First ice station: ready, set, go! A mass of red-clothed people flooded the ice and was ready to start their measurements – before a polar bear was spotted sitting on the same floe a couple hundred meters from the ship and sniffing around. Everyone was called back inside and we decided on a stricter polar bear protection mode, with additional people watching the bear at all times. A first test to our nerves. But all went well, we were able to successfully conduct our measurements on the ice: snow and ice properties in the footprint of the radiometers standing on the upper deck of the ship. And on the second day of the ice station, the polar bear had taken off, and the ice work could continue with slightly less jittery nerves.

When the excitement doesn’t come from the outside, you have to generate it yourself: on the last ice station day, we accidentally dropped a phone in one of our ice holes (its drilling can be seen in the picture above). The ice was already drilled down to the sea water, so the phone could have simply taken a 4000 m dive, but it got stuck on the icy walls of the hole, and fortunately the crew provided us with long gripping tongs and we could recover the phone. And we’re proud to announce that the phone is still working!

At the ice edge, we met Tara Polar Station, a drifting station for the polar regions, which is starting its first test drift through the Arctic sea ice now. It cannot break ice, so it waited for us at the ice edge, where it was anchored to Polarstern for a short meeting of the captains and so that the Taranauts (as we call them) could come over to Polarstern and get a break from the swaying and wobbling of the Tara Station which is a lot stronger than Polarstern’s roll and pitch.
Later, they just followed in our ice-free path for one and a half days until they were far enough from the ice edge that they can drift through the ice for some time. Yesterday we said goodbye to Tara Polar Station and hope they have a good time drifting on!

Aaaand we’re off to another round: VAMPIRE-2 has started last week on board of the research vessel Polarstern as part of the CONTRASTS campaign. We boarded the ship in Tromsø where our amazing support team (Johanna, Nils, Pavel, and Mario) had already installed and calibrated most of the instruments on the deck of Polarstern the previous days. We set off towards the north and also installed the radiation sensors on a mast at the bow of the ship which now have to be cleaned regularly wearing a life vest and a harness. With all devices up and standing, we finally reached the ice edge yesterday morning and could start measuring sea ice emissivity on top of the ongoing atmospheric measurements. More importantly, we now take every opportunity to go outside and watch the sea ice, its always fluctuating shapes and colors as we pass through it.
Stay tuned to hear of our first ice station coming soon!