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No Holiday On Ice

It was -22°F in March 2014 when WHOI engineers Kris Newhall (left) and John Kemp landed in a Twin Otter aircraft on an ice floe in the Beaufort Sea. They were there to install an Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) that, once deployed through a hole in the ice, drifts with the floe, measuring ocean properties below. Because it was so cold, they brought a battery charger to help start the electric motor on their drill. It took 10 minutes to drill 6.5 feet through the sea ice. The ITP was recovered in October 2014 during the annual Beaufort Gyre cruise.(Photo courtesy of Bill Shaw, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School)