It's expected that some baseball games will be called off "on account of rain." What's not expected is having to stop work for the day "on account of polar bears."
Don't tell that to ISB Senior Research Scientist Mónica Orellana, PhD, however.
She recently returned from an Arctic Summer Cloud Ocean Study (ASCOS) expedition where she and 34 other scientists from 14 countries spent six weeks in the Swedish icebreaker Oden, docked against a nearly four-mile-long ice floe, taking hundreds of air, ice and water measurements. They worked 16 to 20 hours a day both on the ice floe and in their floating home/laboratory. The purpose of the trip was to increase knowledge of clouds and their role in the Arctic, where the climate is changing faster than anywhere else on earth.
Understanding how and when clouds form in the Arctic is critical because in the high Arctic latitudes stratocumulus clouds have a warming effect, contrary to most latitudes where clouds cool the surface by reflecting
What Orellana found on her adventure was both thrilling and frightening.
"It was amazing and extraordinarily beautiful," Orellana said. "I've never seen anything like it and I may never again."
It was also cold, with temperatures ranging from below zero to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. But it wasn't cold enough. The Oden had to travel much farther north than anyone anticipated before the scientists found a large enough ice floe on which to conduct their work.
Orellana's contribution to the expedition involved applying systems biology approaches to understanding what microscopic organic matter was present at the ocean surface and how (or if) that matter contributes to cloud formation.
"We had some very, very interesting findings that will hopefully make a significant contribution to our understanding of cloud formation in the Arctic," Orellana said.
Photos courtesy of ASCOS Expedition members, including Michael Tjernström and Thorsten Mauritsen
Bottom Right: ISB Senior Research Scientist Mónica Orellana, PhD.
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