The Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn will start her cruise in Kirkenes, Norway on October 1st at 8:00am. In Kirkenes, she will upload scientific team and equipment and will sail into the Arctic Ocean for her 30 day voyage, covering vast areas of the polar basin (see map). Up to 40 scientists from many countries will take part in the cruise and will conduct multidisciplinary observations in the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean. This is the seventh and largest NABOS cruise since 2002. Dr. Vladimir Ivanov will be the Chief Scientist during the cruise.

To view larger, click on the map.

The Norwegian ship Jan Mayen was stopped by ice at 80deg68N, 19deg5E in 150m deep water. The ship was heading towards the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System (NABOS) moorings deployed near Svalbard in 2007. They were going to retrieve the moorings this year but were unable to reach them due to the heavy ice. The crew are collecting CTD data instead.

This is one of two NABOS cruises this year. The other cruise will be starting in Kirkenes, Norway on October 1 and will be retrieving and deploying moorings in the Laptev sea from the Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn. Stay tuned for more details coming soon.

Yesterday we finished our CTD stations at complex station Nu 131. A new field of dissolved methane hot spots has been found in the Laptev Sea. This methane anomaly was correlated with geophysical observations.

All the data confirm Natalia´s [Shakhova] previous conclusion that the sub-sea permafrost is not a non-permiable lid for deep methane leakage. This cruise extends the shallow shelf data set to the slope.

We are continuing to take measurement sets in the surface water and air.

~Igor Semiletov

Yesterday we observed the northern lights for the first time during this cruise due to cloudy skies.

This morning we did the last station (N 121) in the East Siberian Sea and we entered the Laptev Sea via the Sannikov Strait.

The next activity is searching the methane seeps along the Yana River paleo valley northward as far as possible until we are hindered by the ice. We hope to be lucky in this methane exploration as we were in the last week at the Indigirka paleo valley. (see map below for locations)

~ Igor

View Larger Map

Yesterday we tried to survey waters around Bennett Island where NOAA satellites detected some mushroom-like structures in the low troposphere earlier this year. We worked on our stations until the wind rose to 25 m per second. Then we had to cancel this survey, moving back to the Indigirka Paleo canyon to learn more about mechanisms for the dissolved methane anomaly formation that we found 5 days ago. After this methane survey is accomplished, we plan to steam westward, entering the Laptev Sea via Sannikov Strait. Then, we plan to conduct a methane survey in the Yana Paleovalley. We will then have data from complex biogeochemical transects along the Lena, Kolyma, Yana, and Indigirka paleo valleys.

Today is the first day of sunny weather we have had - a first in over 30 days at sea!

All the best,
Igor

The motivation for the ISSS-08 was to alleviate the extreme scarcity of observational data on transport and processing of fresh water, heat, carbon, and sediment on the East Siberian Arctic Shelves (ESAS), composed of the Laptev, East-Siberian and the Russian part of Chukchi Sea, which is the most enigmatic and understudied part of the Arctic Ocean.

The ISSS-08 started from Archangel’sk, Russia on August 13th and visited Kirkenes, Norway for mobilization. Today, one month later, we would say that a complex sample and data collection program was already accomplished using two vessels by participants from 12 organizations in Russia, Sweden, USA, and UK.

The main vessel Yacob Smirniskyi traveled the entire length of the Siberian coast from Kirkenes to Herald Canyon, Chukchi Sea and back along the outer shelf. On September 26th, the Yacob Smirniskyi plans to arrive at Kirkenes and do a few additional micro-polygons in East Siberian Arctic Shelf. A side vessel, TB-0012, investigated in detail the Lena River and the eastern shallow Laptev Sea. The total number of complex stations is around two hundred. Continuous sea surface measurements, air-sea measurements/samplings, and greenhouse gas flux observations are also underway along the ship tracks.

At-sea findings included the discovery of several new areas of substantial methane seeps. We also recorded Pacific inflow through Long Strait and Herald Canyon and remnants of salty and cold bottom waters on the East Siberian shelf break.

The ISSS-08 cruise is a the major IPY ship-based program taking place along the entire Eurasian-Arctic continental shelf with combined biogeochemical and geophysical observations.

Igor Semiletov
Chief Scientist