Atmospheric analysis

13 March 2018Twice a day at 1pm and 8.30 pm Sean Hartery, NIWA, and Peter Kuma, University of Canterbury, head for the Fantail at the very back of the ship to release their weather balloons.

11 March 2018 Today we found NIWA’s Andrew Marriner hard at work in the Ocean-Atmosphere Container Lab and asked him to explain his work onboard.

9 March 2018In the back of Karl Safi’s lab, where we found him working in the semi-dark, is a very futuristic looking piece of kit called the Radially Aligned Linear Photosynthetron (RALPH).

10 March 2018To verify the identities of animals we see on the DTIS camera, we use an epibenthic sled to collect physical samples of animals from the seafloor.

8 March 2018The Benthic team have been observing and identifying animals living on the seabed at Long Ridge, north of the Ross Sea.

Climate scientists and glaciologists are taking to the skies this week to find out how New Zealand’s glaciers are faring following this summer’s record-breaking warmth.

6 March 2018Today the screaming sixties are living up to their name. We are at 67°S, just east of Scott Island, and deck work has been suspended temporarily while we weather a storm.

5 March 2018Sean Hartery, a PhD student from Canterbury University based at NIWA, is collecting samples and data for two main areas of atmospheric research while he is out here in the Ross Sea: ice nuclei and aerosols.

4 March 2018On Friday the sun shone for the first time in a while, and we sailed close to our second proper iceberg of the voyage.

1 March 2018The University of Auckland Cetacean Ecology Team (aka the Whale Team) has been waiting patiently for the last few weeks for an opportunity to get close to some whales.

28 February 2018We are slowly zigzagging our way north up Iselin Bank as the mesopelagic team have been running their giant fish finder, the EK60.

When NIWA fisheries scientist Richard O’Driscoll went to sea earlier this year, he and his team measured so many fish that laid end to end, they would have stretched for 31km.