About the project
Polar regions, and the Arctic in particular, have become the focus of increased research in the last 10 years. Changes in the climate alongside technological developments are creating new opportunities in these regions for human activities, including sustainable development of resource-based industries, fishing, tourism, and faster shipping routes between Europe and Asia. Improved scientific understanding of the Arctic environment will lead to improved prediction of sea ice hazards for human activities and, therefore, will naturally produce increased value in polar regions, while doing so in a safer and more environmental-friendly way. In this project, we want to develop methodology that will lead to safer human operations in the arctic seas.
Main topics of investigation:
- Develop autonomous sensors adapted to polar regions, that will allow monitoring of 3D motion of floating ice and icebergs, on-board processing, and satellite communications.
- Investigate the sources of energy dissipation under sea ice, which is an important element for wave damping by sea ice, and must be investigated in more detail to allow better predictions of waves in a changing Arctic Ocean.
- Develop methods and theories to monitor 3D dynamics of icebergs, allowing surveillance of iceberg drift and analysis of iceberg stability, which is necessary for iceberg towing.
- Investigate the dynamics of icebergs affected by waves, currents and wind using numerical modelling (computational fluid dynamics (CFD)); both commercial and research codes.
- Develop a simulation package, in collaboration with the Norwegian Meteorological institute, to improve forecasts of ice drift with a focus on better operation safety in the Arctic.
The following institutions and people are involved in the project:
- University of Alaska; Mark Johnson
- CEMEF Mines-ParisTech; Thierry Coupez
- University Center in Svalbard; Aleksey Marchenko
- Norwegian Meteorological institute;Kai Christensen, Graigory Sutherland
- University of Oslo; Jean Rabault, Jan Erik Weber, Atle Jensen
Financing
This project is financed by the Reseach Council of Norway. Funding ID: 280625