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This paper discusses the use of echosounders with forward-looking capabilities (navigation sonar) as scientific instruments for the acquisition of sensor data useful both for short term and long term measurement of Arctic system parameters and variables for the scientific investigation of environmental change and to create data products useful to many communities. Key to accomplishing these goals...
Arctic and subarctic conditions represent some of the most challenging environments to make long-term in situ oceanographic measurements. These areas bring the normal challenges of deep water, turbidity, uncertain bottom types and, in areas such as Cook Inlet, some of the world's largest tidal height changes and tidal currents. This paired with the presence of sea ice, which can be up to tens of meters...
In 2015, the Hanna Shoal region of the Chukchi Sea shallower than the 40 m isobath was withdrawn from outer continental shelf oil and gas exploration, a move the White House noted was designed to protect areas of “critical importance … for marine mammals, other wildlife, and wildlife habitat”. Arctic regions are projected to strongly manifest impacts of an altered climate and subsurface moored continuous...
Planning for oil spill response and other marine activities requires a keen understanding of the weather and other conditions that can be expected in a given area and in a given period of time. It also requires consideratios about how those conditions — wind, waves, visibility, sea ice, etc. — may challenge or preclude on-water operations. The response viability analysis methodology matches data from...
Recent studies on global climate change have identified the Arctic as the fastest warming region on Earth. Resulting trends of receding sea ice have led to more accessible Arctic waterways during summer months and an anticipated increase in maritime transport throughout the region. Prolonged access between North America and Europe via the Northeast Passage is of significant interest to the international...
A current trend is autonomous transport of goods and people in the air, at land, and at sea. For safe and reliable operations, autonomous systems require sensors that replace, or even exceed, the senses of a human operator. A system of spatially distributed inertial measurement units (IMUs) along the hull of a vessel, which allows sensing of local accelerations of a vessel or structure at sea is proposed...
An Arctic-capable coastal geomorphic change model was developed based on the open-source coastal geomorphic change model, Xbeach. In this paper, we describe an approach to make the 2D version of the Xbeach model Artic-capable by adding a heat transfer module which computes the temperature and the phase of the sediment and water (frozen or unfrozen). During execution of the overall model, the conventional...
Alaska's coastal communities are facing increased coastal hazards. Accurate predictive models are necessary to anticipate how various hazards may affect communities over time. Currently, erosion projections do not take into account the non-linear increase in erosion due to warming near-shore water, air, and permafrost. University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) is developing an arctic-capable coastal geomorphic...
During an oil spill, an accurate assessment of the trajectory of oil is important for a quick and effective remediation response. In the remote Arctic, oil fate and transport models are critical; especially during winter months when darkness and ice presence hamper visual detection of oil. A set of equations to describe the transport of oil in ice-covered waters and an environmental database were...
The extremely cold environment experienced by outboard cables used in the Earth's polar regions necessitates careful selection of polymers for use as jackets. The U.S. Navy has two specifications for neoprene (polychloroprene) cable jackets — one designated “Arctic neoprene” because of its extreme low temperature flexibility requirement (−54°C) and the other designated by default as “standard neoprene”...
Rapid environmental change and increasing maritime activities in the Arctic present a major challenge to the hazard assessment and emergency response community. As illustrated by a case study in northern Alaska, the presence of sea ice, in particular, is a key element of incidents requiring emergency response in Arctic U.S. waters in recent years. With a majority of sustained observations in U.S....
Arctic coastal morphology is increasingly affected by changes to the climate. As the season length for shorefast ice decreases and temperatures warm permafrost, coastlines are increasingly susceptible to erosion from storm waves. Such coastal erosion is significant since the majority of the population centers and infrastructure in the Arctic are located near the coasts. Stakeholders and decision makers...
Vast expanses of the Arctic are opening to exploration, natural resource acquisition and even tourism as the sea ice recedes. The setting for this research is between Alaska in the United States and Russia that has been the subject of a recent Port Access Route Study of the Bering Sea, Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea performed by the United States Coast Guard. Few, if any hydrographic surveys to modern...
With harsh Arctic conditions prohibiting easy, year-round access to subsea assets due to surface ice and weather conditions comes the need to create subsea monitoring technologies capable of reliably surviving long term deployments with little or no intervention. High capacity battery pods and UPSs provide an ideal power delivery method for subsea systems when surface ice and inclement weather precludes...
Utilization of Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) technology on hydrographic surveys in the Arctic result in significant time savings to field operations while simultaneously improving safety and providing more capability.
Increased maritime shipping activity by larger ships is elevating the risk for maritime accidents and environmental impacts. Starting in 2004, these risks are being ameliorated by Automatic Identification System (AIS) technology. Similar to airplane transponders, AIS transmits a vessel's name, type, position, size, course, destination and speed several times a minute. This information is received,...
Underwater imaging is a crucial technology necessary for many ocean-related applications such as underwater navigation, surveying, mining and many others. Unfortunately, the optical attenuation produced by oceanic waters imposes severe limitations to traditional imaging devices. Thus, new technologies are needed to probe the underwater environment in a more efficient manner. Quantum imaging represents...
Accurate and high-resolution maps of vegetation are critical for projects seeking to understand the terrestrial ecosystem processes and land-atmosphere interactions in Arctic ecosystems, such as U.S. Department of Energy's Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment (NGEE) Arctic. However, most existing Arctic vegetation maps are at a coarse resolution and with a varying degree of detail and accuracy. Remote...
This paper targets on a generalized vocal mode classifier (speech/singing) that works on audio data from an arbitrary data source. Previous studies on sound classification are commonly based on cross-validation using a single dataset, without considering training-recognition mismatch. In our study, two experimental setups are used: matched training-recognition condition and mismatched training-recognition...
The process of human adaptation to the Arctic conditions is accompanied with changes in psychophysiological indicators such as strength and mobility of nervous processes. Extreme conditions have a strong impact on a human brain. This effect is different for people with different laterality. Laterality indicates functional asymmetry of two brain hemispheres. The authors propose software-based evaluation...
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