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ERDC-CRREL scientists install sensor-laden buoys in one of the planet’s “hardest places” to reach

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center

Oct. 23, 2024 | 3:07

An arduous, three-week mission recently took a team of scientists and technicians from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory to the outer reaches of earthbound travel, all in an effort to help NASA better understand Arctic sea ice melting.

As part of NASA's ARCSIX research program, Dr. Chris Polashenski, Tricia Nelsen and Roy Hessner engineered and deployed specially modified, sensor-laden buoys into the Arctic Ocean north of Canada and Greenland near the North Pole.

Since their successful deployment, the buoys have continued to drift with the ice while reporting data, which the public can access in real time at cryosphereinnovation.com/data. The autonomous sites are now the foundation of NASA’s ongoing airborne sea ice observing campaign that is conducting regular overflights of the buoys out of Pituffik Space Force Base in Greenland.