Arctic Investigations: Exploring the Frozen Ocean
A Turnstone Ocean Pilot Book
Ages 8 to 12, 48 pages
from the back cover:
A frozen ocean…creaking, cracking ice…and polar bears outside your door. These are just a few of the challenges facing scientists who want to understand the five million square miles of chilly water called the Arctic Ocean. How do they get there? What do they do there? And what are they discovering? In Arctic Investigations you'll see what it's like to work on top of the world.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is home port for world–class scientists and engineers who together explore and study the global ocean system and how it affects our planet and our daily lives. It is the largest independent oceanographic research and educational institution in the world.
About the Ocean Explorer Program
excerpts:
• Staying on the ice is a big problem for scientists at an ice camp. “You don't absolutely know the camp won't break up,” says [engineer] Keith [Von Der Heydt]. A crack can open in the ice under a scientist's bed, or a submarine could surface, breaking through the ice. Once, a tent slid into a crack when the ice beneath the camp split. An entire camp can float away, or an airplane can fall through the ice –– things that have happened at least once.
• “In the winter you look out and see nothing but snow. But there's a whole life underneath the ice that you can't see,” says biologist Carin Ashjian.
• In the Arctic, Cynthia Tynan stands on the bridge of a ship looking through the lenses of a pair of giant binoculars. Cynthia is a biological oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. She studies where whales are found by surveying whales over vast ocean areas… Cynthia records the number and kind of whales that she sees. She compares this data with information about the water, such as temperature and saltiness, and the amount of prey, or food for the whales, in the water. She then compares where whales are found now with where they have been found in the past to see if patterns have changed.
from the reviewers:
“…the story of the intrepid souls willing to endure incredible hardship in its harsh environment.” –– School Library Journal
about the artwork:
A lot of people think the person on the right on the cover is me, but it isn't. I don't know the people on the cover, actually. But I did meet the person in the picture at bottom right on page 41. Catfish is the guy whacking ice off the deck of R/V Knorr. I met Edward “Catfish” Popowitz during Extreme 2004, on another ship, R/V Atlantis. He signed his name on my copy of Arctic Investigations. Hi, Catfish!
Another weird fact about this book:
The whole Turnstone series of books was “launched” at the New England Aquarium, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's director made a speech inside a floating auditorium. There was a party all over the aquarium!
My pet count during this book:
one dog, two cats, two guinea pigs
They were Yogi, PuttPutt, Albion, Mrs. Mugglewump (Queen Mother of all Wumps) and Queen Gina Regina (Queen of all Guineas). There was also Sam's stuffed polar bear, Nansen, who stood on my desk during the writing of this book. Thanks, Sam.
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