Neon Skies and Marine Snow

Antarctic Life Aboard the Akademik Tryoshnikov

I lay on the helipad and gazed up as neon-green waves streaked across the sky; the base of each wave was orange and glittering. The Southern lights were out dancing. The speed was unexpected. I’d be staring at the inky sky punctuated with thousands of stars, when suddenly a new one would come zig-zagging by like a lightning bolt ripping across the sky, before taking a breath to hang like a shimmering curtain billowing softly in the breeze. And then it would fade away. And there I lay with my knotted hair, on a rusted deck, marveling at the majesty of it all. I was aboard the Akademik Tryoshnikov, a bright orange icebreaker that had been repurposed into a research vessel. And I was on an adventure.

The Akademik Tryoshnikov in all her glory. Me for scale

On this voyage, it was being used to circumnavigate the Antarctic, with scientists from 30 different countries roaming its narrow halls. With all the accents and languages flying around, it was equal parts chaotic and isolated as we all bumbled our way through creating new connections and collaborations. There were scientists studying whales, others investigating microplastics, and another group surveying all macro life spawning on the dark seabed. There were 22 different projects being conducted; each one entirely unique, yet all united by the ecology of the Southern Ocean and its quiet but powerful global impact.

Heading back to the ship after sampling the waters around Bouvet Island: the most remote island in the world. Photo credit: © Guillaume Maurel/ACE expédition

But under the dancing aurora and the smelly penguins is a giant engine keeping the planet’s climate in check. The Southern Ocean is where all other oceans meet and are whipped into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which flows clockwise around Antarctica. The ACC is the major ocean current in the Southern Ocean and is the world’s strongest, deepest, and longest current. This current influences all other ocean currents and therefore indirectly affects their impact on the global climate. Even on its own, the Southern Ocean absorbs roughly half of the Earth’s heat and carbon dioxide (CO₂), and therefore plays a massive role in our climate.

The absorption of carbon dioxide is largely mediated by two mechanisms. The first is the physicochemical action of frigid water, which acts as a vacuum for atmospheric CO₂. The CO₂ is effectively dragged out of the air as it passes over the cold water, and the now carbon-rich water begins to sink. As it drops into the abyss, it takes that carbon with it and locks it away. The second is microbial action. Here, eukaryotic phytoplankton like diatoms and, to a lesser extent, cyanobacteria are floating in the waters and photosynthesizing. When these tiny organisms die, they take the carbon they breathed in with them as they fall as “marine snow” to the sediment at the bottom of the ocean.

A collection of slimy phyto- and zooplankton collected during bongo trawls. Photo credit: Thomas Bornman

We were there to assess the distribution and diversity of microbes swimming in the icy depths of the Southern Ocean, deploying bongo nets to collect plankton and hauling water from three thousand meters down just to filter and capture microscopic life. But while the data from those filters is still being unraveled, the voyage left me with a different kind of discovery: a profound reverence for the indomitable spirit of the people around me.

At the bottom of the world, our shared isolation from the rest of the world made us into a unique community. Cut off from tech support, reliable internet, and the familiarity of home, thirty different nationalities converged into a single, chaotic family. When gear broke, we huddled over sparse tools and MacGyver solutions out of sheer willpower and collective creativity. We took shifts watching pumps for projects that weren’t our own. We ate questionable grey meat in the mess together as time zones blurred and the idea of a “day” lost all meaning.

The scientists from Leg 3 of the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition

When you are covered in grime and slime, borders real and imagined start to vanish. You realize that science isn’t just a collection of papers or data points on a server: it’s a deeply human, gritty, and collaborative act of defiance against the unknown. I eventually stepped off that ship with a deep awe for the silent power of the Southern Ocean, but an even deeper belief in what human beings can achieve when we choose to weather the storm together.

For a visual peek at the first and third legs of the voyage, watch here and here.

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Originally published at https://samw450227.substack.com.