Island Days (Part II) - TARSAN Partners with the Natives - Seals!

Science advances in many ways, where enhancements in methods and instruments improve the quality of the data we collect and enable the exploration of new frontiers. Yet despite all we know about our ocean, it arguably remains one of Earth’s greatest remaining frontiers. Add in icebergs, sea ice, and bad weather, gathering information from this frontier around Antarctica can be a real challenge!  Yet many of the fundamental science requirements of THOR and the other teams that comprise the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration depend on the collection of a wide range of data from the ocean that surrounds and interacts with the ice shelves around Antarctica. It turns out one of science’s most effective partners in this effort to collect data comes from some of the “locals”. Seals!

Beyond the obvious complications of dodging icebergs and plowing through sea ice, the ocean itself is incredibly complex; it is not just a body of bitterly cold, incredibly beautiful clear deep blue water.  The ocean is actually layered like a cake, where each water layer from top to bottom can have its own biota (from microscopic plants to megafauna such as whales), temperature, salinity, and currents (e.g. pathways) around the continent. Pathways are probably some of the most difficult types of information to track, and trying to understand how the water moves around the ice shelves is critical to understanding what is causing thinning of the ice shelf at Thwaites Glacier.  That’s where some rather unique science partners can help- the seals.

This Weddell seal is not masquerading as a unicorn. The unique payload cap she is wearing is called a “tag”, a device created more than a decade ago by Dr. Lars Boehme, physical oceanographer at St. Andrews University in Scotland. The tag is a small computer that collects oceanographic information around Antarctica over the period of a about year. The “horn” transmits (by satellite) salinity and temperature with depth and location to a web application so that scientists can monitor their partners in near real time. For more information about the program go here: http://biology.st-andrews.ac.uk/seaos/introduction.htm (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

Why seals?  Because they can go places we can’t and frequently do so.  They are amazing divers that also travel amazing distances.  Since 2014, 14 Antarctic seal partners with their unique science payloads have logged more than 6700 water temperature and salinity profiles within the Amundsen sea alone. This information tells us about the layer of water that causes melting and thinning of the ice shelf in front of Thwaites (and Pine Island Glacier) called circumpolar deep water.  

The path of the Antarctic circumpolar current brings it in contact with many other bodies of water, including the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic, the Indian and the Australian oceans. The ACC incorporates bits and pieces of those water bodies which then become part of the CDW. Amazingly enough, each of their contributions to the CDW can be identified by information such as temperature, salinity, biota and more. These data aren’t just thumbprints of their source, they also tell us about the interaction and extent of these characteristics. It tells us that ocean water is dynamic and interconnected.

Circumpolar deep water, or CDW, is derived from a mixture of all the world’s oceans. It originates from the outer ring of water known as Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). The CDW moves from the deeper ACC up onto the shallower continental shelf (but still at depths of more than 300 meters!) carrying saltier water with a temperature of 1-2 degrees celsius (which is above freezing and therefore melts ice). The CDW is several degrees warmer than the overlying colder surface water because that layer is supplied with fresh water from melting ice. We know this because scientists use devices to measure a temperature and salinity profile from the ocean surface to depths of more than a thousand meters. This device has the rather unglamorous acronym CTD, which stands for Conductivity (salinity) and Temperature with Depth.

The larger CTD device, also not terribly glamorous, can gather a lot of data in real time, if only in one spot. Its sensors send the information to a computer on the ship all during its trip to the deep. The large gray cannisters are like giant test tubes that can be signaled to open during its passage, sampling the ocean water. Samples can then be used to measure things like chlorophyll (the amounts of which can serve to tell scientists how well the phytoplankton are doing) oxygen in the water. They can also be preserved for future science that will be conducted at land-based laboratories following the cruise. The profiles provided by CTD’s have wide application for ocean modeling. for THOR, the temperature and salinity profiles are used as part of calculating the sound velocity that provides the multibeam sea floor bathymetry data.

MT Joee Patterson (see The J Team) led me into the warm and humid Baltic room, a large space with a noisy heater fan and floors damp from residual sea water.  Next to the big black and yellow checkered door which opens directly to the ocean, the six foot tall CTD sits tethered to a strong steel cable that will not only carry this nearly 1000 pound instrument 3350 meters into the Amundsen Sea, but includes an information umbilical cord that receives data but allows scientists to also send commands. The MT’s are in charge of its setup, modification and deployment.  That day, the CTD had some interesting modifications- passengers if you will -attached to the bottom ring of the frame. These were micro CTD’s, future riders on our seal science partners. They would be activated to gather the same data as its larger cousin and use the better resolved data set of the host CTD to standardize the temperature, pressure and salinity data that the micro-versions gathered.

The “tag” - essentially a smaller version of the CTD - hitching a ride to validate measurements by comparing them to the CTD’s. Each tag is actually a tiny computer, battery and satellite transmitter (the antennae). The location, salinity, pressure and temperature for the depths the seal dives is transmitted each time the seal surfaces. The computers themselves are handmade by the Sea Mammal Research Unit Instrumentation Group. Each computer is hand assembled, and while the hardware is modular, the programming can be modified to gather a variety of data types, from studies in seal behavior to information about a variety of ocean environments and locations.

These portable dataloggers, or ‘tags’, were devised and constructed by Dr. Lars Boehme who is a physical oceanographer at the University of St. Andrews working within the Sea Mammals Research Unit, Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland, Scottish Oceans Institute.  Over the last decade, he has tagged over 150 seals, to include nearly all the species from around the world.  The programming in each tag can be modified to gather a variety of data types, for studies in seal behavior to information about their ocean environments by location.  Lars’ knowledge and admiration of seals and their abilities is obvious in the reverence and enthusiasm he conveys when he describes their role in his oceanographic research and exploration.

As for his seal partners for this expedition to Antarctica, he has been permitted to tag as many as 16 seals from among the population of Elephant seals and Weddell seals who live near the Amundsen sea.  The seals that are selected meet a very important qualification- they must have already shed their previous year’s fur.  This ensures that the tag Lars and his team glue to the seal’s head is secure. After a year, the seal will molt again, shedding both the previous year’s fur and the tag.  Using these partners has also led him to study their biology and ecology.  The tag apparently has no impact on their behavior or normal seal-life activities.  And it’s those activities that are critical to providing data about the ocean water in places where humans cannot go.

Lars Boehme approaches a nearly one ton male elephant seal to see if he is a good candidate for a tag. The seal sees this as a challenge and expresses himself with bared teeth and a deep throated growling (that can really only be described as a very long, very scary belch). The trick to managing these encounters, according the Lars, is to appear taller than the seal. We were glad that he was the expert. Within a few seconds of looking the seal over, he walked away. The seal was still molting. If Lars attached a tag, it would soon fall off as the seal continued to shed its fur. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

Elephant seals are the champions of diving, logging marathon dives of up to 1500 meters (5000 feet) for up to two hours, although they typically dive 300-600 meters (up to 2000 ft) for 20 minutes at a time, with only 2-3 minute rests between each dive.  Weddell seals tend to be shallower divers, only going to 600 meters for up to an hour.  The water depths in the Amundsen sea near Thwaites Glacier range from less than 300 meters at the continental margin to 1600 meters in the deepest glacial melt water channels, which scientists suspect may funnel CDW right to the base of the ice shelf. This makes the seals perfect natural explorers of the Antarctic shelf.

The day we visited an unnamed island among Schaefer group, Lars and his team were just finished tagging a Weddell seal. After checking over the male Elephant seal, they determined that the big male was still molting and moved on to another other Weddell.  After tugging gently on her fur, Lars deemed her a good candidate. 

Seals are large and potentially dangerous animals, so they need to be sedated in order to attach the tag. Lars and his team are very experienced and very quickly settled the seal down in preparation for tagging. In addition to attaching the tag, they also record the seals size, approximate weight and overall health. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

Lars Boehme and his postdoctoral research associate Gui Bortolotto carefully attach the tag to a female Weddell seal. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

This female Weddell seal is awake and entering the water about 20 minutes after the team finishes attaching the tag. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

She remained in the cove swimming around and came back numerous times to check out our activities and to investigate our Zodiac. The tag did not appear to trouble her at all. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

Seals are large and potentially dangerous animals, so they need to be sedated.  This is where Lars’ skill and experience are important for the safety of the humans and the seals.  Once sedated, tagging is pretty straightforward. Using epoxy, they use a small amount of epoxy on the bottom of the tag to make a sticky template on the seal’s head. More is applied to the template and then smoothed around like cake icing. The tag is held in place until it is set. The final step is to apply a bead around the edges, much like we do when we put caulk around our bath tubs. This keeps water from getting under the tag when they dive, which would lift it off the seal’s head.

When they are finished, Lars sits with the seal, putting himself between the seal and the water to ensure that the seal recovers fully before allowing her to return to the sea.  Suddenly, as we are watching Lars quietly and reverently watch over his sleepy charge, the first seal swims by.  Lars then says excitedly “Quick!  Take pictures of the seal in the water!”  In all his years of work, he has always focused on the animals and had apparently not taken any pictures of a tagged seal swimming.

Lars Boehme sits between the second tagged seal and the water, keeping an eye on her as she awakens. The first tagged seal swims past in the background. (Permit number for wildlife interactions: fco/uk permit no. 29/2018)

The second Weddell seal was the fourth seal tagged since the start of the cruise.  To date, the four seals have made 1537 dives and collected 105 CDT profiles.  Each time a seal surfaces, the data that they have acquired is transmitted via satellite to Lars and his team.  They can even get a rough approximation of the location of the seal if more than one satellite picks up the signal.  The seal data are already provide more information about the sea water in front of Thwaites than we have collected from aboard ship, and the seals’ measurements are likely to far outnumber any additional ship-based measurements we can achieve by the end of the cruise.

The hope is that these partners for science who live in the Amundsen Sea, will dive around and below the sea ice at Thwaites where we can’t go, bearing witness over the next year to the temperature and salinity of the CDW, reporting the data they collect to help us determine the path and extent of this warm water penetrates below the glacier.