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Seeing Under Sea Ice

The Nereid Under Ice (NUI) vehicle is launched from the Alfred Wegener Institute’s ice-breaker Polarstern during an expedition in July of 2014. NUI is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a micro-thin fiber-optic tether, which relays data in real time, including high-definition imagery of what the vehicle “sees” as it explores beneath undisturbed sea-ice away from the disruptive impact of an ice-breaking research ship. In its first deployment, NUI enabled researchers to gather images of the unexpectedly high amount of biological productivity found under the ice.(Photo by Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)