More ice stations and back to the open water Oct 26 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

22 October

After a day with drizzle and bad visibility, there is another ice station, starting around 78° 50′ N, 6° 15′ W. The first part is interrupted soon, because a polar bear shows up, forcing the sea ice team to go back on board and wait until this specimen of Ursus Maritimus has walked away far enough for the team to go back onto the ice.

After lunch I can go onto the ice for another drone flight. It is this flight that will teach me something about drone flying on the ice. It is cold, but everything goes fine. After flying I take a selfie and go back on board the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon. I enjoy the sun and take some photos from the helicopter deck.

When I get the first result of the orthomosaic – stitched together from more than 200 photos – I experience a surprise. The photo is – well – chaos. Perhaps because I added a wrong image? But the second and third attempts are not better.

Was it the GPS? Other sensors? What happened? To make it short: It was the drift of the sea ice. It was 0.4 knots this day, which does not sound extreme. Nevertheless, it is a drift of about 12 metres per minute and that adds up, when drone flying takes half an hour. Over the next two days I use some of my time to write a script to compensate for the drift by reading the position of the ship (which drifts together with the ice). And with this drift compensation, the orthomosaic creation finally works well:

23 October

Another day with an ice station. The ice team has it tough today with temperatures around -17 °C and a wind speed of more than 10 m/s. At the same time, it gets darker each day. Yesterday there were around three hours of daylight; today it is less than two and a half. Tomorrow it will be eighty minutes and then there will be polar night for almost four months.

In the afternoon I take another drone flight from the ice. Brrr! That’s cold. The second photo shows my caps and balaclavas drying – I wore them all, one above the other.

Cold weather stuff – everything was needed

24 October

For all those interested, we got a tour through the machinery spaces by maskinsjef B. I have a deep respect for the crew members working with these complex systems and who know so much about every technical facet of this icebreaker. I do not even try to tell you anything about it because I do not have the slightest clue about any of these components. Thanks for the great tour, B.!

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, something strange happens – we are leaving the ice behind. The boundary between the marginal ice zone and the open water is like being cut with a knife. When I am on deck, it is already too late to see this cut. We have been in the sea ice for more than a week and I have grown accustomed (and fond) to it.

But it’s not for long; we return into the ice only hours later.

25 October

Some shots taken in the evening.

26 October (today)

Today we have the last ice station. It is pretty dark, the visibility is far from brilliant and it is drizzling. I get a message from A., who has discovered a rare guest in this region – a snowy owl sitting on an ice floe nearby. This is the best shot I get of it from deck 3.

A snowy owl on an ice floe in the Fram Strait

To my delight it clears up after a while and the drizzle has stopped. My last chance to go out on the ice again to take a series of drone photos for the sixth orthomosaic of this cruise. Despite the damp weather, the results turn out to be surprisingly good. (And yes – I used drift compensation again, because here we had a drift of 0.6 knots, which is 30 cm a second.)

Kronprins Haakon in the drift ice for the last ice station

In the afternoon, while I am playing table tennis with two researchers, we leave the ice again, this time for good. The rest of this week we will spend in open water (it’s fun to play table tennis in a ship that is slightly rolling) and continue with one of the main fields of this cruise that I haven’t mentioned yet: conducting CTD casts to measure Conductivity (and so salinity) and Temperature at different Depths. The oceanographers have already conducted 49 CTDs over the last two weeks and there will be many more. But that’s another story to tell.

Daily weather changes and another ice station Oct 21 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

18 October

Oh, what lovely weather we have on the ice station. After I have done my job, I take the opportunity to take a photo from the icebreaker Kronprins Haakon by drone.

Ice Station on the starboard side of RV Kronprins Haakon

That was 13:00. Six hours later, the weather has changed. It is snowing and the crosswind on the helicopter deck is so massive that I do not dare to step out more than one metre. I take a shot to the front and a very blurred selfie and go inside again.

19 October

As predicted, the weather has become worse. When I am on the deck again after lunch, wind speeds have increased to something between 22 m/s and 28 m/s and the temperature has dropped to -8 °C. So I take the selfie in the wind-protected hangar.

But I am in a luxury position. Most of my work here is computer work, done in the heated Conference Work Room. Others have a much tougher job. They are recovering a mooring. Although the cable is one of the shorter ones, it takes around two hours until the mooring is recovered, because the elements keeps tangling up the cable. This is outside work on deck 3, with overalls, helmets, balaclavas and goggles in storm conditions and wind chills below -20 °C. So, it’s not me who should complain about the weather.

Later in the evening, the weather becomes even more severe, with wind gusts above 30 m/s and temperatures dropping below -10 °C. A very good time to stay inside even when taking photos. So I take photos through the windows from the bridge. On the starboard side, the storm batters the ship with snow. On the port side, the snow swirls in all possible directions.

Snow storm in the dark – seen from the bridge

20 October

The next morning, the weather has changed again, this time for the better. It has become colder, with temperatures of -13 °C, but the storm is gone and so has the snowfall.

An ice station is planned. I will join it later, when the wind has decreased even more and it is a bit brighter outside. Although our position is -9.5° W, our ship time is Norwegian time and so sunrise is around noon. Around 10 o’clock, I stand on the ice with the drone I intend to fly. Will it work when it is still dawn?

The drone I use belongs to the Norwegian Polar Institute

Yes – it works! The ship provides a lot of light that illuminates the ice. Not only for working but also for the team on the bridge that is looking for polar bears. While their job is harder at dawn, my drone flies well, although it detects obstacles in the air that are not there.

When the sun finally rises, it is pretty spectacular. In high latitudes, it seems more to roll over the horizon than to lift up.

And the colours are incredible. The snow-covered ice floe we are in shows many colours but not white.

After lunch, the ice station is continued and have the opportunity for another flight. Some shots from the side:

Then I stayed outside to learn a bit about the calibration of the GEM2, an electromagnetic instrument that is used for measuring the thickness of snow and ice.

However, I do not fly the drone for leisure but to make orthophotos that show the ice situation from above. For that, I have to take many pictures and then – back on the ship – use both traditional image editing and special software to stitch the images together. The morning orthophoto was stitched together from 125 images, the afternoon one from 255 images. That took about an hour of processing on a fast computer.

Especially the latter photo has a good image resolution. Do you see the scientists out there with the GEM2 on a pulka sled in the photo below? It is taken from the orthophoto above.

The next day another ice station is planned.

21 October

… but never set up. First the visibility was too poor and then it was too windy. I couldn’t have flown a drone anyhow because first it was snowing and then, with rising temperatures, it was raining. So a lot of other work was done instead.

So – another ice station tomorrow? Actually, that’s planned. Tomorrow I’ll know a bit more.

Into the ice, into the storm Oct 16 2026

This article is part of the series “2026-10: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.

14 October

After encountering a small ice field in the morning, we reach the marginal ice zone. So it looks like round 16:00:

Less than an hour later, it looks like this:

At six o’clock, people are standing on the bridge, peeking into the snowfall, driven by the increasing wind. A mooring is about to be recovered. It has been collecting data for more than a year, and now its release mechanism will be triggered by a so-called hydrophone, allowing the air-filled orange buoys to float to the surface and making the mooring visible. Then it has to be located visually so that it can be towed onto the ship. Not easy, when it looks like this.

The buoy is spotted, and now the long cable, equipped with instruments at different depths, is pulled onto the ship. Not easy, because ice floes drift along and carry the cable with them, bringing them close to the ship, until the cable is released. A new version of ice fishing.

This is a good example of teamwork. You need experts on deck doing the manual work, a helmsman steering the ship with Fingerspitzengefühl, people on the bridge spotting the next buoy, and good communication between these groups. The first activity is successfully completed, with a wow-effect.

Watching the sea ice illuminated by the ships spotlights has its own beauty. I still cannot get enough from these views.

The weather, however, worsens. At 21:10, the wind speed reaches 20 m/s for the first time that day, and the temperature is dropping as well. It is snowing, and each snowflake leaves a bright trail, like a meteor. How will the weather be like tomorrow?

15 October

Over night, it has become even colder and windier. The temperature -10 °C and falling, and the wind speed is above 20 m/s and increasing. Ice floes cover the ocean. Now I’m glad, I brought my warmest down parka with me.

Two CTD casts have been completed today, but then it became too stormy to continue. I go onto the helicopter deck to take some photos, but the wind is so strong, that although I never thought it could actually happen, I’m afraid of being blown overboard. I can’t see much because I’ve pulled up the fur-trimmed hood of my parka to protect myself from the cold, and the wind blows the fur in all direction closing the hood even further.

In the evening – well, I managed to get a shot from the side of the ship, where I was slightly sheltered from the storm. When I went around the corner to the helicopter deck, I had to seek shelter because the storm was too strong. I took a selfie, but in a sheltered corner so that I could stand steadily and avoid getting frostbite on my hand while using my mobile phone.

16 October

At the risk of repeating myself, the weather looks even worse. I wake up at 5 o’clock, and the temperature is -15.4 °C with a wind speed of 26.2. That’s a wind chill of -32.6 °C. In mid-October!

If you have read this article so far, you might get the impression that I am here as a photographer, but I’m actually here as a data manager, and I spend a lot of time at my computer in the Conference Work Room. I just don’t write too much about my computer work here. I am making good progress, but the distractions are there, for example, the frost patterns on the outer windows. This one looks like a jellyfish made of ice.

Right after lunch I go outside once more, this time to the ship’s stern, where I had a better protection from the wind. Oh, how I love watching the sea ice gently drifting by or being crushed forcefully by the ship.

Ok, back to work. I’m almost finished with the day’s work when the others in the room suddenly jump up and disappear. A polar bear has been sighted in front of the ship. It takes me some time to put on my face mask, helmet, down parka, down pants, gloves, and boots, and to mount the big telephoto lens. Only then can I take some photos of the bear in the distance. It approaches at first, but then turns right and trots away.

The sunset was too early Feb 15 2026

Today we had another clear morning with a temperature of -23 °C and not a single cloud. According to SMHI and The Photographer’s Ephemeris sunrise at our place in Obbola was at 07:32 today. While I was still walking on the sea ice to have a better view of the sunrise the sun already appeared – three minutes too early. The reason for this is atmospheric refraction due to an inversion above the ice that bends the light and so “lifts up” objects in the distance.

$Sunrise and atmospheric refraction$

To the right in the photo: The lighthouse Storbränningen, which I visited two days ago. It is about 4 km away. I could also spot the lighthouse Väktaren – 7 km away – although the distance to the horizon is technically only 4.5 km. I can even still see some construction far, far away on a bearing of 140° but I haven’t worked out what it is. Finland perhaps … ?

From inland to coast – a cold car ride Feb 9 2026

Yesterday morning, when I woke up I first checked the thermometer in the kitchen. It showed -27 °C.

I was in Jokkmokk to visit my friend Sascha and the Jokkmokk winter market. Would my car start when it’s that cold? After a coffee Sascha, his dog Roxy, and I went to the huge car park behind the railway line where my Suzuki had been parked the last two days. To my relief it started without any issues and even scraping ice off the car didn’t take as long as expected.

Farewell my friends – off I go.

The day was exceptionally beautiful and cold. The car thermometer went down to -29 °C and then stayed around -25 °C for the next hour. Should I switch to the Hägglunds that was parked beside the E45? Probably not the best idea with a distance of around 400 km ahead.

At half past eight, the sun rose. I parked my car and walked to a frozen lake nearby to take some photos. Was that where I froze my nose? It still itches a bit today.

Because of the cold weather in the last weeks the frost and snow on the trees has not melted and often I pulled into a lay-by to take more pictures. The small side roads were white with snow and looked absurdly beautiful.

I started to get hungry and stopped at the small shop in Kåbdalis, where I bought a kanelbulle that was still hot from the oven.

I continued my trip south and crossed the river Piteälven, which was mostly open. And so was the river Skellefteälven, which I crossed three hours later.

The sun sank lower and lower. When I arrived in Obbola at five in the afternoon it has become dark.

Today in Obbola the winter looked very different from the forest-dominated inland. The Baltic Sea has frozen due to the cold winter temperatures and if the icebreakers would not keep open channels for commercial seafaring you could walk the 45 km to Finland. I was on the ice as well, but only for a walk along the coast. I like the snowy forest, but I adore the sea ice!

Crisp and clear winter Jan 4 2026

After ten centimetres of snowfall, the sky cleared during the night and temperatures dropped. I woke up at one o’clock simply to see the full moon with a halo and Jupiter nearby. I resisted the urge to go back to bed and went outside to take a photo. What a beautiful sight, especially in combination with the wintry coast.

I also took some photos of the snow and the ice at the coast tonight. Nine hours later the sun managed to climb above the cloud layer that had gathered on the open sea. Time to take a photo of the same scene again.

I guess this is my favourite combination of winter weather: first snowfall and wind, then a clear sky and cold air. I took two other pictures from the same place. You can see the sunlit ice fog on the horizon, which forms when very cold air meets the open sea.

At noon my wife Annika and I took a promenade to the beach Vitskärsudden. The sea was still open, but a layer of ice had begun to form along the beach. The small harbour on the other side of the breakwater was covered with ice floes. When the sun is low ice and snow in the shadow often look blue, while in the sun they look orange.

Vitskärsudden – the beach starts to freeze-beach

13:52 – fifteen minutes before sunset – the landscape became even more colourful. We were back at our house in Obbola and I took some photos through the windows of the winter garden that were covered with frost. The temperature had dropped to -16 °C.

Now it is 17:37 and I sit writing this blog article. The temperature is now -20.4 °C. When you are outside at minus twenty degrees and inhale through your nose it tickles, because your nose hairs freeze. If you think that is cold, in Gielas in the Swedish mountains -40.7 °C were measured at 10 o’clock.

Tomorrow I will travel back to Tromsø. Then it will be a while before I see the sun again, as the polar night lasts until 15 January. It will also be less cold, but more snowy. At the moment there are 67 cm of snow there. And the great thing: winter has just begun!

Autumn forest, snowy mountains Sep 21 2024

When the temperature have dropped to 2–5 °C and the wind blows and it rains, rains, rains in Tromsø, then the season is a matter of altitude. In the lowlands it is autumn yet the mountains are covered with fresh, white snow.

No paddling in Obbola Jan 23 2024

Normally when I am in Obbola round Christmas I do some winter paddling. This year I dug out the kayaks from a thick layer of snow on 23 December. On 26 December there was still open water behind the tiny skerry that we use to call Lillskär but I was too lazy to go on a tour. One day later the Baltic Sea looked like this:

Within a single day parts of the Baltic Sea have frozen over – a stripe of 500 metres or more. So much for kayaking …

It took some time until I was allowed to publish the drone photo above. I had ask for permission at Lantmäteriet (The Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority) first.

Ärendenummer LM2023/067684

Obbola—Boliden—Kusfors—Obbola Jan 7 2024

Just some photos from a car trip to Boliden and Kusfors to visit good friends this weekend. Temperatures: everything between -13 and -28 °C.

It gets even colder Jan 6 2024

After the first days of the new year with temperatures down to -26 °C it got even colder.

4. January

In the morning temperature is between -26 and -27 °C and despite the weather forecast the sky is clear.

At lunch time I take another promenade along the coast. The sea ice Baltic Sea looks extremely cold due to the frost patterns that cover everything.

In the afternoon it gets colder and in the evening the temperature sinks below -30 °C for the first time. I go out and take a photo of our tree in our garden. It’s the very same tree under which Annika and I got married three and a half years ago – barefooted. Now it is covered in frost and Orion and Sirius are in the sky.

Luckily I have a lot of very warm clothes. To go out I only had to slip into my down suit and my Russian rubber boots, put a hat and woollen mittens on and I won’t freeze at all.

5. January

Twice I was awake and outdoors this night to enjoy the cold air and the starry sky. At 3:18 the thermometer shows -33.4 °C, the coldest temperature ever I experienced being at home!

These days a lot of places experience temperatures below -40 °C and less and many people (including us) have trouble with their cars or heating. Near Arjeplog a guy measured -51 °C with a laser thermometer the day before. That’s exceptionally cold even for Northern Sweden.

-33.4 °C – personal cold record being at home

In the morning it was time for Annika and me to repeat a known experiment in the cold that we never tried out by ourselves: Throwing hot water in the air and seeing it freezing almost instantly into a cloud of ice dust. While my photos are ok-ish, Annika took gorgeous photos with my Nikon showing me doing this experiment. It works best with temperatures below -30 °C, which we had.

Hot water – cold air I (photo: Annika Kramer)

Hot water – cold air II (photo: Annika Kramer)

Hot water – cold air IV (photo: Annika Kramer)

Hot water – cold air V (photo: Annika Kramer)

Hot water – cold air III (photo: Annika Kramer)

While I write this article in the night to the 6. January it is still cold, but “only” -22 °C. You get used to the cold after some days. And yes – I love these cold and crisp winter days a lot! The weekend will still be cold, then it will get warmer. Much warmer! On Tuesday, four days from now, it may be 40 degrees warmer than yesterday morning with day temperatures round +6 °C!

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