Questions from Otis Memorial School

December 24, 2005

Hannah wrote:
"Dear Mr. Saito,
Today was the last day of school for 2005! We had a big party this afternoon. I had a great time!
I have a few questions for you about your trip. The questions are the following:
1. Are you still on the ship?
2. How long are/were you to be on the ship?
3.Do/did you get along with the people on the ship?
My dad and I are making cookies for Santa, so I have to go now. Merry Christmas &happy New Year!
Your new friend,
Hannah

Dr. Rob Dunbar replies:

Hi Hannah!

This is Rob Dunbar writing to you and your friends in school. I'm working on the icebreaker with Mak Saito during the 6 weeks that we will be at sea in the frozen ocean around Antarctica. I'll answer some of your questions. And you can send more questions if you like.

I have two sons, one that is 11 years old and one that is 14. I don't much like being away from them and their mother for Christmas and New Years, not to mention birthdays! But this is the time of year when it is summer in Antarctica and so we must do our work then, when the sun is shining and the plants that we study are growing! This is my 25th trip to Antarctica and my 7th Christmas down south. Last year I took one of my sons with me. He liked the penguins most of all!

So.....we are still on the ship. Mak and I will be on the ship for another 5 weeks! You know, when we get on the ship for a trip like this it is kind of like starting 5th grade at the end of the summer vacation. We meet all kinds of new people that we sail with, but there are also many friends we know from the icebreaker from last year and the year before. Most of the time, like on this trip, everyone gets along really well. All of the scientists are excited to be here, to be learning new things about the ocean and the animals and plants that live here. And we are excited to be learning all these new things with new friends - just like at the start of class at the end of the summer! You know, we even have class here ourselves - every morning at 9AM. We take turns being the teacher and we give short talks about what we are learning on this trip and also about the experiments we will do over the next month. Mak Saito gave a really good talk and I learned alot. That is a good thing for you to know. Even after we have been out of 5th grade, and out of high school, and out of college, for many, many years, we still work hard to learn something new every day. Mak taught me some new things about what makes the plants in the frozen ocean grow.

Today is Christmas on the ship. We had great food! We ate Turkey, Ham, Shrimp, Salmon, and all the things that go with them. Then we opened presents from each other and from our friends and families back home. My 11 year old gave me a coupon for free back scratches, but I will have to wait until February to see him! Mainly we got presents of candy and chocolate. I am sure we will all become fat.

If you write again, I can tell you what I am doing on the ship.

Thanks for writing and I hope you have a great holiday with your family.

Enjoy those cookies.

Rob

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December 22, 2005; 177 and 61 44'

Faith asks:
"I have a question about your algae studies. In the general information area on the website it says that we are concerned about the loss of the forests and continents and implications for climate change. What I am wondering is do you think the algae is causing that? if it isn't what are you studing the algae for?"

Dr. Saito's answer:
"Hi Faith, thanks for writing. We don't think the algae are affecting the forests directly. A better way to think about it is that the trees and algae are two pieces of the puzzle. As you have heard, we, humans, have been releasing lots of carbon into the atmosphere for the past several hundred years. This is done mostly by burning gasoline, coal, or natural gas that we use in all our cars, to heat our homes, and to make electricity. That carbon is released by the burning and enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Plants use carbon dioxide to grow, as one of their 'food' sources. This process is called carbon 'fixation' because it takes carbon dioxide from the air and makes it (or fixes it) into plant material. Both trees and algae do this. In this sense, trees and algae remove carbon from the air and counter the problem that humans are creating. We as scientists know the sources of carbon to the atmosphere pretty well (because we know how much fuel we burn), but we need to learn a lot more about how algae remove carbon from the air, and it turns out to be a pretty complicated problem. That's what we're out here to do. In particular, we're looking at how iron (another nutrient for the algae, and a very important one for the Southern Ocean) and carbon dioxide affect the algae."

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December 20, 2005

Keisha from Bourne, Massachusetts asks:
"How far is Alaska?" and "Are you with someone on your trip?"

Dr. Saito's answer:
"Dear Keisha,
Thanks for writing. Alaska is quite far from here - we're in the southern hemisphere heading due south towards the continent of Antarctica. Alaska is in the northern hemisphere, north of the United States. If you look at a globe you can see where both these locations are. We're about as far from Alaska as you can get on Earth. We left from New Zealand which is an island nation near Australia. There are 70 people on the ship we're on - 33 scientists, 10 technicians, and 27 crew members. The scientists are from all over the world, and we're here working together to study how the Ross Sea functions. The technicians work for Raytheon Polar Programs division, and help us carry out our science by helping to keep our machines running and deploy our instruments over the side. The crew includes the captain, the mates, engineers, and the chef and galley crew, who make our meals."

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Lakin from Bourne, Massachusetts asks:
"I have three questions: 1) Are there penguins there? 2) Are there any polar bears there? 3) What are the things you do there?"

Dr. Saito's answer:
"Hi Lakin,

We haven't seen any penguins yet. We are currently so far out in the ocean that we can't see any land, and we won't see any for many more days. We left New Zealand two days ago and have been heading south towards Antarctica. We expect to approach the edge of the ice in about four days. This is my first time to Antarctica, but my colleagues on the ship tell me that we may see Adelie and Emperior Penguins down there (we can tell you more about this later too).

What are we working on you ask? We are going to be doing a lot of different science activities studying both the life in the seawater and the chemistry (or the stuff that is dissolved) in the seawater. The life we're looking at is very small ranging from too small to see with your eyes, to so small that you can just barely see it (colonies of Phaeocystis), and are very small plants known as algae. Even though they are so small that they are hard to see without a microscope, when you add up all of the oceans there are so many of them that they are very important, just like the forests are very important on land. We are studying the 'food' or nutrients they need to live. Can you name some of the things plants need to live?

Today we were actually preparing to begin our studies - testing our instruments and getting ready to sample the Ross Sea."

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