Ocean observatories for understanding and monitoring Arctic change

The Arctic Ocean is possibly the least explored ocean in the world. With reducing sea ice and increasing human activities, ocean observations are in demand. Multipurpose acoustic networks for tomography, under ice navigation of gliders and passive acoustics are beginning to be employed in Fram Strait supplementing standard oceanographic moorings and ice-ocean measurements from ice tethered measurement platforms in the interior Arctic. Seafloor based fiberoptic cable systems are also being planned for high bandwidth local process studies. Integration with satellite based monitoring and assimilation into operational ice-ocean models is emphasized for dynamic environmental monitoring purposes.