Ross Sea Connection

We are now halfway through this important transect across the Ross Shelf.   The glider is telling us about the conditions and how they change as we move from one bank to the next.   In the map below you can see the location of the glider indicated by the red dot and the start of this […]

It has been almost 19 days since we deployed ru26D from the edge of the ice. In that time the glider has traveled over 436 km (271 miles).   On December 18 we reached station E of the AEZOPS line and turned east.  AEZOPS is a series of stations that have been sampled on previous experiments.  […]

We are one week into our glider mission in the Ross Sea and the glider is doing great!  Since the deployment and our adventure under the ice, the glider has gone over 150 km (93 miles) toward the NE.   The conditions in the open water of the Ross Sea Polynya have been great. The above […]

Minutes after the glider was deployed we encountered our first challenge.  We knew that the ice conditions would determine where we could deploy and that the conditions might not be ideal.  Well we did have ideal conditions for the deployment, nice weather, calm seas, and immediate access to open water.  The only downside to this […]

On Friday night (Saturday afternoon in the Ross Sea) our glider ru26 was deployed. It was a great weather day, temperatures around 37 degrees and calm winds. Our crew Chip Haldeman and Clayton Jones headed out to the ice along with a support crew that included an ice expert and helicopter pilot. The helicopter took […]

RU26 had one final test before she heads to a southern hemisphere summer vacation! The test focused on the glider’s altimeter. The altimeter is a very important part of the glider.  It uses short sound pulses to measure the distance between the glider and solid objects, like the sea floor!  Without the altimeter the glider […]

RU26D, our deep glider, is ready for shipment to the west coast of the U.S for delivery to McMurdo station in Antarcitca.   Along with the installation of a new  quick release nose recovery system, the glider has passed all the final hardware and software checks in our lab at Rutgers.   We are confident it […]