Armed Scientists: Arctic Ocean Diaries No. 3

Jesse Torres, Fireman, aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, shooting arrows from the helicopter deck. Looking on, David Forcucci, Marine Science Coordinator and founder of the Drift Arrow Project.Julia Whitty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Editor’s note: Julia Whitty is on a three-week-long journey aboard the the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, following a team of scientists who are investigating how a changing climate might be affecting the chemistry of ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic.

We had a lot of fun yesterday when everyone aboard got an email on the ship’s Intranet from David Forcucci, the Marine Science Coordinator for Healy and a marine biologist by training, saying there would be the opportunity to shoot arrows off Healy’s stern at 1630 hours. He looked surprised at how many people showed up from both science and ship’s crew. Shoot arrows off the ship? Hell yeah.

We launched 50 arrows yesterday out into the Bering Strait, all handmade from Tonkin bamboo, no plastics of any kind, using traditional bows made by Jay St. Charles of yew and spruce. Each arrow was marked with www.driftarrow.com (check it out). We got to decorate them as we wanted with Sharpie pens.

Rather than a message in a bottle, we’re sending messages on arrows. Dave’s hoping to track the progress of these floating message-bearers around the Arctic Gyre—the big oceanic circulation circumnavigating the North Pole, maybe all the way to Europe. He’s counting on people up here in the far North to take a second look at bamboo—something rarely to never seen up here—pick up an arrow and register it at his website.

Dave’s arrow project is more fun than hard science. He’s hoping local kids will get involved. He and Jay have already involved five school groups in the Seattle area who have decorated a few hundred drift arrows. Andrey Proshutinsky, an oceanographer from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, will be using his computer model to predict where the drift arrows travel in the Arctic current system. Dave also will be deploying a high tech satellite buoy alongside one quiver of arrows launched from from Healy, which should enable him to get daily positions on their drift.

Scientists testing the bows. Left to right: Bob Pickart, Frank Bahr, David Forcucci, Donglai Gong. Julia WhittyScientists testing the bows. Left to right: Bob Pickart, Frank Bahr, David Forcucci, Donglai Gong. Julia Whitty

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate