All of that walking through the snow and ice was one of the most fun things I've done on the expedition so far, but it was also very draining.
During the afternoon, Lasse, Jakob and Aly worked to process the raw data from our excursion. I met Jakob in the hallway just after he had gone through the results, and it turns out that the ice we were walking on was much thinner than we had thought! The snow on the ice had made it difficult for anyone to judge the ice thickness just by looking at it, but it didn't fool the sled. Most of the ice was two meters (about 6.5 feet) thick or less, which--believe it or not--is not that thick for the Weddell Sea. It's not uncommon to find multi-year ice floes that are six meters (about 20 feet) thick or more. The data we collected will join a global database of ice measurements that scientists around the world can use to monitor long-term ice conditions in the Weddell Sea. I really enjoyed being an honorary sea ice field scientist for the day, and I now have an even greater appreciation for the women and men who work hard to collect this data that benefits us all.
