I have a (dream) job this week, and that is to make a map/figure of Antarctica for a polar scientist. I’m using Adobe Illustrator (and Photoshop).
Pretty excited about my work today. I get to make a map/figure of Antarctica for a polar scientist. Dream job!
— Marlo Garnsworthy🌊❄️ (@MarloWordyBird) July 1, 2020
(That’s the amazing and beautiful REMA map I’m using as a template, btw.) pic.twitter.com/GXHLThTDkb
Check out the REMA (Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica) map. It’s super cool.
Coming along... pic.twitter.com/TSY5Fg99xn
— Marlo Garnsworthy🌊❄️ (@MarloWordyBird) July 1, 2020
I’ve added some gradation in the land (more to come) and some labels. Still need to add lats/longs.
— Marlo Garnsworthy🌊❄️ (@MarloWordyBird) July 1, 2020
But that’s as far as I can take you on this process journey, alas! Time to move on to the map’s purpose—the confidential-until-published stuff! pic.twitter.com/rTpjeoO5Yq
Doing this work makes me feel happy and fulfilled.
And it’s done!
One of my projects during IODP Expedition 382 Iceberg Alley was to create a book that could be used as an educational resource related to our science. Through my communications with the public, I’ve realized many people don’t know the difference between land ice and sea ice. (E.g., “Are icebergs frozen seawater?”) I wondered, how can we convey the importance of Exp 382 work, if people—both kids and adults—don’t really understand how an iceberg forms and its relationship to the ice sheet? So, I set out to make something I hoped would appeal to and inform a broad audience.
At sea, I did the research and writing and sketched out illustration ideas for this and a similar picture book.
Thumbnails in the JOIDES Resolution core lab.
While I did a little painting at sea, I really needed to be back in my studio to successfully create the illustrations for this book, which are a mix of watercolors and watercolor collage. This process requires frequent movement between my art table and my desk — and lots of mess. When you combine this with how much time I sit staring into space and/or pacing, making these kinds of illustrations was not very practical in the shared spaces of a medium-sized research vessel in the heaving Southern Ocean!
Watercolors in the JOIDES Resolution conference room
Since I returned 5 weeks ago, I’ve been mainly working on this project. The transition from life on the Southern Ocean to regular life has its challenges—and there’s a particular kind of letdown that comes with it. (I’ve now successfully deposited two massive chunks of my soul in the Antarctic.) So, I feel exceptionally lucky to have spent a month painting, writing about, and thinking about the polar environment I love so much and processing all I experienced at sea.
Back in my studio
I loved making this book, and I hope it entices people to learn more about Antarctic ice and how Climate Change is affecting it.
This book will soon be available as a free resource from JOIDESResolution.org. It is dedicated to the brilliant, tireless, lovely scientists of Expedition 382.
It’s hard to believe it’s four weeks since I returned from IODP Expedition 382 Iceberg Alley and Subantarctic Ice & Ocean Dynamics, a research cruise in the Southern Ocean.
I’ve sat down and tried numerous times to write something that captures this experience and my feelings about it, but it’s too vast, too extraordinary, too profound. I can tell you I miss almost everything about it: the beauty, the science, the learning, and the job of Education & Outreach Officer.
I miss a daily role in our important work and bringing our science to the public. That said, it continues… Since I’ve returned, I’ve given three presentations about our science and the melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to middle and high school students, with other talks scheduled. I’ve also been working on completing a book about icebergs, which will soon be available as a free resource on the JOIDES Resolution site.
Most of all, as I sit here alone in my quiet home office, without the rolling of the ship and the wheezing of the machines in the core lab, I miss a truly exceptional group of people.
In time, presumably, the words will pour from me. For now, I paint.
And paint…
When I returned home from Antarctica last year, I put this promise on my pin-board—that I would go back in the role of science communicator to this place that captured my soul, no matter how long it took. I would dedicate my days to an active role in communicating the vital importance of our polar regions. Well...
I’m beyond thrilled to share that I’ve been selected as the Outreach Officer for an IODP Antarctic expedition next year called Iceberg Alley (Iceberg Alley and South Falkland Slope Ice and Ocean Dynamics).
Around mid-March next year, I'll head down to Punta Arenas, near the southern tip of Chile, and board the JOIDES Resolution. The JR is a research vessel with a drilling derrick. It's able to drill deep into the seafloor to collect core samples and various measurements, providing data that informs us about our planet's past.
We'll sail through the notoriously wild Drake Passage and into the seas east of the northern Antarctic Peninsula, part of "Iceberg Alley" — where most icebergs converge after drifting counter-clockwise around the continent of Antarctica. Here they meet the warmer waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and melt, dropping sediment they picked up when they were glaciers grinding across the continent.
Iceberg in a Gale, Ross Sea, Antarctica Copyright © Marlo Garnsworthy
We'll drill in the Scotia Sea and the South Falkland Slope during two months at sea. Among other things, the sediment we recover will tell us where the iceberg originated and about melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) in the past. Since Antarctic glaciers are melting now as our planet warms, it's important to know how the AIS responded in the past, so we can better prepare for a future of sea level rise and other changes.
I'm honored and so grateful to take on this role and be involved in such important work about subjects that fascinate me. And very excited! Wild seas, many icebergs, maybe sea ice, polar birds, and science about the Antarctic Ice Sheet... a dream come true!
I look forward to taking you with me!