It’s like herding cats: Multi-investigator scientific expeditions

Written by Liz Weidner

Icebreaker Oden is big: 107.7 meters long and 25 m wide at the midship, with eight decks and an endurance of more than 100 days. GEOEO fills every single bunk on Oden. Twenty-three crew members are responsible for its running, maintenance, and upkeep, as well as the safety of the science personnel on board. The science team comes in at fifty-two individuals: thirteen from the Swedish Polar Research Secretariate (SPRS) and the rest are researchers from more than ten institutions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the scientific goals for the GEOEO expedition are far ranging: from our efforts to map the seafloor of Victoria Fjord to characterizing Arctic Ocean circulation through collection of ancient driftwood to studying microscopic marine organisms collected with “bongo nets”.

Every person on Oden, scientist or otherwise, answers to the Captain, Erik Andersson, for any matter, at any time. Beyond that, the science team is organized under the Co-Chief Scientists, Martin Jakobsson and Nina Kirchner, who are in regular discussion with the crew and SPRS personnel to define the activities of the day (the captain has the final say). Under the Co-Chief scientists, the scientific team of GEOEO is spilt into a series of Work Packages (WP), each with their own Principal Investigator (PI) or Investigators. Each WP consists of a team of scientists at variable career stages (professors, researchers, technicians, graduate students, postdocs), who contribute to the data collection and analysis for the WP.

There are ten work packages on GEOEO:

1. Marine Geophysical Mapping
2. Glacier-Ocean Observatory
3. Silicate Alteration in Marine Sediments
4. Sediment Coring and Processing
5. Interactions between North Greenland Ice Sheet and Atlantic Water
6. Palaeogenomics of Ecosystem Change
7. Improved Analyses of Arctic Climate Change
8. Trace Gas Dynamics and Pelagic Ecosystem Functions
9. Tectonic Evolution of North Greenland
10. Arctic Meteorology and Ocean Surface Exchanges

As you can probably imagine, it is an enormous task to keep progress moving forward for ten different WPs, manage the expectations of multiple PIs, allocate the daytime working hours, and deal with continually changing ice and weather conditions, all while making sure everyone is safe and getting at least a minimal amount of sleep. Just to add to the complexity, Oden carries two helicopters for terrestrial and ice-based work (primarily for WP2, WP6, and WP9). The helicopters have limited space (in theory you can fit five passengers plus the pilot, but it’s a tight squeeze), limited fuel, and very specific weather windows. They add another piece of the ever-expanding puzzle of GEOEO operations. As you can start to see, multi-investigator science is a lot like herding cats!

During a typical day on Oden a series of meetings occur to keep operations running smoothly:

Leadership meeting: These occur every morning on the bridge at 7:00 am and consists of the captain, the Co-Chief Scientists, and SPRS personnel (including the meteorologist). They discuss the current ice conditions, which define where Oden can and cannot go and what operations can and cannot happen. Weather is a regular topic of discussion, as bad weather or high winds can ground helicopter operations and small boat deployments. Time left in the expedition is always a point of discussion. You might be surprised to hear this, as we aren’t even halfway through! But right from the start, everyone on board does there best to squeeze out as much data collection as possible, given the time it took to plan the expedition, the isolation of our study site and the overall cost of the expedition.

Daily meeting: These occur every morning, right after breakfast at 8:15 am. Oden’s meteorologists give us a weather update for the day to come and the Co-Chief scientist outline the Plan of the Day: where we are headed, what operations will happen, when events will occur, and any follow up meetings (e.g., helicopter planning meetings, tool box meeting) that need to take place.

Watch hand-off meetings: For the science team these are specific to the geophysical mapping operations (WP1). As mentioned in a previous post, we are mapping on Oden 24 hours a day and the mapping team consist of six member and three 8-hour watches. Fifteen minutes before the change of watch, the new watch standers arrive to get an update on mapping operations. We cover where we’ve been, where we are going, any ongoing issues with the sonars, and current processing goals. 

 

Helicopter meetings: Helicopter operations are logistically complicated and fuel stores on Oden are limited. As such, the priorities for science objectives that require helicopter operations regularly are discussed. In other words, how much science can we get done with the limited fuel resources on Oden? Moreover, helicopter operations require a significant number of personnel for vessel and crew safety, they have strict timelines and weather requirements, and involve significant risks to the gear and people involved. All of this means there are regular meetings between the PIs, pilots, crew, and SPRS personnel to facilitate smooth helicopter flights.

Toolbox meetings: These are another “when needed” type of meeting and are focused on a specific type of upcoming operation (for example, small boat operations). During these meetings any scientific personnel that will be involved in the operation attend, along with crew members and SPRS personnel. We discuss the safety and risks associated with the operation, as well as the procedures and expectations put in place by the crew that everyone is expected to follow.

The Plan of the Day is our bible. It is outlined by the Co-Chief scientists at the morning meeting and is regularly updated as conditions change, and operations run during a given day. The expectation is, if your group is listed as doing something during a specific time slot on the Plan of the Day, you are there fifteen minutes early and ready to go! Oden has an internal server, Odennet, that keeps the Plan of the Day up to date so you can access it on your phone or computer. It is posted on monitors throughout the ship as well.

There is also a meeting area on the first floor called Odenplan, we walk right by it to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the mess. Here, updates are posted on a series of large whiteboards. And not all of the updates are specifically science focused! There are notes about lost and found gear, social activities, operations looking for volunteers, the ever-present ping-pong tournament standings, and news updates from the outside world. Odenplan is often everyone’s first stop when checking to see if there are updates onboard.

 

At the end of the day, we can only plan so much. Just like there is no way you’ll be able to get a group of cat into an orderly formation, there is no way to plan out every step of an expedition in advance. Cats are going to run every which-way as soon as released, weather and ice conditions are going to change (probably not for the better), equipment is going to break and need repairs, and so on. It’s just the name of the game. The reason expeditions on Oden are so successful is the whole team is ready to be flexible and the daily plan, which is altered hour-by-hour, makes it out to everyone involved. All you must do is check the Odenplan!