By Hayley Hung, INCATPA The IPY INCATPA (INterContinental Atmospheric Transport of Anthropogenic Pollutants to the Arctic) project has completed its first results workshop, held in Toronto, Canada, from September 31 - October 2, 2008. The workshop was attended by 34 participants and partners including international collaborators from China, Vietnam, Russia, U.S. and U.K. Presentations, discussions and activities during the 3-day workshop focused on current status of sampling activities, challenges and strategies for the next several months. Timelines were built for data submission and QA/QC. Achievements that were highlighted at the workshop included: Air sampling activities for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and mercury (Hg) have been ini...

Hayley Hung writes: The last two days have been relatively quiet and uneventful. Everyone was disappointed as the ship was overcome by fog yesterday, making the expedition to Banks Island unfeasible. Everyone was trying to finish working on their last samples and pack away equipment. The crew lowered the tower on the front deck so that the meteorological equipment can be removed. Sylvia and I wrestled with the wires, nuts and bolts on the tower for several hours. The rough sea and rain made every step so much more difficult. With Stephanie Moore’s (Dalhousie University) help, we finally got all the wires off the tower but we were completely soaked by rain. There were still several wires that ran along the starboard side of the ship that should be removed. However,...

Hayley Hung writes: Amanda and I finished working at the rosette the night before at 4 a.m. At around 9:30 am, I heard my name announced on the P.A. system saying that I was expected at the flight deck?! Rushing out of bed, I’ve got a call from Gary saying that the captain and he would like to scout out Banks Island for a possible excursion for the scientists to hike the highest point in the Western Arctic, Durham Heights (724 m), before ending the leg. Nurse, Ève Bolduc, and I were honoured to be invited to join them on the helicopter ride. Setting out at 10 am, the helicopter headed towards the rugged southern cliffs of Banks Island. The landscape was very dramatic with high-rising cliffs bordering plateaus carved out by rivers and dotted with ponds. Several herds of mu...

Hayley Hung writes: The work schedule came out around midnight last night but did not last very long. The wind changed direction and it became unsafe to deploy the rosette. The nutrient rosette originally scheduled for 6:15 was cancelled. This is frustrating as the nutrient data are essential in performing correlations with other scientific data collected at a specific location. Unfortunately, we had to leave the region of Tuktoyaktuk without this data. I had a very good night of sleep though. Tony and Patrick filmed me taking an air sample at the bow. Everyone has started planning packing up. As this is the last leg of CFL and the ship will be used by the Inuit Health Survey, most of the laboratories, fridges and freezers have to be cleared out. There was a party o...

Hayley Hung writes: We woke up to more “rock n’ rolling” this morning. I wonder why they use office chairs with wheels on the ship... I was literally sliding from one side of the room to the other while working on my computer. The wind finally subsided in the afternoon and the sun reappeared around dinner time (17:00)… the rapidly changing face of the Beaufort Sea! Now that the rosette is finally working, we are playing catch-up this evening. It is already 21:42 (Mountain time) and there is still no schedule as of what work is to be done tonight. I am waiting for the nutrient rosette to go down for Amanda’s water samples; hopefully, around midnight. If not, may be another night of endless waiting…At least, everyone is excited that finally some work can be d...

Hayley Hung writes: To everyone's surprise, it was and still is extremely stormy today. The weather forecast said 25 C and sunny!! It was in fact raining with ice pellets, cloudy and 30 knots of wind gusting to 40+ knots. The ship was rocking back and forth like a leaf! Many people felt dizzy. All the rosette work was cancelled. When lowering a mooring, one of the shackles broke, losing part of the mooring to the bottom of the ocean. Luckily, this part was replaceable. There is a strong low pressure over the Beaufort Sea area as INCATPA team member, meteorologist Jianmin Ma, indicated in his comments on the blog earlier. We may need to move further back into the gulf b...

Hayley Hung writes: The ship was close to Tuktoyaktuk today. Many scientists took the barge and helicopter to the river delta to collect samples. Very quiet day for me to concentrate on the Arctic air concentration data of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) that I did not manage to work on back in the office. Gary, the captain and Tony went to Inuvik to find Tony’s luggage which was lost on his way up to the Amundsen. Poor Tony has been borrowing clothes from people for the whole last week. Tony was so happy when he showed up at the bar tonight in his new found wardrobe! ...

Hayley Hung writes: Since the rosette has not been functioning properly for several days now, most people have been working in the laboratories on samples previously collected and preparing for upcoming sampling. During this time, several moorings were deployed and a few net tows were collected. My air sampling has been working very well though. I had an interview with Anthony (Tony) Christopher and Patrick Ellison (Anthony Christopher Productions) who are filmmakers producing a documentary on the Amundsen. Despite the lovely sun, it was extremely windy and cold on the front deck where we did the interview. We were literally yelling at each other. The topic was mainly on contaminants transport to the Arctic and how climate change may affect such movement. ...

Hayley Hung writes: A very quiet day, most people stayed up through the night. When we got up, the rosette was once again not working. The conductivity-depth-temperature (CTD) acquisition system and pH sensors were not functioning and the pump turned off after reaching a certain depth. Scientists relying on the water samples were very frustrated. The ship cannot move further west out of the gulf as planned since the forecast showed 25 knots of wind west of Banks Island. We continued to retrieve moorings deployed in the last 2 years. New moorings were deployed for continued measurements. We had a big party and the theme was Camper's Christmas. I did not know what this was all about until Veronique explained that it is a Quebec tradition for RV campers to have Christma...

Hayley Hung writes: I took an air sample today and started working on some calculations for an article and the Dioxin meeting in Birmingham one week after I disembark. The rosette has been broken for the last two days. Veronique Lago, my roommate, is the rosette operator. She has been very busy trying to get it restarted. In fact, she has not been sleeping for more than 2 hours at any one time for the last 24 hours!! Amanda’s water samples were supposed to be taken at 10 pm. Due to the delays in repairing the rosette, we stayed up till 4:30 am to finish the sampling. The sun was finally here in the evening!! After so many gloomy days! Backed by an amazing hue of pink and golden twilight, it moved halfway down towards the horizon and came back up at around 2:30 am -...