UNH Today

在北极，秃鹰像海鸥一样翱翔，它们的数量如此之多. Polar bears swim in the frigid water. And being on the ice, says Cameron Carbone ’20, is like being in another world, on another planet.

许多大三学生并不知道这些第一手的描述. Carbone says more than once that he feels lucky to have been witness to such wonders. In September 2018, he was invited by Dale Chayes, affiliate professor with UNH’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM), to join more than 25 scientists aboard the polar icebreaker the U.S. 海岸警卫队的海利号船冒险驶向北极. The six-week trip was part of a five-year research initiative known as the SODA (Stratified Ocean Dynamics in the Arctic) project, 发射的目的是增加对该地区日益减少的冰原的了解.

“To be able to go into the Arctic Circle onboard an icebreaker and deploy some serious R&D scientific instrumentation on a worldwide project — it was an amazing opportunity.”

The Healy is the U.S.最新、技术最先进的破冰船. With 4,200平方英尺的科学实验室空间, 最多可容纳50名科学家, 它也是海岸警卫队最大的研究船.

“我知道这将是一次终生难忘的旅行，”卡邦说. “To be able to go into the Arctic Circle onboard an icebreaker and deploy some serious R&D scientific instrumentation on a worldwide project — it was an amazing opportunity.”

Carbone worked at CCOM during the summer to help Chayes prepare for the trip. The ocean engineering major had no thoughts of actually going along; he was a part-time employee helping a researcher. In the fall, he would resume his classes. But then Chayes told Carbone there was room on the ship if he wanted to make the voyage.

“我不得不放弃秋季学期来做这件事, but it was totally worth the tradeoff,” the Sterling, Massachusetts, native says. “It put me back a semester, but I was able to categorize the trip as work experience and enroll under our Tech 697 industrial experience class, 这能让我保持全日制学生的身份吗.”

Part of the pre-trip work he and Chayes did tested the underwater acoustic calibrations of the multibeam sonars that would be used to map the underside of the ice caps in the Arctic for a full season. Set 100 feet below the water’s surface, the sonars track how sea ice forms and moves.

“People think the underside of the ice is flat, but that’s not true,” Carbone says. “This research will provide a better understanding of the ice life, the new and the old. There's a good chance that by the end of this century there won’t be any ice during the summer months, 所以我很惊讶能亲眼看到它.”

The Healey’s homeport is in Seattle, but the ship spends much of its time in the Arctic. The SODA project was one of three undertaken during its four-month excursion, 是与美国国家科学基金会合作进行的, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of Naval Research. 波弗特海上层海洋分层的变化, north of Alaska, and the Chukchi Sea that borders Russia to the west and Alaska to the east, sparked the research, along with an observed increase in open ocean water during the summer months.

“我们于9月11日从荷兰港(阿拉斯加)出发. 14 and returned on Oct. 19. 从门到门，这次旅行花了大约6周的时间。. “Travel was long, flying from Boston to Seattle, 从西雅图到安克雷奇，再从安克雷奇到荷兰港."

While on the ship, Carbone says much of the time was spent creating lithium battery packs for the multibeam sonars, noting,  “一个完整的季节周期需要大量的电力.” On ice station days, he helped offload gear from the helicopter deck that went to each station. He then helped bore holes through the ice for the equipment that measures the flux patterns and stratification in the upper water column beneath the ice. 整个过程每天大约需要7个小时. Lunches were brought to the team by sled.

“We were out there,” Carbone says. “Once we started working, we didn’t stop. There were long days on the ice. 你需要做好身体和精神上的准备.”

Later this year, a second excursion will recover the instruments left behind. Carbone likely won’t be there, but he says the time he spent in the Arctic helped him get closer to knowing the kind of work he might do in the future.

“Wherever I land for a career, 我知道我想做对地球和人类有益的工作,” Carbone says. “There will always be challenges that lie ahead with climate shift directly related to the Arctic, but it’s what we as scientists and engineers do to prepare for this future that really matters. 我们的决定始于对北极现在位置的广泛研究, 能够参与其中真的很特别.”

Learn more about ocean engineering at UNH.