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Watching Ice

WHOI engineer Jeff O’Brien attaches an upward looking sonar (ULS) onto a mooring to prepare it for deployment earlier in 2015 as part of the thirteenth year of observations of sea ice by the Beaufort Gyre Observing System. In addition to the ULS, which measures the portion of ice below the sea surfacel, an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) measures the velocity of moving ice. The interplay between ocean, ice, and atmosphere plays a pivotal role in maintaining the balance of Earth’s climate. Follow the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project’s progress in studying how climate change may tip the balance in the arctic. (Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)