Sea ice reports for the season 2011-2012

• Main Authors: Lieser, JL, Massom, RA, Heil, P
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre 2012
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience not elsewhere classified; Antarctic; Commonwealth Bay; The Antarctic; Antarc*; aurora australis; Iceberg*; Macquarie Island; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://ecite.utas.edu.au/78098

This document is a compilation of weekly sea ice reports for the East Antarctic. Thereports were prepared to support ship operations in the region during the shippingseason in 2011/2012. They were primarily used as a guidance for the AustralianAntarctic program, but were partly provided to other Antarctic operators as well.The focus of individual reports shifts with the main purpose of specific voyages ofthe Australian Antarctic research and supply vessel Aurora Australis throughoutthe season. The Antarctic voyages of the 2011/2012 season were:No. Leave port Main Purpose ReturnV1 23/10/2011 Davis resupply 26/11/2011V2 02/12/2011 Casey resupply 03/01/2012V3 05/01/2012 Commonwealth Bay visit and Marine Science 12/02/2012V4 15/02/2012 Mawson resupply 15/03/2012V5 17/03/2012 Recover Davis and Casey summer personnel 14/04/2012V6 16/04/2012 Macquarie Island resupply 01/05/2012Whenever required, the Sea Ice Group prepared sub-weekly updates for specificregions.In general, the sea ice conditions for the 2011/2012 season can be regarded asclose to average. However, two regions of particular concern were; the CommonwealthBay region, where a grounded iceberg had a profound influence on thelocal sea ice conditions and prevented ship access into the bay and to Mawson'sHut, and the second, an unusually persistent land-fast sea ice off Mawson Stationthat threatened to prevent full resupply of the station.