Deployment: NBP0901

Three international science projects were accommodated on NB Palmer cruise 09-01. O-274, entitled
’Amundsen Sea Influence on West Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability and Sea Level Rise,’ (S Jacobs, A Jenk-
ins & H Hellmer, PIs) seeks to better understand ocean forcing on ice shelf, ice stream and sea ice change,
and the sources of ocean freshening. Its several related subcomponents included setting out time series
moorings to record temperature, salinity and currents over a period of two years; repeat profiling of water
column properties on and near the Amundsen continental shelf; using the UK ’Autosub’ to map thermoha-
line properties, currents and dimensions of the Pine Island Ice Shelf cavity; modeling the ocean circulation;
sampling the sea ice, setting out drifters and mass balance buoys and recording sea ice properties underway;
swath-mapping the sea floor; and outreach photography and video. B-244, ’Shedding Dynamic Light on Iron
Limitation,’ (K Arrigo, PI), a US/Netherlands/Canada project, sampled surface and subsurface waters to
300 m with trace metal clean equipment/methods to assess the influence of iron and light on phytoplankton
productivity and species distribution. The goal of O-261, ’Sampling the ocean-sea ice interaction in the
Pacific center of the Antarctic Dipole,’ (X Yuan and J Sprintall, PIs) was to set a deep mooring northwest of
the Amundsen Sea continental shelf to monitor the upper ocean role and response in ENSO teleconnections,
complemented by German work near the Atlantic Dipole in the Weddell Sea.

CruiseTrack and Stations Image