Author(s): Renat Yulmetov; Sveinung Loset
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: During the Oden Arctic Technology Research Cruise 2013 (OATRC’13) survey in the Greenland Sea, 14 drift trackers were deployed on sea ice and icebergs in order to study drift patterns and characteristics in the region. The trackers measured their own GPS position and sent this information by an Iridium modem. Three groups, comprising three trackers each, were deployed in a special way: One on each end of the longer horizontal axis of the iceberg, and one on an adjacent sea ice floe. The purpose was to track the rotation of the iceberg in the horizontal plane and to get an estimate of the relative motion of ice and icebergs. Drift speed, relative drift speed, and rotation speed were analyzed and compared with data collected in a similar field campaign to the same region in 2012. It was shown that, in general, ice drifts faster than icebergs, and relative velocity of close objects is low -- just a few centimetres per second on average. Some of the icebergs rotate actively, with diurnal periodicity, making a full revolution in just a few hours.
Year: 2014