Monthly Archives: July 2020

About

5 reasons Icefin should be your new favorite robot

Icefin is an underwater oceanographer robot with projects funded by the likes of NASA and the National Science Foundation, and helps scientists explore ice-covered oceans. Icefin may be the inspiration for future trips to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which is a key target on NASA’s list for ocean world exploration that could potentially harbor life.

Right now, Icefin vehicles are being used to study things like glaciers and ice streams in Antarctica. Whether mapping the underside of glaciers on Earth, or paving the way for ocean exploration on other worlds, Icefin is doing some seriously ground-breaking (or should we say, ice-breaking) work!

A computer rendition of the yellow bodied Icefin Robot

Here’s why Icefin should be your new favorite robot:

  1. Icefin has gone where no robot (or person) had gone before. “This is one small step for Icefin robot, one giant leap for robotkind”. During the 2019-2020 field season in Antarctica, Icefin was the first robot to deploy through a borehole drilled through a half mile of glacial ice, into the cold ocean beneath, and travel miles beneath the ice to map, measure, and study the underside of the critical Thwaites Glacier. Another Icefin vehicle, during the same season but in a different location, entered the ocean below the ice of Kamb Ice Stream, part of the Ross Ice Shelf, and explored that environment like never before. By going to places we had never been on Earth, Icefin robot will help lead us to places we’ve only dreamed of.
  1. Icefin will help scientists who study climate change, oceans, and glaciers, to more accurately predict our future. You care about climate change. That’s one of the reasons why we hope you’ll care about Icefin like we do. The robot oceanographer is helping scientists get a more detailed understanding of glaciers (like Thwaites, also known as the Doomsday Glacier because of its size and potential impact if/when it collapses). By collecting first-of-its-kind data and images of the underside of glaciers, both stable and eroding ones, we can paint a clearer picture of how and why they change, how fast it’s happening, and what impact we might see as these glaciers change.
  1. Icefin has some killer media. You know you love those aesthetic photo posts, whether it’s gorgeous vacation #goals on Facebook, or that astronomy pic of the day Instagram feed. Icefin will add an underwater, otherworldly, cool (see what we did there) aesthetic to your social feed. Want to see content like this, or this, or this, or this? You know what to do, follow Icefin (on social media) to where no robot oceanographer has gone before!
An image of Icefin, your new facorite robot, under a sheet of blue and green ice in water that appears light and deep blue. Icefin is a yellow, pencil-shaped robot.

More @icefinrobot on Instagram

Boop! A GIF image of a seal touhcing its nose to equipment after poking its head up from a borehole in the ice in Antarctice.

Via @icefinrobot on Twitter

Scott tent camp at Grounding Zone camp, Thwaites Glacier.

Via our blog Life Under the Ice

  1. Icefin is laying the groundwork with exploration on Earth, so future robots can explore other worlds. Speaking of “where no robot has gone before”, by exploring icy oceans in Antarctica, Icefin is paving the way for future robotic missions to other worlds with ice-covered oceans in our solar system, like Jupiter’s moon Europa. The moon is believed to have a vast liquid ocean covered in a layer of ice, which could harbor life, and robots like Icefin (and next generation vehicles) will be the ones to explore those alien landscapes, which may in fact look a lot like our own polar waters.
  1. Icefin is backed by a team of awesome people. We like to work hard and do science, engineering, and programming… and we like to have fun. We’re down-to-Earth people (unfortunately not down-to-Europa, yet!), and we promise you won’t regret making Icefin your favorite robot. Want to learn more? Check out this awesome short film NOVA Science made about us!

And there you have it! Now that Icefin is your new favorite robot, go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and our blog, and check us out online! 

2019 Field, 2020, Media

We can’t Th(wait)es to answer your FAQ about Thwaites and Icefin!

Thwaites FAQ: On May 21, 2020, PI and Icefin Lead Scientist Dr. Britney Schmidt participated in a Twitter Q&A session with Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and answered some of your most frequently asked questions about Thwaites and Icefin as part of the #ThwaitesGlacierChat. If you’re new to Thwaites and/or Icefin, this is a great place to start! If you’ve been following us for a while, here’s your chance for a more in-depth understanding of what we do, and why it matters.

Bulletin Atomic: The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration is a 5-year project involving a huge number of scientists, ships, and aircraft to study the Antarctic. Why is this research important? What are you hoping to find?

Dr. Schmidt: Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest changing glaciers in Antarctica. We want to understand how that works, and how quickly climate change is affecting the glacier. One of the ways to do this is to make measurements up close and personal with the processes affecting the ice, like melting from the warming ocean. 

Bulletin Atomic: What is the difference between sea ice and the ice on land? Do they each contribute to sea-level rise?

Dr. Schmidt: Ice on land (glaciers) is formed from compacting snow, but sea ice forms from ocean freezing. Glaciers like Thwaites enter the ocean below sea level. What this means is that glaciers can be easily affected (melting) by the ocean, and when they speed up, they add ice and water to the ocean, changing sea level. So the melting of sea ice can cause more glacier melting, through warming of the ocean, which means sea level rise. While sea ice doesn’t change sea level, as it melts, the bright ice that reflects sunlight is replaced by dark ocean that absorbs heat, which accelerates ocean warming.

Bulletin Atomic: MELT Project is part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. What is that project and how does it fit into the overall effort to understand the Thwaites Glacier?

Dr. Schmidt: With MELT, we’re getting up close and personal with the place where sea level rise starts for glaciers like Thwaites — the grounding zone. Icefin used a hot water drilled hole, [drilled] by British Antarctic Survey team Hot Water On Ice, to get under the 600m of ice and swim 2km back to where the glacier starts to float on the ocean (the grounding zone).

Bulletin Atomic: Is the Antarctic melting? All of it? And how do we know?

Dr. Schmidt: Quite a lot of melt is happening. We got to see it happening every time we went under the ice at Thwaites Glacier, a lot of which you can see in this video from Icefin here. Here’s our favorite image Icefin took of the grounding zone from under Thwaites, but there are lots more here

An Image Icefin took of the grounding zone from under Thwaites.

Bulletin Atomic: We’re tweeting an image from Peter Davis’ trip of the first borehole that was drilled. What are we looking at, and what does it tell your team? (Image credit: Screenshot of borehole trip video from Peter Davis, available here, as seen below)

Screenshot of borehole trip video from Peter Davis.

Dr. Schmidt: Icefin went down this 600m hole 5 times, drove about 15km total, and mapped the base of the ice, tasted the water, and measured melting — plus we found some cool organisms! When we got this video back from the Hot Water On Ice team, we knew it was safe to put Icefin and the other science instruments through the hole to start science.

Bulletin Atomic: Are there instruments left in place at Thwaites Glacier? Are you getting real-time readouts or does someone have to go back to collect the instruments and data?

Dr. Schmidt: Lots of the teams have left instruments to measure change and monitor conditions on Thwaites Glacier over the next few years. MELT has GPS stations and tilt meters and ApRes that Hot Water On Ice and glaciologist Kiya Riverman and others will be working with, and a team will go back out to retrieve the instruments. The Icefin team is back remote-sciencing at the Georgia Tech College of Sciences and Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, working on all the data from last year. Looking forward to getting papers out soon!

Bulletin Atomic: What will the melting of Thwaites Glacier and other parts of the Antarctic mean for sea level rise? How long will it take, and how high will it go

Dr. Schmidt: Thwaites Glacier is in a precarious position, like the Atlas of West Antarctica, holding back a deep basin of ice that supports the whole ice sheet. If Thwaites Glacier goes, there will be much faster loss of ice and sea level rise. We don’t know exactly how fast Thwaites Glacier is responding to climate change, which is why the National Science Foundation and Natural Environment Research Council put together the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, because we have to find out.

Bulletin Atomic: What stands out about working in such a remote area? As the technology improves, how will it help future researchers study the glacier?

Dr. Schmidt: Working on Thwaites Glacier was incredibly humbling and exciting. Antarctica is one of the few places that just knocks you back off your feet when you see it. Technology is definitely improving, helping us see new things, but the people doing the work mean even more.  Science is a human endeavor, and a moral imperative. But sometimes you do get to drive robots under the ice, which is pretty cool.

From our perspective, using technology that NASA funded us to build to one day get to Europa, has helped us see our own planet in new ways. Icefin lets us see, “taste”, and “touch” the processes as they happen, swimming the instruments right up to where the action is, which is a new way to understand the ocean and the ice. And it’s pretty cool, because we can add those measurements over a mile away from the bore hole to seismic data from Kiya Riverman and ocean and radar data from Hot Water On Ice, and we get a new picture of how melting at the ice base is happening. Then you add together the work being done by MELT to the science from THOR, TARSAN, GHOST, DOMINOS, GHC, TIME and PROPHET and the whole Thwaites Glacier team can help us really know what’s happening now and what will happen next.

2020

We may be social distancing, but the Icefin team is still #RemoteSciencing

It’s an unprecedented time for everyone, including the scientists and engineers who work on Icefin. Being away from our labs and workstations means the Icefin team members have to get creative with remote-sciencing to keep things moving forward in the time of Covid-19.

For some, that means engineering complex electronics on a fold-out table, for others it’s meant commandeering the living room or front porch for a quiet place to concentrate on data analysis and research. Wherever our team members are social distancing, we’re still remote-sciencing. Here’s what that looks like… multimeters, kiddie pools, computers, cats, and all!

Icefin’s Lead Electrical Engineer Daniel Dichek has been working on building and testing battery hardware on his home workbench.

Working on building and testing battery hardware

Postdoc and NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Icefin’s Andy Mullen has been working in his home electronics lab setup. “I’ve been working on the software and electronics for a custom underwater microscopic imaging system for observing microbes in the ocean aboard Icefin. The internal components and underwater housings of the microscope are on the blue mat on the table,” he said.

Postdoc and NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Icefin’s Andy Mullen has been working in his home electronics lab setup. "I've been working on the software and electronics for a custom underwater microscopic imaging system for observing microbes in the ocean aboard Icefin. The internal components and underwater housings of the microscope are on the blue mat on the table,” he said.

Along with working on the microscope itself, when the microscope needed a stand, Andy got creative while working from home and made one for it using LEGOS. He already had some at the house and they worked perfect!

  • The microscope needed a stand so Andrew Mullen got creative while working from home and made one for it using LEGOs.
    The microscope needed a stand so Andrew Mullen got creative while working from home and made one for it using LEGOs.
  • A full view of the microscope stand Andrew Mullen built with LEGOs.
    A full view of the microscope stand Andrew Mullen built with LEGOs.

He’s also been doing some 3D printing from home. “I have been making a manifold to route water for the custom water sampler that is being developed for Icefin.” These are pictures of the manifold at different stages of its fabrication: an empty 3D printer, the finished manifold still in the 3D printer, showing the manifold’s internal channels by holding it up to the sun, tapping the manifold holes, the manifold done with solenoids attached.

  • An empty 3D printer.
    The empty 3D printer.
  • The finished manifold still in the 3D printer.
    The finished manifold still in the 3D printer.
  • The manifold's internal channels are seen by holding it up to the sun.
    The manifold’s internal channels are seen by holding it up to the sun.
  • Tapping the manifold holes.
    Tapping the manifold holes.
  • The finished manifold with solenoids attached.
    The finished manifold with solenoids attached.

Graduate Student and Icefin Engineer Ben Hurwitz enjoyed working outside on his patio, complete with a kiddie pool, on a beautiful 85°F day in Atlanta.

Graduate Student and Icefin Engineer Ben Hurwitz enjoyed working outside on his patio, complete with a kiddie pool, on a beautiful 85°F day in Atlanta.

Icefin Primary Investigator and Lead Scientist Dr. Britney Schmidt has a purrrfect home office setup, can you spot the cat?

Frances Bryson is working on sampling systems for under ice environments, for both Icefin and VERNE projects. The arm here is a basic prototype Frances is using to act as a proof of concept and test out software and controls for a version that will eventually go on Icefin.

  • This arm is a basic prototype used to act as a proof of concept and test out software and controls for a version that will eventually go on Icefin.
  • Frances is working on sampling systems for under ice environments, for both Icefin and VERNE projects.

Research Engineer Anthony Spears has no shortage of screens in his home remote-sciencing setup!

Research Engineer Anthony Spears has no shortage of screens in his home remote-sciencing setup!

During social distancing, Research Scientist Peter Washam is looking into ocean circulation data from beneath Thwaites Glacier and Ross Ice Shelf, near the grounding line of Kamb Ice Stream. “The flow beneath in the ocean cavity beneath these two large bodies of ice is very different, with tides primarily moving water in an elliptical motion beneath Ross and freshwater production from melting apparently driving the circulation beneath Thwaites,” he said.

During social distancing, Research Scientist Peter Washam is looking into ocean circulation data from beneath Thwaites Glacier and Ross Ice Shelf, near the grounding line of Kamb Ice Stream. “The flow beneath in the ocean cavity beneath these two large bodies of ice is very different, with tides primarily moving water in an elliptical motion beneath Ross and freshwater production from melting apparently driving the circulation beneath Thwaites,” he said.

Graduate Student and Icefin Scientist Justin Lawrence is using Icefin’s custom data visualization dashboard to look at water column temperature and salinity under the Ross Ice Shelf.

Graduate Student and Icefin Scientist Justin Lawrence is using Icefin’s custom data visualization dashboard to look at water column temperature and salinity under the Ross Ice Shelf.