1 00:00:02,869 --> 00:00:05,739 We’re on the bridge of the research vessel Atlantis. 2 00:00:06,806 --> 00:00:12,746 This boat is a Navy owned research vessel that is chartered to Woods Hole 3 00:00:12,746 --> 00:00:14,481 Oceanographic Institute. 4 00:00:15,648 --> 00:00:22,989 We do scientific research—it’s a global ship—so we do scientific research 5 00:00:22,989 --> 00:00:24,424 all over the world. 6 00:00:25,358 --> 00:00:32,232 It’s home to the Deep Submersible Vessel Alvin 7 00:00:33,933 --> 00:00:40,006 Okay, we talk to them by voice and radio, and we have a heads up when they’re 8 00:00:40,006 --> 00:00:42,108 coming and when they’re due to arrive. 9 00:00:43,610 --> 00:00:51,084 They actually sample different levels, low levels—twenty thousand, 10 00:00:51,084 --> 00:00:56,623 fifteen thousand—they really don’t get below five thousand feet with us and 11 00:00:56,623 --> 00:01:00,727 they stay, let’s say, about a half mile away from us. 12 00:01:00,727 --> 00:01:08,701 They can come closer—they have to say “hi”, we wave to them and they wave to us 13 00:01:08,701 --> 00:01:15,075 but the actual sampling that they do, they don’t have to be right on top of us. 14 00:01:15,075 --> 00:01:17,811 They’ll be near us. They’ll sample on the horizon. 15 00:01:17,811 --> 00:01:22,549 You can see them on the horizon, maybe ten miles out, then get five 16 00:01:22,549 --> 00:01:26,519 miles away, then maybe get close to a mile or two miles away. 17 00:01:28,254 --> 00:01:33,827 Really it’s a study of aerosols in general and that it’s coming from plankton and 18 00:01:33,827 --> 00:01:38,064 that the biggest plume of plankton in the world is off the North Atlantic, 19 00:01:38,064 --> 00:01:43,937 even if you wouldn’t really think that. And as a general mission in itself, the 20 00:01:43,937 --> 00:01:50,043 study of it and where they’re trying to find out and figure out in the research 21 00:01:50,043 --> 00:01:55,715 of it is fascinating, and you should go onto the website and read about it! 22 00:01:57,484 --> 00:01:59,152 Okay, but these are spotting now, right? 23 00:01:59,152 --> 00:02:01,654 Yep, those are verified. Those are concentrations. 24 00:02:01,654 --> 00:02:03,756 So right here they said seventeen of them. 25 00:02:03,756 --> 00:02:04,858 Yeah, Yep. 26 00:02:04,858 --> 00:02:06,326 Here they had twenty eight of them. 27 00:02:07,293 --> 00:02:10,196 So it’s a lot more active than I thought for this time of year. 28 00:02:10,196 --> 00:02:13,633 Than that previous…. That was just the sea ice 29 00:02:19,105 --> 00:02:26,446 All the mates on watch will coordinate with science to achieve what the ship 30 00:02:26,446 --> 00:02:30,617 needs to do in order to support the science whether it’s deployments 31 00:02:30,617 --> 00:02:38,525 and recoveries of equipment or helping to determine areas of operations with 32 00:02:38,525 --> 00:02:42,629 with incoming weather that maybe we have a large enough area where we’re working. 33 00:02:42,629 --> 00:02:46,900 We can work two hundred miles over here and avoid the bad weather—the typhoon 34 00:02:46,900 --> 00:02:50,503 and then come back and come over and work another area. 35 00:02:50,503 --> 00:02:59,112 Or, if the seas might be prohibitive the wind and seas for the conditions 36 00:02:59,112 --> 00:03:02,081 we might have to wait a day for the conditions to abate. 37 00:03:02,749 --> 00:03:08,855 So we’re working very closely all together, the captain, science, and 38 00:03:08,855 --> 00:03:14,861 the mates on watch just to make sure that we can find the most optimal time 39 00:03:14,861 --> 00:03:17,931 and way to get things done. 40 00:03:19,699 --> 00:03:24,637 We’re going to start just south of the tip of Greenland, Cape Farewell, 41 00:03:24,637 --> 00:03:29,676 and practically halfway to the Azores, and then back to Woods Hole. 42 00:03:29,842 --> 00:03:34,314 But it will all be on a north/south transect, roughly along zero four 43 00:03:34,314 --> 00:03:37,116 zero longitude. 44 00:03:39,586 --> 00:03:46,226 Certianly, and as there are ice patrols, aerial patrols, ship reports, there 45 00:03:46,226 --> 00:03:54,033 are general areas of ice reported, and then we make decisions accordingly. 46 00:03:54,033 --> 00:04:01,307 But most of the ice is still either fast. The sea ice boundaries are mostly clear, 47 00:04:01,307 --> 00:04:07,880 we’re in mostly ice-clear areas where we’re operating. We may transit through 48 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:14,053 areas where there are some known icebergs and growlers and reported ice. 49 00:04:16,356 --> 00:04:19,325 If we’re in a feature that’s on the surface and it’s moving with the 50 00:04:19,325 --> 00:04:24,264 current we’ll generally try to move with it. But if we’re trying to stay over 51 00:04:24,264 --> 00:04:31,137 a feature on the sea floor with an ROV then we’ll stay within ten meters, 52 00:04:31,137 --> 00:04:41,414 sometimes a finer point, but it generally depends on the work we’re doing.