Webinar: Venture into the Harsh, Data-Sparse Arctic with The National Ice Center
Webinar: Venture into the Harsh, Data-Sparse Arctic with The National Ice Center
USNIC Operations Officer CWO2 Mike Latin joins Sofar Ocean’s Government Lead Tosca Lichtenheld for a conversation about the mission of the USNIC, how it uses wave data, CWO2 Latin’s journey in the Arctic, and the data collected by the Spotter buoys that he deployed during his trip.
Date: May 22, 2023
The Arctic Circle contains some of the harshest conditions on earth - snow, ice, bitter cold, and limited daylight. Understanding ice and wave behavior in the Arctic Ocean is critical for safety of navigation and predicting weather in downstream earth systems. The U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) is responsible for providing global to tactical scale ice and snow products, ice forecasting, and other environmental intelligence services for the United States government. To achieve this, they venture into challenging conditions to deploy instrumentation, observe sea ice behavior, and conduct experiments.
In the summer of 2022, USNIC and Sofar Ocean signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to collaborate on data collection in the Chukchi Sea. USNIC Operations Officer CWO2 Mike Latin deployed five Sofar Ocean Spotter buoys to monitor wave and ice interactions.
CWO2 Latin joins Sofar Ocean’s Government Lead, Tosca Lichtenheld, for a conversation about:
- The mission of the USNIC and how they use wave data
- CWO2 Latin’s journey in the Arctic
- Data collected by Sofar Ocean Spotter buoys
A questions and answers session followed the presentation.
Speakers
CWO2 Mike Latin
Operations Officer
USNIC
Tosca Lichtenheld
Government Lead
Sofar Ocean