Preparatory Tests with an Explorer Class Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Missions under Sea Ice

• Published in: The International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems
• Main Authors: Neil Bose, Ron S. Lewis, Sara Adams
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2010
• Subjects: Ocean engineering; TC1501-1800; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Arctic; Southern Ocean; East Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice algae; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1260/1759-3131.1.3-4.145; https://doaj.org/article/ffc385f9f51c459f80dcc2d7b8f38d60

The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operations described here are preparatory missions to enable operation of an AUV under sea ice in polar regions. The proposed polar projects include operations under land fast ice in the Arctic through an ice moon pool and a planned project to assess sea ice mass balance and habitat assessment in the Southern Ocean in East Antarctica. This paper focuses on the preparatory missions, done in open water, and the planned Southern Ocean project. The plan is to use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for the under ice component of measurements. The ultimate goals are to quantify the size and shape of ridge keel structures and their contribution to the sea ice mass balance over a study region; to understand the processes that link sea ice with the distribution of ice algae and krill; to provide the necessary field measurements, over sufficiently large areas, for the calibration/validation of satellite and aircraft-based measurements of the sea ice and snow cover thickness; and to provide baseline measurements of sea ice thickness for future climate monitoring.