Four-year solid partnership of KOPRI and ICE-ARC on Arctic sea ice field research, and future

Abstract

The ICE-ARC programme, started in 2014, has been an important international cooperation partner of the KOPRI, by which the KOPRI's Arctic sea ice research capacity has been raised for many years. Owing to a solid partnership with ICE-ARC, the KOPRI was able to begin the research using the unmanned sea ice observation equipment during the IBRV ARAON's Arctic Ocean expedition. Since 2014, ICE-ARC has deployed 25 ice buoys through ARAON. Because eleven of them are the IMB and the KOPRI wants to promote IMB-based researches, ICE-ARC is the best partner for the KOPRI as well. Particularly, it is regarded as a remarkable step to start observing the thermal evolution of melt ponds through the IMB. This observation- theory-model convergent study will make us one step closer to understand the mechanism of ice-albedo feedback. In addition, the joint research on developing the boundary detection algorithm that takes advantage of the characteristics of ICE-ARC IMB, in which the heated temperature data is calculated, is also under way, which is expected to contribute to the increase of IMB utilization. The ICM-CSIC SATICE has been also steadily deployed by the IBRV ARAON. Especially in this year the deployment of six SATICEs were attempted, four of which successfully transmitted data so far. It is expected that some interesting events will be observed by the small-scale buoy network this year. The installation of the UPMC IAOOS has been also carried out since 2015. The consistent contribution of the KOPRI to the IAOOS network should be recognized. Over the past few years, the ICE-ARC's high-resolution satellite imagery support has been a great help in the planning and implementation of sea ice camps. Though the ICE-ARC programme is completed, subsequent programs will continue to conduct the Arctic sea ice studies. The KOPRI will also continue to strengthen the Arctic sea ice research, by building a second icebreaker for the Arctic use and planning to expand the on-ice research period during the Arctic expedition. Thus it is certain that solid partnership will persist in the future.