Dr. Jiping Liu in front of "Xuelong" ice breaker.

A polar bear shows interest in the deploy.

China is increasing scientific research in the Arctic at a time when global warming is raising international interest there. On July 11, 2008, the 3rd Chinese Arctic Research Expedition was launched. The goal of the 3rd Chinese Arctic Research Expedition is to gain a better understanding of the Arctic's physical, geological, biological and chemical processes, and the interactions of atmosphere, sea ice and ocean in the Arctic.

Because of a record rate of ice loss through in August, and “Xuelong” ice breaker moved along a path with relatively lighter ice conditions based on the AMSR-E sea ice concentration map, it is quite difficult for scientists to find suitable sea ice for ice camp. Finally, we set up the ice camp on an ice floe at about 84N and 145W on August 21, 2008. This is the first time that China conducted field campaign at such a high latitude.

One of the key missions of sea ice observations is to deploy the autonomous sea ice mass balance (IMB) buoy. The IMB buoy provides a means of routinely monitoring the ice mass balance for durations as long as a couple of years. The buoy is equipped to measure position, sea level pressure, and surface air temperature. The drift pattern of the buoy provides information on the circulation pattern of the sea ice cover. The buoy is also equipped with thermistor strings, which extend through the snow and ice cover and into the upper ocean, and acoustic sensors monitoring the position of the top and bottom surfaces of the ice. These instruments provide time series of snow accumulation and ablation, ice mass balance, internal ice temperature fields, and temporally-averaged estimates of ocean heat flux. Taken together these data delineate the change in the mass balance of the ice. This information provides important insight on the driving forces behind the change. After drilling holes and checking the ice thickness, site selection, which is a critical aspect of the buoy deployment, we deployed the buoy in the suitable site (the undeformed multiyear sea ice). Using the ARGOS polar-orbiting satellite system, data is transmitted from the IMB buoy, on average, every 2 hours.

The scary and funny thing was that just after we deployed the buoy and returned to the ice breaker, a polar bear visited. He was very curious about the buoy. He tried to pull the acoustic sensors out of the ice, but failed. This polar bear had stayed around the ice breaker for several days. As a result, everyday we had to use the helicopter to chase him away and then went down to the ice to do measurements.
 
According to the latest news from NSIDC, the Arctic sea  ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent on September 16, 2008, the second-lowest extent recorded since the satellite era, reinforcing the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past 30 years.