December 01, 2013
As the Arctic Ocean begins to freeze for the winter...
NOAA and University of Washington scientists gain insight from the air. Using the heavily-instrumented NOAA WP-3D Orion "Hurricane Hunter" research aircraft, scientists have completed the first intensive Arctic overflight experiments to make quantitative measurements of autumn sea ice freezeup in the Chukchi sea, a region of potential oil exploration.
The objective of the flights was met by successfully making measurements of the ocean, and of the atmosphere over open water, first year ice, and multi-year ice, under a variety of weather conditions, during the freezeup. Watch the YouTube video or visit the Arctic Climate Dynamics website to read more about this air/sea study during autumn sea ice freezeup.