are undecided are cooperatively dealt with, with no antagonism between parties.

 In this topic specifically, the facts are quite different than the recurring headlines frighteningly warning of Polar war to come.  Regardless of the headlines and the occasional misinterpretations of “border disputes”, all five Arctic coastal states are committed to peaceful resolution. Far different than the imagined conflict, is the level of cooperation that exists as neighbouring Arctic nations have often worked together to gather and share the data each collects individually or multilaterally with other nations as they move towards their Arctic Ocean claims under UNLCOS.  Science will prove the claims, not bluster, rhetoric or force of arms.  Though as yet not signatory to UNCLOS, even the United States has been collecting bathymetric and geological data to bolster a future UNLOS claim.

 Let’s not make too much about headlines that claim Russia is militarizing their Arctic in advance of some nefarious plan of world dominance.  They are doing nothing more than any of the other Arctic nations (including the not coastal states which additional include Finland, Sweden and Iceland) rebuilding infrastructure abandoned at the fall of Soviet Russia or putting in place small defensive bastions as bases for support to border protection as well as support to commercial shipping.  They have the right to put in place facilities and personnel to protect their vast Arctic coastline, described by many, including myself as here to fore lacking of infrastructure to support the slow growth in Arctic shipping.  They are not alone.  Though proceeding at a less than frenetic pace, Canada for example has increased military presence in it’s Arctic zone, building an Arctic training centre in Resolute, as well as a half dozen ice strengthened Naval patrol ships, not necessarily due to perceived threat, but to be better able to police the vast Canadian Arctic Archipelago.  Canada, United States and Denmark just completed a complex search and rescue exercise involving military as well as civilian agencies, personnel and equipment. Are these activities militarily provocative and indications of grand schemes of world domination?  I think not.  They are signs of each nation’s slow recognition of their previous lack of attention on their northern coastlines, and the resultant movement to put in place infrastructure and capability to show sovereignty, to provide support to increased shipping and to enforce national rule of law upon their rightful territory.

 I get it, sex sells, conflict sells, fear sells.  All of them can even get governments elected.  I am a realist of sorts so I know that the headline writers won’t read this, won’t suddenly see the sad error of their ways and change.  So that those of us that DO see the erroneous headlines, and sadly, even erroneous stories that perpetuate in the world of internet fast news, should try our best to set the records straight.  Read before you repost or share.  Verify what is in the body of the piece, and even do your part to tell the real story.  Really, the world can become a better place.

[icenav57]

Safety at Sea – Whistle Blowing, Informing or Notifying?

  There have been a number of articles and posts over the last months related to marine incidents in which “whistleblowers” have been either canonized or vilified.  These two extremes seem to resonate and in some ways and often seem to paint the maritime industry as a wild west in which “whistleblowing” is required.  For a moment let’s look a little more rationally at the situation.

 For the most part, processes clearly exist that ensure safety at sea is the order of the day.  In many workplace laws and regulations, workers, from top to bottom, are required to notify their employers of unsafe practices, or incidents. If they do not, not only are they in contravention of regulations put in place to ensure safe work places, but unintentionally perpetuate and thus become part of the problem.  Onboard Safety Management Systems should make this clear, that employees have that responsibility.  Mechanisms should be in place to allow for the notification of unsafe situations without retribution.  

 I certainly recognize that in some cases the employer/employee relationship may make it incredibly daunting to an individual to step up, however it is for all of us at sea to recognize that Safety IS First.  It may take a great deal of personal courage to step forward and point hazards out.  I know the feeling.  In my own career, long before ISM was a part of everyday maritime industry, I was faced with participating in a “refusal to work” action that was the only way to push a major safety issue that affected the work team onboard.  It was in fact a regulation at the time that “enabled” an unsafe practice to be accepted. In that case, there was no adverse reaction from the employer, in fact they recognized the route taken was acceptable, as it not only brought the issue to their attention, but enabled stronger argument to have that regulation changed.  

 Today, outside of the internal systems that should be in place, there are a number of avenues that mariners can take to highlight safety issues to not only have onboard issues adequately dealt with but to inform and educate our fellow mariners of potential issues and possible mitigation measures and possibly lead to regulation change.  Besides formal labour complaints, two such avenues come instantly to mind.

 The Nautical Institute has operated the Maritime Alerting and Reporting Scheme (MARS) http://www.nautinst.org/en/forums/mars/index.cfm since the early 1990’s, providing a confidential system for individuals and organizations to report incidents and near misses “without fear of identification or litigation”.  Reports received are stored in a database and may be highlighted in the MARS Report in the Institute’s monthly journal Seaways or accessed digitally on the institute’s website.  The scheme is funded by organizations interested in promoting and supporting safety through a £500 annual fee.  To date over 50 organizations including my own company Martech Polar Consulting Ltd are proud supporters of this initiative.  

 MARS Reports can be sent to mars@nautinst.org with total anonymity.  It is interesting to note that in the early years of the program reports received and published tended to be from individuals.  With the more broadly accepted reporting made available by ISM Safety Management reporting systems, individuals have found less need to go outside their onboard systems.  As a result, The Nautical Institute now receives more reports from organizations wishing to let others learn from their own experiences.

 Another route for reporting is the Confidential Hazardous Incident Reporting Program (CHIRP) Maritime http://www.chirpmaritime.org.  It operates in a similar confidential reporting method as MARS.  An advisory board reviews reports and often provides assistance in resolving issues.  CHIRP Maritime annually issues a safety digest highlighting many of the most noteworthy incidents to enable learning and further prevention.

 Mariners need not think of themselves as whistleblowers.  We all have a responsibility to make note of and report possible safety issues.  It may not be ourselves but others that will benefit from those issues being identified and rectified.  If we are concerned about anonymity, a number of avenues exist to still get a current issue “out there”, to have it corrected or to allow others to learn from our own close calls.  We are all responsible to ensure Safety is First and if we need the courage to do so, know that there are less public ways of doing so.

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My Delayed Return to the Blogosphere

It was quite a shock to log onto Tumblr the other day and actually see the last time I posted a blog.   I can’t count the number of times I PLANNED to post…started a few words, then became distracted by real life matters, or someone else beat me to the punch and basically wrote what I thought I wanted to write about.  But then, perhaps those were just excuses?  So, no more excuses, time to get back on the horse (I was wracking my brain for a more nautical phrase, but none came to mind…if you have one, please let me know).

 I am going to return to a regular pet peeve of mine, the preponderance of misinformation that seems to persist in the world.  No, not imagined “false news” that some orange folks seem to scream about when their version of events or the world is questioned.  No, I am talking about how the internet so often allows for misinformation to actually become accepted as fact, just because the initially erroneous tweet, post or whatever begins to build momentum and eventual acceptance due to the sheer rapidity of internet retweeting, reposting etc.  By virtue of the sheer volume, people soon accept the thing as true because it is being repeated again and again.  Confirmation of sources used to be a given before “stories” were circulated.  Now many of us don’t seem to have the time to do some simple verification of fact before we repost in either indignation or support.  

 So that the reader does not make the mistake of thinking that I am merely reacting to more recent egregious errors of fact that are being pounced on almost daily since a certain day in January, I wrote a piece for Arctic Deeply some time ago on exactly this phenomenon <http://martechpolar.com/publications-reports/arctic-shipping-internet-game>. It didn't get as many likes and reposting’s as some of the crazier Arctic/Antarctic/Polar stories often do.  But it did get some take up and that made me feel somewhat vindicated.  Shortly after I tried getting some play out of a hashtag…#ArcticMythBusters for stories that either debunked some of the craziness or at least tried to set the record straight.  Alas, it never got near to “trending” status.  I saw it used once or twice by someone else.  At any rate, it seems to me now that the battle for truth is in fact never ending.  I think I knew that deep down, at least since a high school media course I took in my youth that centred on Marshall Mcluhan’s mass media theories of the time.  

 That my friends of things Polar, of things maritime; is what brought me back to the world of blogging. I am going to take the time out of my busy days (really, I AM busy) and ensure that I DO post occasionally. Sometimes it will be to purposely take on misinformation on Arctic shipping (polar ships are not heedlessly polluting either of the polar regions nor is there a stampede into the Arctic of reckless shipping taking advantage of massive reductions in sea ice); or to educate on the necessity for safe global shipping (95% of everything moves by ship); or that mariners ARE a forgotten demographic (who reading this is aware of the tens of thousands of mariners at sea on any given day, thousands of miles and many months away from family); or simply to rattle on with a sea story (my beloved partner often tells me I can’t simply tell a short story….it HAS to become a SEA STORY, warning those on the receiving end that they had best settle down for a feature length telling).  

 In addition to the travel I do for Martech Polar, focused in polar and ice shipping, I am travelling about the globe quite a bit over the next year or so as President of The Nautical Institute.  The scope of the face to face interaction is going to be tremendous.  I am excited and looking forward to the much greater breadth of the knowledge I will draw in as I meet with mariners and others of the maritime industry outside my normal sphere.  Who would have thought an Ice Navigator would have cause to visit Singapore, Jakarta, Varna, Gydnia, Cyprus, Cork, Fort Lauderdale?  Those are among some of the places I will be meeting with marine industry movers and shakers.  There also will be visits to places where Ice Navigators ARE expected, Halifax, St. John’s, Helsinki, London, Cape Town, and Anchorage.

  Look at this then as my resolution of sorts. I intend to be more visible and more vocal.  Yes, I am a child of 80’s TV, “the truth is out there”.  I intend to make myself a conduit for the truth a little more regularly.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #10– Global Climate Change and a Delicate Balance

RV Mirai is now approaching the end of her Arctic 2014 deployment and we will soon be entering the port of Yokohama.  When we berth on 10 October we will have steamed approximately 5120 nautical miles in search of knowledge and a better understanding of the Arctic, its role in global climate change and the effects global climate change in turn has on the Arctic.  Hundreds of water and air samples have been taken, even more radiosondes launched into the atmosphere, sediment and plankton samples taken, enough observations to fill many binders and hard drives with data.

As a practical Ice Navigator, I am well aware of the annual cyclical changes in ice conditions.  We have been aware of these cycles since the 1700’s when whalers braving the arctic ice first began to record what they experienced daily, weekly and annually.  Soon those intrepid mariners noticed patterns that existed.  Ice Masters spoke of 11 and 50-year cycles of good and bad ice years.  Those cycles still exist, but now without doubt there is another trend overlapping those anecdotal peaks and troughs in the overall ice coverage.  Now we see as well the gradual but not incidental overall reduction in polar sea ice cover due to the continuing slow rise in atmospheric temperature as a result of human caused global climate change.

RV Mirai’s voyages into the Arctic have been focused on learning what exactly is changing in the Arctic Ocean and above it.  Since the 1990’s this ship and others have been collecting the data that confirms the gradually increasing effects of climate change such as the gradual movement of warmer “Atlantic” water into the Chukchi sea; the changes to the entire food chain that result from increased temperature, increased oxygen levels, and decreased salinity.  How much of the change is caused by the presence of this “Atlantic “ water; how much does this affect melt of sea ice cover or conversely how much does melt of sea ice cover contribute to decreased salinity and rising sea water temperatures?  How is the atmosphere reacting to the overall reductions in sea ice?  How can we predict the violent polar lows that now seem to occur more frequently but without any more warning?

We’re not talking doom and gloom of radical climate change here, but the practicality and reality.  There is no hyperbole coming from ill-informed onlookers or adventurers reporting out of context based on one visit to this precious and remote region of the globe.  We’re not looking for “an angle” to sell books or papers or get sponsorship.  We are seeing what is really happening and working with hundreds of other serious researchers to truly understand what is happening and what we may need to do to offset possible human caused negative results.

To me, it is important to understand as much of the “big picture” as I can.  It all affects my part in the world, trying to ensure shipping that must or chooses to operate in the Polar Regions does so understanding the wholly different world it is, particularly in the Arctic.  We cannot assume that global climate change means simply that ice will go away.  We know that there may soon be ice-free summers to some degree, but there will always be ice cover in Arctic winters.  And as long as ice is present, ships and crews must be properly prepared and knowledgeable.  The knowledge we gain through research such as RV Mirai does will aid in ensuring when we do sail polar waters we will better understand this incredibly sensitive and tightly balanced environment, so that we ourselves do not suffer or perhaps more importantly, that we as transitory visitors do not adversely affect this delicate balance.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #10 – The Polar Code - Better Sense Prevails at IMO?

While wearing one of my other hats, as Senior Vice President of The Nautical Institute and member of The Institute’s NGO delegation to IMO, I am very much focused on the Polar Code as it progresses through it’s latest re-incarnation. As soon as I disembark RV Mirai in Yokohama, I fly to London to participate in the IMO MEPC discussions related to the Polar Code. My involvement goes back many years however, to the mid 1990’s when I was part of the team the developed the first proposal for Ice Navigator requirements for inclusion in the first attempt at a Polar Code.

Canada then had a very robust Arctic shipping focused shop in Transport Canada and under Victor Santos Pedro submitted the comprehensive Ice Navigator Position Paper. In that document was the first attempt to define an Ice Navigator and to lay out the skills and knowledge required of a ship’s bridge officer to safely navigate in ice infested waters. In addition well laid out model courses were developed and included. That attempt at IMO did not go far, resulting only in very basic, some would say vague, Guidelines for Ships Operating in Arctic Ice Covered Waters. After a number of very newsworthy incidents in Antarctic waters, the guidelines were extended to Antarctic waters but remained voluntary and quite loose.

Only recently as global interest is growing in the possibility of increased shipping in polar waters, the IMO under the strong leadership of the Secretary General has taken on the task yet again of attempting to put in place a MANDATORY Polar Code to provide a uniform basis of international regulation governing ship construction for and operation in polar waters. Not only would the new code be mandatory, but the Secretary General put a deadline for implementation of 2016. A tall order to ensure all the details were ironed out by then.

Those that have read my musings in the past know of my disappointment as the Polar Code discussion have slowly laboured on. To many involved it soon became apparent that a very robust and meaningful Polar Code would be sacrificed in order to meet deadlines. We have seen successive drafts become more watered down as the various working groups, sub-committees and committees seemed to simply walk away from and delete any item that did not result in complete consensus amongst the huge number of voting flag states and non-voting NGOs at IMO. One of those items that seemed to be tossed aside was what at first was a robust and meaningful chapter on training and certification of seafarers operating ships in polar waters. Chapter 13 of the proposed code soon became a shadow of its former self.

In the first drafts of the Code, Chapter 13 was a robust section with several very meaningful requirements for training and certification of bridge watch officers recognizing that operating ship’s in ice, and in particular polar ice required skills, knowledge and competencies far outside what are within the experience of many of the world’s mariners. Several countries, Canada, Russia and Norway included, had initially submitted to have clear Knowledge Understanding and Competencies (KUP’s) included within the chapter. Those drafts recognized that it takes decades to gain the experience to truly understand polar ice, and a simple training course provides only academic knowledge, and perhaps some decent hands on simulator time.

Slowly the defined list of KUP’s, possible requirements for certification of bridge watchkeepers as Ice Navigators and the allowance for operators to hire specialist Ice Navigators to provide experience that was otherwise lacking in their regular officers were either deleted or tossed over to other committees such at STCW to consider. To be fair, perhaps the detail of training and experience would be better covered in amendments to STCW, however, that meant delays and more possibility to decrease the focused attempt to get ice navigation standards front and centre. The last draft of Chapter 13 deleted completely the allowance for the “additional person” and reduced the training requirements to a table that broke requirements for undefined basic and advanced training into groups identified by ship type and presence of ice. From this humble mariner’s opinion that table did little to ensure that bridge officers would have sufficient knowledge and experience to safely operate in polar ice, but gave ship owners and operators a way to simply “meet the intent” by sending them off to a course somewhere (or even worse using an computer based training program) and checking off a box.

I am happy to report however, that better sense does appear to be prevailing. STCW seems to be getting serious about the KUP’s for ice navigation. After deleting the provision for additional persons or Ice Navigators several flag states have submitted documents to IMO for discussion at Maritime Safety Committee MSC94. Canada and Marshall Islands have joined together in document MSC94-3-10, United States has submitted MSC94-3-4. Both these documents aim to reinsert the allowance for vessel operators to employ additional persons, Ice Navigators to bring to a ship and its Master that may not regularly operate in these ice regimes and thus have met the IMO training requirements. The Ice Navigator in no way subverts the Master of his hierarchy of command, but becomes a part of the bridge team that enables the Master to make the right decisions.

This is not a done deal. A number of flag states fought strongly against the allowance for Ice Navigators, I believe, not fully understanding the utility of the concept that has been proven in many years in Russian and Canadian waters by regulation, and in American waters by tacit approval of the concept.

The Ice Navigator is not a pilot, but an additional resource that joins the bridge team bringing specialized skill, knowledge and competence that adds to the team. We still need to convince some of the flag states and even some of the NGO’s at IMO that Ice Navigators should be part of the Polar Code, their role defined and clear, and enforceable standards are set down for certification and training to ensure shipping in polar waters goes forward safely and efficiently.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #9 – Protecting the Fragile Arctic Environment

Earlier in September the U.N. Environment Program and World Meteorological Organization released their latest report that indicated the Earth's protective ozone layer is recovering due to the regulation of ozone-damaging gases.  This report is the first comprehensive report in four years and comes to many as reassuring that we can put in place global regulations and processes that can curb human caused negative atmospheric effects. 

The report is certainly not grounds to think we have won the ozone depletion war.  Harmful emissions of all sorts not only continue but rapid increases in some ozone depleting substances and other deleterious emissions could easily set back the advances in ozone reduction that have been achieved.  Here in the Arctic, their presence is seen and measured by research ships such as Mirai.

Onboard Mirai during this cruise, Japanese researchers have been conducting specific ozone measuring observations by radiosonde for the first time from this ship in the Arctic, filling what otherwise is a huge gap in Arctic ozone data.  To date Arctic ozone measurements have been made almost totally by satellite.  The new radiosonde data is more accurate as the radiosonde’s onboard sensors measure directly ozone quantity as the balloons life the instrument package through the atmosphere.  Initial data here is that the satellite data is reasonably accurate, though it appears that it indicates lower ozone quantities than actually exist.  I should note that trend data has not yet been analyzed, only daily comparison of Mirai’s actual measurements and the those calculated by the satellite sensors. 

Mirai’s sensor array is impressive.  Continuous sampling of many different substances is ongoing. Some researchers have been measuring a number of Persistent Organic Compounds (POPs) and the residuals of toxic Perfluoralkyl Substances (PFAC’s – the toxic components of now banned surfactants like Scotchgard).  Still many years after the bans on many specific PFAC’s were instituted, residuals are still making their way into the Arctic food chain. 

One of the other airborne emissions that is causing concern of late is black carbon.  In our marine industry, black carbon is one component in stack gas emissions from many ships.  Onboard RV Mirai the hghly sensitive instruments to record black carbon are mounted well forward in the foremast, and samples are only taken when the relative wind is ahead of the beam, so as not to be affected by possible contamination by Mirai’s own exhaust gases.  Interestingly, a very identifiable spike in black carbon count was recorded during the passage of a ship southward along the Alaskan coast during the intensive observation period at Weather Station Mirai. 

In an environment as sensitive as the Arctic, many believe that black carbon emissions should be banned, or at the very least curbed dramatically.  Technology certainly exists to reduce if not totally eliminate black carbon emissions from ship’s exhaust.  Arctia Shipping Offshore recently retrofitted their icebreakers Fennica and Nordica to comply with US regulations with respect to shipboard exhaust and has seen extremely positive results with relatively little financial cost. 

Ship’s exhaust emission regulations are not uniform around the globe unfortunately.  In an attempt to remedy the inconsistency in exhaust gas emission requirements and to possibly provide additional protection for the sensitive Arctic environment, the IMO’s Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) will be discussing various environmentally concerned provisions for inclusion in the Polar Code next week in Working Group and the week after in Committee.  These promise to be interesting discussions, as many in the marine industry do not feel anything close to a complete ban on black carbon emissions from ships operating in the Polar Regions is necessary or economical.  There are certainly a number of passionate researchers onboard this ship that feel differently.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #8 – The Known Unknowns

I never thought I would find the situation where I would want to paraphrase one of the most famous abusers of the English language, but the words of one of America’s finest artists of baffle came to mind the other night. Though we have progressed tremendously in knowledge of the Polar Regions at the beginning of this century, the Arctic in particular remains in many ways an enigma. We are in a world of Known Unknowns. There be dragons here.

Onboard the research ship RV Mirai we are nearing the end of another cruise of Arctic discovery, not of new lands but of new insight and new understanding. We KNOW that there is much we do not know of the ocean and atmospheric physics, chemistry and biology of the Arctic and so we are here. There are huge gaps in our knowledge of “how it all fits together” up here in the Arctic. Where the Antarctic land mass has been dotted with permanent and semi-permanent research stations for decades, each adding daily to the knowledge of the southern polar region’s world, only recently have we been able to conduct as focused and near continual observation within the Arctic Ocean. It has much more difficult to set up continuing observations on an ocean as opposed to a huge continental land mass. 

Global climate change has enabled the rapid advance in knowledge of the Arctic Ocean and its workings in the first decades of this century. Slowly retreating sea ice cover has enabled ship-based researchers to venture where they had previously been denied access except for only the most powerful icebreakers. It has made the utility of previously stable “ice island” research stations less viable however, as shifting sea ice patterns and overall reductions in sea ice cover have had a negative impact on the viability those temporary floating observation stations. The International Polar Year laid the groundwork for increased collaborative research efforts that now continue almost 12 months of the year as the variously capable research ships each return to the Arctic Ocean during an increasingly longer season of open water and sea ice/open water interface research. Each year a little more of the unknown becomes known.

During cruise MR14-06 a great deal of knowledge has been gained in how polar lows generate, live and then die. The valuable simultaneous combination of atmospheric and water column observations will provide forecasters far better models to continue to develop real time weather forecasts models. Mariners and others will benefit tremendously from more accurate and timely forecasting of not only routine weather, but extreme events. Sea ice forecasts will also be improved, as we understand better the interaction above and below the surface.

In the long-term, global climate models will be improved as comparisons are made with past predications and actual observed data, fine tuning the assumptions that form the basis for the models. Already algorithms that provide the foundation of some of the models thought most reliable are being altered in part because of the data collected during this cruise. In gaining answers we also find new questions. Why is there an upwelling of warm nutrient rich water where previously there was none? Is the reduced salinity that seems to be a recent trend in Arctic sea water a result of less sea ice because if there is less sea to contribute to sea water saline levels due to leaching out of saline from sea ice into the water column? Old questions yet remain and so we must return again and again, working collaboratively with all interested parties to gain a better understanding of this remote environment.

We know a great deal, but we also know what we do not know and until we have a more complete picture of how this tremendously complex and delicate region works we are still venturing amongst dragons. It is not exactly terra incognita up here but we have a long way to go before it is oceanus scitus. It remains a challenge to voyage in these waters and is not for the faint of heart, but faced with dragons and sea monsters? The only monsters are ourselves in our ignorance.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #7 – Nobody Here But Us

On the 17th of this month CCGS Amundsen passed close by as she continued her own Beaufort Sea research.  She is the only vessel we have seen since departing Dutch Harbor in August.  Some of her work has been carefully planned in collaboration with the annual JAMSTEC Arctic oceanographic research program, some has been as part of this year’s ARCROSE meteorology experiment, and some has been for her own ARCTICNET based Arctic research activities.  It was quite an event for those onboard both ships.

Contrary to some reports, the Arctic is not experiencing “high traffic volumes”.  Most of the transits of the Northwest Passage have been by Coast Guard ships on annual Arctic summer deployment.  There have been a number of the usual adventurers, private vessels making “the voyage of a lifetime”, but little else.  There is no major hydrocarbon exploration work going on this year either.  Within the NWP, the usual destination traffic continues as Arctic communities are resupplied, small cruise vessels come in and go out, mostly in the Eastern Arctic, and the Canadian Navy sends up two or three vessels from their eastern base to participate in the annual training exercise and flag waiving.  But commercial transits through the length of the NWP?  Not a lot going on there.

But wait.  Privately owned Canadian shipping company Fednav has just announced that their newest high ice class bulk carrier MV Nunavik has departed Deception Bay in Northern Quebec (on Hudson Strait) en route to Byuquan China via the Northwest Passage carrying nickel concentrate.  MV Nunavik sails unsupported by Coast Guard icebreakers, herself designed and constructed as an icebreaker in order to independently operate in Arctic ice conditions.  Nunavik is built to Unified Polar Class PC4, that is, able to continuously break 1-meter ice and ram through ridges.  It is not surprising that Fednav is calling this the “first independent commercial voyage through the Northwest Passage”. 

Fednav has eyed transiting the NWP for many years.  Back when I was with Canarctic Shipping Company Ltd (then partially owned, now wholly owned by Fednav), they had plans to sail the first of the high ice class trio that now forms Fednav’s “heavies” through the NWP.  MV Arctic was built in the mid seventies and over the decades she has sailed in and out of the Arctic carrying in petroleum and other cargo to resupply mines and carrying out lead and zinc concentrates and then nickel from Polaris, Nanisivik, Deception Bay and Voisey’s Bay, and crude oil from Panarctic Oil’s Bent Horn terminal.  MV Umiak was Fednav’s next high ice class ship, but unlike the OBO MV Arctic MV Umiak is a bulk carrier, working the mines in Deception Bay and Voisey’s Bay.  Just last year, Fednav added the sister to the Umiak I, the Nunavik to their fleet.  Lessons learned from the years of operating MV Arctic and MV Umiak I, as well as the long list of other light ice class bulkers that make up their fleet incorporated were into their new Japanese built ship.

The interesting part of this story is that MV Nunavik is operating independently throughout her passage of the NWP.  No Coast Guard icebreaker is escorting her as was the case with last year’s Nordic Orion transit.  The Nordic Orion however was not in the same class as the Nunivak.  Not an icebreaker, but ice strengthened, it was prudent management that planned the voyage to have full icebreaker support.  It isn’t just on the water that MV Nunavik is on her own.  Fednav’s subsidiary company Enfotec is providing all the ice data information in the way of charts and satellite imagery via their own ice voyage management program IceNavTM, the latest version of the program developed by Canarctic  Shipping in the 1990’s.

MV Nunavik was not a cheap vessel to build nor is she cheap to operate.  No high ice class ships are.  That comes at a price.  What you get in ability to survive the ice conditions you lose in open water efficiency due to heavier construction and less hydrodynamic bow shapes.  The Finnish double acting concept certainly helps, building a ship with a conventional bulbous bow for efficient operation in open seas and a stern built for breaking ice, stern first.  But that design in and of it’s self is more expensive than a conventional ship.  Ship owners pay dearly for vessels that can take the ice and operate in the Polar Regions.

The end point with this is that we are still talking “firsts” when it comes to the Northwest Passage.  These voyages that are getting huge press are one offs still.  Will Fednav make this a regular run or is this more to prove that Nordic Bulk isn’t the only ship operator willing to try the NWP?  Incidentally, Nordic Bulk hasn’t followed their “first commercial transit of the Northwest Passage” with a repeat voyage as yet.  Shipping companies are not yet flocking to the Northwest Passage, they are still testing the waters.

I have to congratulate the management of Fednav for deciding to make this voyage.  I sailed in the ice with Captain Randy Rose years ago when we were both junior watchkeepers onboard MV Arctic.  He is a fine Newfoundlander with decades of high arctic ice experience.  As a Canadian, I like to see Canadian owned ships proudly sailing our waters, and that includes the Northwest Passage.  If you come our way in the coming days, give us a call Randy.  It’s still lonely up here, it’s just you guys and us and a few fulmars in our wake.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #6 – Arctic Science Continues

We are just past the mid point in RV Mirai’s 2104 Arctic research voyage.  As of noon today 127 standard radiosondes have been launched since we departed Dutch Harbor on the 30th of August.  Seven of those also carried ozone sensors and another seven dedicated ozone sensor balloons. Five HYVIS balloons have been launched.  There have been sixty CTD/rosette casts, thirty-seven expendable CTDs launched, 119 TurboMap casts, three multi-core sediment samples taken and two Surface Velocity Profiler buoys deployed.  The research will not end when we depart the Fixed Point Station on 23rd of September.  Numerous other stations will be occupied and other observations will be made to further collect valuable data.  Only the intensity will reduce somewhat as we begin to think about heading back across the Pacific to conclude this voyage in Yokohama on the 10th of October.

We have not been alone in this research cruise.  Also in the Beaufort/Chukchi Sea region Canada’s icebreaker/research ship CCGS Amundsen and Korea’s Araon have also been hard at work.  Amundsen steamed close by on the 17th, whistles were blown and photos taken as she passed by, fittingly I thought for two Arctic research ships, in the midst of a snow squall.  I chatted with Amundsen’s Captain Alain Gariépy on VHF as they had just completed recovery of one of two JAMSTEC moorings and were headed to recover and replace the second mooring before returning to the pack interface for other studies before heading eastward and home to Quebec later this month. 

Thus far for Mirai we have seen little ice. That is of course by design, as the Chief Scientist wanted a location that he could maintain for two to three weeks without the threat of being pushed off station by ice.  Generally, the pack edge has been further south than in the first few years of this decade.  2013 and 2104 have been bucking the trend of “least ice years”, part of the cyclical nature of sea ice regardless of global climate change. 

Locally, as an Ice Navigator, I have found it interesting that we began our voyage concerned with a tongue of ice that extended eastward from the polar pack well west of our planned fixed point of observation and over the last week we have been circled by another tongue of ice extending eastwards from the pack on the other side of our fixed point.  The first eastward pointing mass moved predominantly under the influence of the Beaufort gyre, that ever-present Arctic ocean current that rotates in a counter clockwise motion, generally driving what ice that is present in the Arctic Ocean towards the Canadian Archipelago.  The second mass of ice was driven by the consistent east winds that have been blowing for several days now as a low sits more or less stationary to the north of us.  Winds have been east of northeast 20 kts and above since 14th. These have been two totally different contributors to sea ice movement.  We have seen some ice, isolated ice cakes less than 10m across, rotting old ice, but nothing substantial.

Sitting under the influence of the stationary low these last few days, we have been enduring strong easterly and northeasterly winds, which yesterday were up to 40 knots.  Seas have been between two and three and a half metres but still RV Mirai continues to successfully complete overside CTD/rosette casts.  She is a very sea kindly ship, and since she is fitted with twin screws, two bowthrusters and a stern thruster she can safely maintain station in conditions that would challenge other ships.  That combined with the very effective active roll stabilizing system make for an extremely effective ocean research platform. 

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #5 – Weather Station Mirai

In my first blog from RV Mirai during the 2014 voyage I wrote of the primary mission: the coordinated collection of meteorological observations from an international fleet of Arctic research ships and a number of Arctic shore observation stations.  We are now well into the coordinated observation period and have been at “Weather Station Mirai” at 74º45’N 162º00’W, about 225 nautical miles northwest of Point Barrow.  I find it interesting that my Coast Guard career began in 1979 as a deckhand onboard CCGS Vancouver, one of two 404ft “weatherships” that maintained station on “weather station Papa” in the North Pacific up until 1981 and today I sail as Ice Navigator on one of a new generation of weather observing ships far north in the Arctic Ocean.

This morning our solitary existence was broken as CCGS Amundsen passed to the north of us on her mission, presently focused on retrieving valuable subsurface observation moorings and deploying replacements.  Amundsen has also been contributing to the Arctic Research Collaboration for Radiosonde Observing System (ARCROSE) 2014 study by launching two radiosondes per day.

The ARCROSE concentrated meteorological observation cruise came out of studies of several events in past years, one in which detailed observations of a polar low development were obtained from icebreaker Polarstern in 2009, another of an Arctic cyclone observed by RV Mirai in 2010, and the fixed point observations made by RV Mirai in 2013.  During each of the events there was a lack of data to support the single point observers other than some shore based meteorological observations.  The lack of additional data clearly hindered researchers in their data assimilation phase in order to improve weather forecasting models.  The ARCROSE 2014 experiment aims to fill in the data gaps.  The ultimate objective is to improve sea ice forecasting along the future sea routes and forecasting of extreme meteorological events in the Arctic.

Mirai is the only Arctic operating ship equipped with automatic radiosonde launching equipment and Doppler weather radar.  A Doppler radar uses reflectivity to estimate the water amount in the atmosphere and Doppler velocity to estimate wind.  The Doppler radar scans continuously 24 hours a day.  Since taking up station we have been launching radiosondes every three hours.  In addition, water column samples are taken 4 times daily using the CTD/rosette and expendable CTDs (XCTD) are deployed during radiosonde launches that do not coincide with rosette deployment.  The water column data is then matched against the atmospheric data for additional comparative analysis.

We are working in the Arctic for the first time with Mirai’s newly installed Doppler radar.  As Masaki Katsumata explained, the new system installed to replace the original radar is mounted almost 2m higher than the previous unit, well above the funnel on the port side aft, removing a blind sector that occurred with the older unit. The new system uses a larger 4m scanner that is dual polarized, which means it transmits and receives both conventional horizontally polarized beam and vertical polarized.  Where a horizontal polarization can provide target width only, the vertical component allows for a measure of target height thereby providing a more definitive shape.  This allows for a more accurate algorithmic calculation of rainfall rate.  It is hoped that the system will be better capable of determining differences between rain, ice, snow and graupel. The HYdrometer VIdeo Sonde (HYVIS) radiosondes are being launched periodically to ground truth the new radar comparing the video pictures obtained with the radar return analysis.

Ashore, supercomputers are already at work on the data that is being collected from the Canadian, Swedish, German, Japanese and Korean ships (since I first wrote on this mission Korea’s icebreaker “Araon” has joined the project and is launching two radiosondes per day), American aircraft and the shore stations. It’s a pretty hefty coordination of data collection, and more importantly, data assimilation at the end of it all. 

A far bigger picture will be available to the researchers that undoubtedly will assist in improving prediction models, and make things safer for mariners intending to operate in the Arctic region.  Too often, rapidly forming and devastatingly powerful polar lows suddenly pop into existence, un-forecast and wreaking havoc on unsuspecting mariners.  Better understanding of sea ice formation, movement and degradation would certainly be important to develop as well in my opinion.  Collecting real time data to enable far more reliable and realistic forecasts of extreme polar events and sea ice are a worthy scientific endeavour.

RV Mirai’s newly installed Doppler Weather Radar

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #4 – Ignore the ice at your own peril

Though RV Mirai is presently working an ice-free area of the Chukchi Sea, an area selected for just that reason, it is readily apparent that all around us ice continues to be a challenge to Arctic shipping. 

In the central Canadian Arctic the Northwest Passage has been blocked with heavy multi-year ice, experiencing yet another “bad ice year”.  The heavy multi-year ice that has clogged McClintock Channel and surrounding waters has even affected the highly publicized search for remains of Sir John Franklin’s ships lost in the 1850s.  The Canadian research flotilla led by CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier was forced by the heavy ice to concentrate their efforts well outside their intended search area.  In this case, the refocus of search forced by the ice ultimately resulted in leading to the discovery of what is now believed to be the remains of either HMS Terror or Erebus.

Other news reports over the last weeks have indicated commercial shipping is re-examining the potential of routing regularly through the Northern Sea Route.  After highly publicized expeditionary voyages by a number of vessels over the last few years and the real numbers are being tallied up, the mileage savings in routing through potentially ice infested waters has not been as profitable as initial calculations suggested.  The variability of ice conditions still affect voyage plans as would unexpected motorway closures to scheduled bus routes.  The operators simply cannot guarantee on time delivery when the exact route and speeds cannot be assured.  In addition, major marine insurers have recently advised that they remain extremely cautious with respect to underwriting polar voyages.

As I carefully review ice charts and imagery, I have noticed that it appears the polar pack has already ended its annual degradation and melt.  Mid-week TOPAZ charts clearly indicated the beginning consolidation of the pack ice and virtually a cessation of the retreat northward of the primary ice edge, both signs of the turn.  The IARC Arctic Sea Extent ice graph just issued 07 September indicates, if not a cessation of reduction in overall Arctic ice cover, at least the near bottoming out at minimum.  My bet is the “minimum” point will be declared by the middle of next week and it will have been earlier this year than 2103 by perhaps a week.  This places both 2013 and 2104 within the averages of the first decade of the millennium and with greater ice extent than the minimums around 2010. 

In no way do I suggest that this is an attempt to debunk climate change.  I merely point out (as I must with clients very often), that yet again ice conditions are variable and in many ways remain cyclical from good to bad ice years.  One good ice year, not even several good ice years, does not foretell an end to ice as we know it, and that even in the proven incremental downward trend in Arctic ice cover, the cycles remain.  Easy ice-free sailing is not immediately upon us. Mariners must still be cognizant of the variability and be prepared to be stopped dead in their tracks by ice where last year there was none.

The remains of one of Franklin’s ships discovered in the past days is testament to the ongoing cyclical nature of sea ice.  Contrary to Sir John Parry’s furthest west voyage into the western reaches of McClure Strait in the early 1800’s, Sir John Franklin’s two ships were helplessly trapped in heavy ice well short of the same region just a few decades later. 

Franklin and his men paid the ultimate price for underestimating the ice.  Modern mariners should not make the same error in underestimating polar ice.

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RV Mirai Arctic Mission 2014 Post #3 – Is Anyone Out There?

In this modern world of instant communications, cloud computing and Google answers to any question within a second, we find ourselves almost lost when part of the network fails us. We take for granted the ability to connect, to converse, to problem solve, to be aware of what is happening around the globe until we lose even the smallest piece of connectivity. In so many ways we are spoiled. And so it is onboard RV Mirai in the Chukchi Sea. Having taken up station at 74º45’N 162º00’W, about 225 nautical miles NW of Point Barrow Alaska, we are at the end of the communications thread. No longer are we so completely connected to the world. We are at arms reach and will remain so until the 26th of September when we depart our “Weather Station Mirai” and begin the final phase of cruise MR14-05.

I am not sure of the percentage of the globe that is covered by very reliable communications networks, whether it is land based hard wired, cellular or satellite communications, but it is far from 100%. Experienced as I am in polar operations, I am aware of the gaps at the poles. Systems such as INMARSAT that provide the backbone of marine communications are based on geo-stationary satellites that are positioned to provide coverage to the most frequently travelled oceans. The two gap areas are the two poles.

A cursory glance at published coverage maps will provide anyone with an understanding of the gaps at the poles presented by the conventional geo-stationary satellites. Certainly, there are other methods of communication than the broadband connectivity of the INMARSAT system. Some are prohibitively expensive, only within the realms of billion-dollar hydrocarbon exploration, for example. Of course, Medium and High Frequency (MF-HF) radio, when not adversely affected by solar activity, is the ultimate fallback. Other satellite systems such as Iridium with it’s constellation of low earth orbiting satellites provides the footprint over the poles, but it’s low data transfer rate precludes the luxury of broad band and instant communication.

To be honest, Mirai is not totally disconnected. We still have MF/HF radio facsimile, GMDSS type C satellite connection, and VSat that allows for connection on demand and thus limited email connectivity. No satellite TV that can be dialed in were we just a few hundred miles further over…there. Data comes and goes at much slower rates. As the Ice Navigator onboard I still receive ice charts forwarded by the Martech Polar office, but they are routed through a lone bridge terminal after manual connections and data transfers are made. It feels as if we are relying on steam driven technology. Just a few days ago my trusty MacBook would announce an incoming chart or message. But for the next two weeks the conveniences of sitting at my desk composing and instantly sending messages off the ship, receiving replies in near real time and even direct internet access to FTP sites for quick data transfer are out of reach.

We sit in a position just a little too far north and right between the Pacific and Atlantic VSats, out of reach of both.

When I first voyaged to the Arctic all we had was MF/HF radio. Satellite communication barely existed in the 1980’s. We departed home port in Victoria, British Columbia, the first of July and returned mid-October. We were lucky to get a static filled and fading radio telephone call home once a week, or if a HAM radio connection could be made a ship-to-shore call that way. We even still relied on keyed Morse! Mail, REAL snail mail was our communication. And snail mail it was. Often mailbags sent from down south would follow us around the Arctic, being forwarded to successive DEW line stations as we patrolled the archipelago, so often arriving after we left the area, eventually catching us somewhere.

Global communication has come a long way since then. However, even along the Arctic coasts of Eurasia and North America within the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route there are vast gaps in INMARSAT coverage, and even the shore based VHF and MF radio is not complete. Though a good portion of the southern polar regions do enjoy the almost constant broad band connectivity taken for granted in lower latitudes, the poles remain remote, and the end of the thread of communication. When we are up here, we cannot forget that. At the end of the communication thread is also the end of the logistics thread, the end of the repair and rescue threads. It surprises some, but not those who are prepared. When you voyage here, you voyage truly in the most remote seas on the planet.

Time to put this on a thumb drive, wander up to the bridge and have the Second Officer attach it to the outgoing packet. Does anyone know who won last Saturday’s game