NOAA researchers set out this week on a two-week mission to fly over the Arctic to measure how much the ice has melted over the summer and gauge the speed of this fall’s refreezing of sea ice. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2014's minimum sea ice extent was 1.94 million square miles, the 6th smallest on record. Aboard a NOAA Lockheed WP-3D Orion aircraft, a highly specialized four-engine turboprop known for its work as a hurricane hunter, researchers will use...
Via Marian Locksley
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This seems to be a great category of monitoring wherein AUVs could provide a great service, with potentially more accuracy for much reduced costs. Clearly, this is in the realm of more military-style platforms designed for longer endurance with greater thrust and movement capability. But a remotely piloted system here could be a significant advantage over satellites in that we could zoom in on biological interactions (marine mammal populations for example) or algal blooms at the ice edge. Even with all the substantial costs of such systems, there would still be a hug he cost savings relative to the more traditional plane-based monitoring.