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Setting up an Arctic camp

The REMUS research crew in Barrow, Alaska, had to construct this camp–Ice Camp No. 2–because their first one was taken down by a traveling iceberg the night before.The WHOI team, led by Al Plueddemann and Amy Kukulya, employed Inupiat Eskimos for local knowledge, polar bear protection and transportation to their test sites using wooden sleds pulled by snowmobiles. The team tested a net capture system for the REMUS AUV recovering from under ice. If the vehicle were to miss its recovery net just once, it would risk getting stuck in an ice ridge and perhaps make it impossible to recover. They also tested the Arctic halocline, a layer of cold water that serves as a barrier between warmer water below and sea ice above. This expedition is the first of its kind ever performed from land-fast ice in the Arctic.

(Photo by Amy Kukulya, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)