First Observation of the Season

We have made our first observation of the season! We woke up this morning at 0724 UTC to 9-10/10 First Year ice with a thickness of 100cm in the vicinity of 83.15N, 59.54E.

We are travelling in a lead of Cake-sized floes, but around us the ice is mostly Large floes of 200-500m, most extending beyond the range of our visibility.

Melt is at an early stage here, with only around 1/10 pond coverage, all of which appear very shallow. A few isolated floes show a different pattern of melting, with up to 4/10 coverage of linked but extremely shallow ponds.

There is some slight ridging but the topography is best characterized as flat floes.

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