Back at Sea (updated with pix and video)

From Mindy, dated 7 Jan:

A day at sea while we head to Elephant Island.  We awoke to light winds (10 knots) and grey skies, with the ship cruising at a steady 12.5 knots.  The air was about 4.5 degrees C, water temp 2.8 C, barometer dropping to about 990.

A lecture at sea (click to enlarge)

Days at sea are filled with lectures, workshops, and time to get ourselves prepared for landing days to come.  At 9am, after a hearty breakfast, we had a lecture from Tim and Pauline Carr who shared with us more of their adventures from South Georgia Island.  One of the most interesting notes I took from their talk was the explanation for the name Grypviken (where Tim and Pauline curated the whaling and nature museum for 16 years).  Grypviken is named after the tri-pots that the whalers used to cook down the blubber of the whales.  They were thick black iron pots that sat over fires on the beach.  The early whalers used penguins to start the fires because their feathers burned easily and their fat little bodies cooked well in the fire (horrible, I know, but you can't make this stuff up) (that may be the most terrible thing I've ever read - Ed.).  When early explorers established Grypviken as a more permanent whaling and science base, there were already abandoned tri-pots on the shore, hence the name.

Next Jim Danzenbaker gave a recap of our bird sightings so far, and acquainted us with some new seabirds that we will see as we get closer to Antarctica.  So far the most spotted birds we've seen are the wandering albatross, black-browed albatross, storm petrel, southern giant petrel, pintado petrel, blue petrel, white-chinned petrel, Antarctic prion, light-mantled sooty albatross, and common diving petrel.  As we move further south we should see the Southern diving petrel, the snow petrel, the Antarctic petrel, more pintado petrels, the southern fulmar, the Wilson's storm petrel, and the south polar skua (there will be a quiz later - Ed.).  So far the only bird I can definitively pick out in flight is the pintado petrel, but I'm working on getting better!

Ian Dalziel's lecture (click to enlarge)

Next we heard from Ian Dalziel about the geology of the South Georgia micro continent.  He traced what we know of the history of the rocks, from the breakup of Gandwanaland to  the Northeast Georgia Rise impinging on South Georgia Island to create compression and uplift (hence the reason for South Georgia Island's impressive mountains at approximately 3000 meters high).  He also spoke about the enigma of the Central Scotia Sea, and how it doesn't have the same features in it as the adjacent seas (West Scotia Sea and East Scotia Sea).  You might recall from my notes on Jan 2 that several geologists honored a fellow geologist who had passed away... His name is Peter Barker, and the enigma of the Central Scotia Sea was what he spent a lot of his time figuring out.  Ian's lecture today was in memory of Peter Barker (1939-2012).

Our next lecture was fascinating, as we learned from Michael Moore (again, not that one - Ed.) about Marine Mammals, diving, and the effects of sonar.  There is a huge variability between species on dive depths and frequencies.  We learned that elephant seals (which look like huge lazy blobs on the beach) (kind of like me - Ed.) are possibly the elite athletes of the oceans (not kind of like me - Ed.), diving to great depths and spending nearly 90% of their dive time deeper than 10 meters below.  We also learned that some recent sonar experiments suggest that whales react to strong sonar signals in the same way they react to Orca calls (killer whales).  Another super interesting fact is that whales don't necessarily exhale the same way that divers do when they dive... Whales actually need some gas (air) in their lungs to make their echolocation noise, so they recycle the gas back and forth across the muscles that make the clicking noises.

Rob Dunbar spoke next about Sea Ice and Why it Matters.  Did you know that new sea ice is soft and salty, and 3rd year ice is drinkable (Ummm...pass - Ed.).  Seasonal ice (that melts each year) is very different in the life it is able to support. Sea ice systems are the single largest ecosystems on earth, supporting algae diatoms, crustaceans, worms, and other bacteria.  Sea ice can fix (take up) 2-12 grams of carbon per square meter per year (that's a lot). The bacteria growing in sea ice is the food for krill, and krill are very important to many food webs.  One last interesting point is that when we see less sea ice in the Arctic, this means more moisture is entering the atmosphere and this leads to more snow in Europe.

The last lecture of the evening was from Richard Alley about climate change and some of the good news about what lies ahead as we adapt to climate change (like jobs, more reliable energy supplies, etc).  He recognizes that there are no magic bullets.  There are major hurdles to overcome in order to enact solutions, and there are big equity issues with who gets the advantages (or who is able to deal with the climate changes before we actually adapt).  A thought-provoking point is to consider how much money we've spent on national parks and land conservation... As ecosystems change because the climate is changing, whole species of plants and animals will try to move with the moving climate zones (maybe 100s of miles north) and now those new places might be where a city or a cornfield is located... How will we then continue to conserve those ecosystems??  His last point was intriguing and was about the uncertainty in what we know of climate change... He says that if you include the uncertainty in the scientific conclusions, then this should motivate more action now... "the less you trust me, the more you should do."

Sunset at sea (click to enlarge)

And after a long day of brilliant lectures, we had a good night's sleep leading into another day at sea.  Beautiful sunset tonight... Might mean strong seas tomorrow (This is what literature experts call foreshadowing, I think - Ed.) ...