Closing the Circle Dallas Murphy July 1, 2014 Dispatches We crossed the Arctic Circle, 66° 33’ North, southbound on Friday afternoon, June 20, an exquisite, cloudless day. The snowy, black-rock...
The Last Ice Station Dallas Murphy June 24, 2014 Dispatches THE LAST ICE STATION As of yesterday morning, Healy had passed the 5,000-mile mark. On 19 June, she’ll point her bow toward Dutch Harbor 1,000...
Drifting Dallas Murphy June 19, 2014 Dispatches Dean Stockwell was helping Joannie Ferland identify individual species from photographs of phytoplankton she’d shot with her submergible version of...
The Open Polar Sea Dallas Murphy June 19, 2014 Dispatches Back when much of the world remained unexplored, Europeans filled the blanks on their maps with whatever they wanted most, the cartography of wishful...
Cruising Dallas Murphy June 15, 2014 Dispatches 2 Comments Cruise—this is a cruise; that’s the commonly used word. I found it jarring on first encounter some years ago. It seemed to suggest a...
No, Not Quite. Dallas Murphy June 15, 2014 Dispatches Well, it looked highly promising for a while, the snow cover melting back, turning granular, bare ice in spots, and air temperature almost above...
About Ready? Dallas Murphy June 8, 2014 Dispatches 1 Comment A typical day's work on the frozen sea. Even before we’d cleared the Bering Strait northbound, people started asking Chris when the melt ponds...
Ocean Action Dallas Murphy June 6, 2014 Dispatches 1 Comment We’ve been talking about ice and light, nutrients and plankton, and occasionally polar bears, but little about the setting in which all of the...
Four Bigs Against the Ice Dallas Murphy June 1, 2014 Dispatches It’s shortly after midnight and I’m standing at the portside rail with a couple of other gawkers squinting into bright sunlight as Healy heaves...
Scientific Labor Dallas Murphy May 30, 2014 Dispatches 1 Comment Scientists and coasts begin another ice deployment. You’d better hang on and tread carefully down the steep brow onto the ice. It’s cold,...