As the month of July is drawing to an end, my internship, which had seemed so far off in chaos of a hectic spring quarter is a just a week away. My name is Robert Daniels, and I’m an undergraduate at the University of Washington majoring in Physical Oceanography. I’m very fortunate to attend an excellent public research university with an active community of scientist, whom I’ve had such positive and inspiring interactions with. With their encouragement and guiding hands, I have developed a high enthusiasm for field work and good science, which I’m carrying in tow to this M.A.T.E. internship.
I recently returned from a two week cruise on the vessel Norseman 2, working with researchers from the University of Washington, A.P.L., and M.I.T. in the Bering Strait. We were recovering and deploying moorings and preforming several historic CTD lines in the Strait zone. This cruise, which is the second I’ve taken to the area with the group, has vastly increased my knowledge of the ocean dynamic and furthered the development of my skills as a working researcher on a science cruise.
I expect the same will be true with this next great cruise. I’m very excited to meet with Bob Pickart and his group from WHOI on the R/V Knorr and work on the “Overturning of the Subpolar North Atlantic” program. I spent weeks before the Bering Strait trip reading several papers on the accepted physical oceanographic processes of the Western Arctic, and now I’m steeping myself in the details of the complex currents, heat fluxes, and water properties on other end of the great northern ocean. I can’t wait to get out there.