Julia Whitty

Humpback whale with northern fulmars. Image courtesy of Master Chief Tim Sullivan, USCG

Editor's note: Julia Whitty is on a three-week-long journey aboard the the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, following a team of scientists who are investigating how a changing climate might be affecting the chemistry of ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic. Read her first dispatch here.

On our way north yesterday, we encountered a phenomenal gathering of humpback whales. I've seen a lot of whales in my time, dating back to my filmmaking days, but I've never seen as many humpbacks as were congregating off Unalaska Island yesterday. They're migrating south, some to Hawaii, others to the west coast of Mexico. They must have run into something of consequence—maybe krill—for so many to stop and feed.

But because Healy's on such a tight schedule, we can't linger until we reach the first mooring site sometime Tuesday morning. From that point on there will be a crazy amount of work to do literally around the clock in all weather, fair and foul.

Most of the scientists aboard are sampling water from various depths and in various locations in relation to land and rivers. In a way they're doing what whales and other marine life do: "reading" the water. The humpbacks are presumably reading for clues to food, migration route, friends, and foes. The humans are reading for clues to the rapid change underway as the Arctic icecap dwindles—change that will likely impact the future of krill, humpback whales, and people, to name a few.

The map below marks our current position as of 1517 hours on October 8. The red lines marks our passage up from Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, through the Bering Sea. We passed through the Bering Strait and over the Arctic Circle sometime last night. We're currently in the Chukchi Sea. You can see the yellowish outline of a boat with red dot in the center: That's us. The red triangles mark mooring sites where we'll be stopping to sample water. We'll be cruising the Alaskan shelf of the Beaufort Sea all the way east to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

To collect data, the Healy research team will use CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth profiler), a package of oceanographic instruments that captures water at various depths and takes other measurements on its way to and from the bottom. It's deployed via winch and run to the bottom (or wherever) on cables.

Most research aboard Healy this cruise is supported by the National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs.

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Nancy Rabalais: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.I was very happy to hear that one of this year's MacArthur's Fellows is Nancy Rabalais, executive director and professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON). I profiled Nancy's work in my MoJo cover story "The Fate of the Ocean" after her research facility in Chauvin, Louisiana, had been hammered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and again in my MoJo piece "The BP Cover-Up" when her facility was slammed by an oil spill and oil-dispersant catastrophe, and this year in my profile of Keystone Ladies in science and conservation. I've also blogged regular updates on her pioneering work on dead zones and on her receipt of a prestigious Heinz Award last year.  I honestly can't think of anyone more deserving of a MacArthur Fellowship in light of her constant efforts against the odds in the near-war zone of the Gulf of Mexico.

Here's what the MacArthur Foundation has to say about her career so far:

Nancy Rabalais is a marine ecologist who is dedicated to documenting and mitigating the effects of hypoxic zones—aquatic areas with low dissolved oxygen levels commonly known as "dead zones—that have expanded dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico and many other coastal systems around the globe. Since the mid-1980s, she has led a long-term monitoring program to study the size, intensity, and seasonal occurrence of dead zones in the waters off the Louisiana continental shelf; she has also analyzed the relationship between the extent of hypoxia and the increasing quantities of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi River watershed. When concentrated in coastal waters, the nutrients from farmland fertilizer and other sources spur the growth of an overabundance of algae, the decomposition of which consumes oxygen vital to sustaining an enormous spectrum of aquatic species. Over the past three decades, Rabalais's studies have evolved to include collaborations with researchers from many different disciplines and have used methods from physical oceanography, hydrology, geochemistry, and paleoecology to make ever more precise assessments of hypoxia dynamics and their impact on a range of fragile, interconnected ecosystems. In addition to her scientific contributions, Rabalais has played a prominent role in informing strategies to restore the degraded waters of the Gulf by reducing nutrient pollution from urban and agricultural runoff upstream and has focused national attention on the environmental and economic consequences of large-scale eutrophication. Her outreach efforts have included lecturing throughout the United States about the effects of hypoxia on those far from its waters, testifying before Congress, and working with federal, state, and tribal agencies on an action plan for improving water quality in the Mississippi River basin. While weathering the destruction of her research facility in catastrophic hurricanes and treacherous diving conditions due to oil spills, Rabalais continues to deepen our understanding of this profound oceanographic problem that threatens the well-being of the entire Gulf region.

Congratulations, Nancy!

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