Lidar, Whales and a Long Drive

June 14, 2010

Our last morning in Sortland started early as we packed our bags and headed out to Andenes, a town of 3,500 on the tip of Sortland about two hours away. Andenes is a picturesque whaling village that until three years ago, survived largely due to the military base. Since the base has closed, Andenes is rethinking its survival strategy and has started tapping into the tourism industry by offering whale and puffin safaris. About ten minutes outside of Andenes is our first stop at ALOMAR, the Arctic Lidar Observatory. ALOMAR is located about 380 meters above elevation and home to six full-time employees and six partner countries housing or operating their machinery in the facility. ALOMAR is also responsible for the ground operations of the Andøya Rocket Range, where rockets are sent out into the atmosphere to collect particles and data to be analyzed by the scientists at ALOMAR. As a lidar optic center, ALOMAR has several lasers in place that send out different wavelengths of light into the atmosphere. The scientists then measure the time it takes for the light to return, the frequency, distance and other characteristics that the electromagnetic waves radiate when interacting with atoms. Currently, the staff at ALOMAR is working around the clock to study noctilucent clouds. These are thin clouds located at 83 km above ground (space is 100 km) that were first noticed in 1885 after a volcanic eruption in the Philippines. These clouds are only visible in the summertime and although located above ALOMAR, cannot be seen from the area due to the Midnight Sun but rather by video footage taken from Trondheim, a city further south. Scientists at ALOMAR first started studying these clouds, visible only from June through August, in the 1980s to learn their qualities and characteristics. Today, more monitoring work is being conducted to continue collecting data. Another type of cloud, the mother of pearl, is also being monitored and studied since they are actually damaging the ozone layer and cannot be reversed. Touring the facility, we saw several visiting scientists working on their individual machines including a scientist from Boulder, CO working on a machine that starts creating the laser beam that will then be processed through the larger machines and sent out into the atmosphere to collect data. While the scientific terms and knowledge were too detailed to understand, the idea of collecting vast amounts of data by sending out a laser was amazing. ALOMAR probably sends out lasers 120 days a year, weather permitting. Generally, the center is operational from 8 am to 8 pm except for special projects which are 24/7. It is a private company but works through collaborations with several nations or universities looking to house their equipment and for technicians to operate the machinery. Our guide, Sandra Blindheim, is the head of ALOMAR and five years into her first job, that is not a bad place to be! Blindheim said that most of the staff does have a physics background and understands the technical side, but there are several people that visit from other backgrounds such as programming. Today, the field is nearing the point of having too much data so Blindheim said that in the next decade or so, scientists need to decide whether to make this into a business and sell data sets or to make them available for general consumption.

After ALOMAR, our next visit was into the town of Andenes for a trip to the whaling museum. Andenes is famous for its whale safaris which are year-round but will kick into high season in the next three weeks. Unfortunately, the whale safari for the day was at 5 pm and since we had to be on the road by 2 pm, we were only able to visit the museum and understand a bit about the famous animals. Standing around the carcass of a sperm whale, we learned that an average male is about 11 to 17 meters long. This particular carcass was discovered by two German researchers in 1996, after the whale washed up on the coast. By looking at the skeleton, we learned the sperm whale first got its name because scientists believed the large head was filled with sperm but in fact, soon learned that it was filled with spermaceti which is a fluid that the whale changes depending on its need. When the whale is looking to fish and dive down to the bottom of the seabed, the spermaceti hardens and makes the head heavier. When the whale is ready to come back up, it loosens and allows for easier swimming. The sperm whale has the largest brain of any animal, but it only makes up 0.2 percent of its body weight compared to 2.5 percent of the human brain to body ratio. The sperm whale makes three different types of clicking sounds: to communicate, as an echo to gauge prey and to paralyze the prey for easy eating. Typically the sperm whale feeds on squid, but also eats several other fish in the sea or up to 1 ton of food per day.

As we moved to the orca, we learned that the killer whale is in fact, not a whale, but a large dolphin. There are two types of killer whales in the waters around Andenes. The first are the residential orcas that mostly follow the schools of herring around the water. The second are the migrating killer whales and they are the most dangerous since they eat anything out in the water including other whales, humans and fish. The female humpback whales, for example, do not migrate into these waters because of fear that the baby humpback whales will be eaten by the migrating killer whales. Instead, the female humpback whales stay in the Caribbean waters year round. The females stay in groups with the families they were born into while the males travel several miles to reach the Norwegian waters where they feed throughout the winter to become bigger and then swim back to the Caribbean to impress the females who only mate with the larger animals. A female typically delivers seven calves a lifetime, starting at the age of seven. Whales typically live for 80 years, though the oldest whale discovered was 220 years. Humpback whales keep their young with them for several years, feeding milk to the whales until they are at least three before teaching them to fish for themselves. Humpback whales fish through a technique called a bubble net where they surround a school of fish with bubbles, confusing the fish who believe they are caught in a net, before coming from below and eating the entire school at once.

The museum visit was not enough to satisfy our curiosity about whales but unfortunately, it would have to do. Following a lunch with our new friends in Andenes, we hit the road once again for a two hour trip back to Sortland before continuing on for another half hour to a ferry and then an hour and half to our new hometown of Harstadt. Dinner tonight was a Norwegian specialty of rømmegrøt or sour cream porridge, topped with cinnamon and sugar to taste. The porridge is served with salted meats, flat bread and potato salad. Yum!