On board the Roger Revelle

We build my new home with the sweat of hairy men and hoary women: loading of the Roger Revelle has commenced. Yesterday, the ship put into port after two months at sea, having just finished traversing the South Pacific. During today’s loading frenzy, I harrowed the hairy men with constant filming, and they would say to me, “Where are you from?” And I would gently offer back, “Los Angeles!” And they would say, “Well, we just came from San Diego.” Long story short: out with the old scientists, in with the new scientists, calloo callay.

I have been assigned a modest cabin on the lower deck of the ship. It’s a good bit roomier than my expectations, and, more concretely, than my freshman year dorm. It’s also much less smelly with the regrettable absence of Mr. Banka. Man that guy poops a lot! Plus, I’ve got my own toilet—on boats they’re called ‘heads’—it’s to the left of the photo. Cabin 2-22-3 is quite nice, overall, with the main drawback being the neighboring sonar, which generates a zesty ‘ping!’ noise every few seconds.

This is the main corridor, facing the front of the ship. To the right (starboard) is the main lab, to the left (port) are a series of smaller specialized labs. I’m still getting accustomed to seaman’s lingo. I will have to ask what the ‘larboard’ side is.

Here are a few photos of the ship; first from the port, second from the gangway (in the lower left corner you can see Joseph, the second mate), and third from aft deck facing Dunedin, New Zealand. As you can tell, the boat is rather large and luxurious; I am reminded somewhat of that ski resort in The Shining. Just wait until I post some photos of the kitchen and mess hall, the huge food storage locker, and the humungous ballroom. And if I went crazy to boot, that would be such a creepy coincidence.



I will update with more photos and words over the next few days; we set sail on Sunday. I will be rather busy these next few days drinking as much liquor as possible. SIO vessels do not allow beer, ale, wine, vodka, rum, champagne, whiskey, smirnoff ice, hypnotiq, white russians, or long island ice teas on board. In fact, no alcohol at all is permitted.

And a last thing... just something I’ve noticed about New Zealand: I’ve never before seen a sky so cliche.

Guest writer Pien weighs in

This update comes from Guest Writer Pien Huang, or "Pien" as she's known down south. Anyway, here is her post, verbatim, for which I take no responsibility. If you have a beef with it, or her, then whatever:

Everybody knows that there are more sheep than people in New Zealand. What they don’t tell you is that there are NO (native) people in New Zealand, only millions of sheep eating flowers at the base of dramatic avalanche-ridden landscapes (tree-, rock-, or snowfall), a few cows and a giant pigeon (the second biggest pigeon species in the world, says Cassandra) sprinkled here and there. There are, at least, no people on the route we took through the southern South Island, from Queenstown to Te Anau to Milford Sound and west to Dunedin. All of our waitresses were from the American mid-west, and the crowds we encountered were predominantly Japanese.

On our return boat trip from the glowworm caves in Te Anau (pitch dark like I’ve never seen before, illuminated by a thousand glows from the butt-end of hungry fungus gnat flies-- Arachnocampa luminosa --larvae; they entangle insects in suspended lines of mucus, reel them up, paralyze them, and feast) we had a nice chat with a retired schoolteacher from Yorkshire, who regaled us with stories of pitching his friend’s car off a Kiwi cliff (he was grateful for missing the crash barrier, because that would have really damaged the car; he’s still driving it, after several thousand dollars in repairs), digging sandfly bits out of his skin, and getting rollicking drunk and sleeping it off, all over the world. He also imparted evidence of early Chinese feats and their impact on world history from his newest read, 1421, and told us about the underground power plant he’d toured earlier that day. He was having a grand, if lonely, time, and he might have talked forever if he hadn’t had to pick up a tomato at the grocer before it closed, to complement the can of sardines he was carting around. The tab had fallen off, and he was planning to pierce it with a fork. In less than an hour, we learned more about Jim than about any Kiwi we’d (n)ever encounter (and maybe even more than we knew about each other).

So: in all of our driving, we’ve seen thousands of, maybe millions, of sheep, in various shades of white. When it rains, the shaved ones (the whitest ones) cling miserably to the property lines, delineated by a single row of trees, for shelter. I vaguely wondered whether there were any black sheep, and on the stretch of road from Queenstown to Te Anau, I saw a whole trio of them. Nobody else saw it. It was as if I had willed them into being through my mild curiosity. Relegated to the backseat on subsequent stretches of road, with Regina Spektor on repeat, I developed the insatiable urge to repeat that experience, as if recurring would make it more valid, or real. There were several fruitless days. On the drive west to Dunedin, a huddle of sheep seemed so familiar that I suddenly realized that the trio I’d seen had been merely gray. Not only were they typical, they were incredibly dirty, which made them sub-typical. I came to be convinced that, in my desire to see them, my senses had deceived me. I came to doubt that I had ever witnessed the real thing; meanwhile, Cassandra confirmed that a bird we saw on the first day was indeed her extremely large pigeon. Black sheep seem specifically to elude me.

From Te Anau...

I am writing from the Te Anau Laundromat/Internet shop on main street. Just returned from Milford Sound, a fancy little fiord with millions of waterfalls. The best part was when we briefly reached the end of the fiord, where the Tasmanian Sea begins. Quite rough water! Was like riding one of those Viking boats at a rollercoaster park. I think I can handle 30-foot seas.

Yesterday we went to the Aurora Caves... inside is a place called the Glowworm Grotto, quite amazing! Very dark inside, ceiling speckled with thousands of glowworms, like looking at the night sky. That's their evolutionary advantage, actually; insects lost inside the caves try to get out when they see the stars, but get trapped by the glowworm's sticky threads. The glowworms make food come to them... the tour guide said they're some of the laziest creatures in the world. If only I could make pizza come to me.....

The Carbon Cycle

Repeat hydrography surveys measure carbon, hydrographic, and other trace elements. The data gathered supports the development of an ocean and global climate forecasting model. The types of studies conducted on I8S will include carbon system studies, heat and freshwater storage and flux studies, deep water mass and ventilation studies (tracer measurement), and calibration of autonomous sensors for developing technologies.

In the next few paragraphs, I’ll cite and summarize part of a statement of purpose written by Jim Swift, the chief scientist and organizer of the first leg of the I8S study. I don’t fully understand all this stuff, of course, but I’ll further clarify the purpose and methods involved in obtaining these data.

The carbon cycle, like the relatively well-known water cycle, describes the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, and the biosphere (freshwater systems, living organisms, non-living organic material, and sediments). It’s pretty complicated, I guess, but being able to measure the change in carbon content of the oceans over time tells a lot about the air-sea CO2 flux, helps predict long-term climate change, and furthermore describes man’s influence on the rate of change by comparison with pre-industrial data, and by tracking CO2 measurements in newer versus older (deeper) water.

The carbon system studies on this vessel offer a useful diagnosis of oceanic carbon transport, particularly through interhemispheric carbon exchange to model for large scale effects of global warming on the ocean’s biogeochemistry, whether due to changes in stratification, circulation, or perturbations such as a change in the dust eposition on the ocean’s surface. Additionally, the study will measure partial pressure of CO2 in surface water to assess air-sea CO2 exchange, which is an indicator of changes in the function of the biological pump in surface waters.

One of the major findings of CLIVAR/CO2 is the acidification of the oceans. This is caused by the introduction of carbon dioxide to the ocean; carbon dioxide reacts with water to produce carbonic acid, which is a forward and reverse reaction in equilibrium. But when CO2 is introduced in excess, carbonic acid breaks down into hydrogen ions and bicarbonate, which lowers the pH.

The acidification of the oceans results in all sorts of hell breaking loose, notably including the destruction of the corals. But I personally wonder whether sushi tastes even better as a result? Tangy!

Why go to Antarctica?

Some of you may be wondering why a skinny guy like me would dare creep about the Southern Ocean. A certain Jacob K. speculated that I chose to go to Antarctica just for "Danparktica." Not so, Mr. K! I chose the blog name post-facto. Although it may seem like more than just a coincidence that my name rhymes with "Ant-arc," it's not merely fate. Aisha M. noted that I could work my name into any pun, a "surprisingly impressive talent." She's right, it is impressive. In fact, though you may have thought I'd explain why I chose to go to Antarctica, I will instead provide a list of blog titles I considered before choosing "Danparktica":

Pun Considerations
-- Antarctiblog
-- Dan's Arctiblog
-- Danparktiblog
-- Dance Parktiblog
-- Dance Parky!!!
-- Master and Commander: The Park Side of the World
-- The March of the Park-guins
-- An Inconvenient Trip

Sandflies

What is a sandfly? I hadn't heard of them until Pien told us a story about how they lay eggs in your skin... and when the eggs hatch, they leave behind permanent gashes. No thanks! So it's long sleeves and pants for me. Except I want a tan... perhaps I will vibrate.

Cassandra thought she saw a sandfly in the car, and so she killed it. Except we couldn't find the corpse, which leads me to believe that sandflies cannot be killed.

Getting to New Zealand...

...was a tribulation! It involved:
-- LAX, the worst airport ever
-- a twelve hour flight made bearable only by watching 'The Departed'
-- NZ Customs seizing our bags
-- NZ Air trying to send my bags to Dunedin and not Queenstown with me... although I wouldn't have been able to correct this had NZ Customs NOT seized my bags
-- a fire alarm that emptied the airport 5 minutes prior to boarding

The nice part is that I get to drive on the left side of the road! The rental car is fun: everything is backwards. The wheel's on the right and the turn signals are on the right of the wheel, so every time I turn, I activate the windshield wipers. Also different here: the toilets flush clockwise and the windshield wiper spray shoots bird shit and not soap.

Infinite Fetch, and other things

About a week ago, I traveled to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla (San Diego), along with Pien and Cassandra. While there, we met with some of the chief scientists and trip organizers for I8S. Jim Swift, Lynne Talley, Joe Reid, etc etc the list of oceanographic rockstars goes on and on, but I'm no name-dropper. Andrew Dickson, Steve Diggs. Etc. These men and women are giants in the field, sure, but that's not a big deal. What's more important is that they cared about me. Worried, even. See here:

Things they said to me:
"There is no safe place on the boat. At any time, a cable could snap and you'd be sliced in two. This one time, I thought I was standing in a safe place, but I almost got sliced in two."

"We're dealing with equipment... it's like a Volkswagen hanging on a string."

"We're going to be at least 7 days from the nearest hospital at any given time. One time a guy had a detached retina, and although we immediately recognized the symptoms and turned around, he still lost his vision."

"There was this one girl who never got over her seasickness... I'd look in on her every day just to check for vital signs."

"If you fall overboard, we only have a few seconds to try and locate your body. No, there's not much of a chance of living if you fall overboard, but it's nice when we can recover the body."

"There's a famous saying... 'The worst thing about seasickness is that you don't die.'"

"There was one scientist who wore those seasickness ear patches every day. You're only supposed to wear them for 4 to 6 days, but he wore them for weeks. He was never the same again."

"One guy did die of seasickness... he starved."

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Another thing I learned about is fetch. Fetch, in oceanographic terms, is the length of water over which a wind can blow. Fetch, along with wind speed, determine wave size. For example, on a lake, the length of the lake is the fetch, and that is not very large compared to, say, the Atlantic Ocean, and as such, the waves produced on a lake are smaller than those in the ocean.

In the Southern Ocean, winds circle west-to-east in an uninterrupted loop around and around Antarctica. It is the only place in the world with infinite fetch. That's where you get "thirty-foot seas" and some of the roughest waters in the world.

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All of this stuff I learned prompted me to start making preparations... just in case. I will present my last Will and Testament shortly.

Welcome!

Hi friends, hello strangers, and welcome to Danparktica, the official blog of my travels to the Southern Ocean and the Ice Continent... it's of me, by me, and for you!

Today I'll introduce you to the cruise--the purpose, the vessel, the people--and a few other tidbits. But first, an itinerary... think of this as a table of contents:

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Itinerary
25 Jan 2007 -- Fly out of Los Angeles.
27 Jan 2007 -- Arrive in Auckland, New Zealand. Immediately fly to Queenstown, NZ.
27-31 Jan 2007 -- Explore Queenstown, Te Anau, and Milford Sound.
31 Jan 2007 -- Arrive in Dunedin, NZ, and begin loading operations.
4 Feb 2007 -- The R/V Roger Revelle sets sail!
18 Mar 2007 -- The R/V Roger Revelle docks at Fremantle, Australia.
19 Mar 2007 -- Fly back to Los Angeles via Sydney.

The meat of the blog, of course, will be cooked during the 6-week cruise from Dunedin to Fremantle (which is near Perth). The ship will steam south to Antarctica before looping around and heading north to the west coast of Australia. I'll be updating via satellite.

The cruise is a part of the United States' contribution to the World Climate Research Program CLIVAR (Climate Variability) Repeat Hydrography Program (http://www.clivar.org/carbon_hydro) and the UNESCO International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project (http://ushydro.ucsd.edu). This particular cruise, called I8S/I9N, will perform a "repeat hydrography" transect from Antarctica to Bangladesh along 95 degrees east longitude. I'll be participating in the first leg of the cruise, I8S, which docks in Fremantle before continuing on to Bangladesh.

I8S is organized by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (http://sio.ucsd.edu) at UC San Diego, and is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (http://www.noaa.gov) and the National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov).

This program is called "repeat hydrography" because it is performed regularly to determine patterns of change over time of the physical properties of water. I8S concerns one part of the Southern Ocean; every year, a different section of the ocean is studied. My cruise is repeating measurements made about a decade ago.

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There are 36 scientists, grad students, and Dan Parks on this cruise, along with 20 additional crew. My job will be to observe, assist, and document (video, still photography, illustrations) the scientists for a public outreach program; I will be working with Pien Huang and Cassandra Lopez, who are concerned with writing articles for journals. I'm just there for a good time! Actually, here:

Dan Park's Mission Statement
1. To put on a few pounds of muscle
2. Convince a few scientists and crew to act in a murder mystery
3. What if a polar bear somehow got lost in Antarctica? I'm going to turn this into a children's book which ends in a penguin-feast
4. Alert the world to the dangers of global warming!!!!!!!!!!!

Check back soon for another update. :) :)