Ice-free conditions still present hazards to nigation: moving ice floes, unsettled weather and we patterns. Emergency responders are few and far between. This means that when oil does spill, consequences can be much more severe, and search and rescue missions face even greater difficulties. Marine nigational charts for much of the region were made using lead-line measurements--dropping a lead weight on a string and figuring how much rope is let out until it hits the bottom. These measurements can date back to as early as the 18th century through World War II. Less than 1 percent of the U.S. Arctic has been surveyed with modern technology.
Using unmanned aircraft to detect oil spills: NOAA and USCG team recover Puma unmanned aircraft after testing its ability to detect simulated oil among ice in the Arctic in August 2014. (NOAA)Download ImageAt least 44
—Oil spills of more than 10,000 barrels – 420,000 gallons – in U.S. waters since 1969.
The Arctic is one of the most remote areas on earth. How would hundreds of responders would get there, along with all their hey equipment such as booms, skimmers, and vessels? Once deployed, response equipment has the potential to ice-over, encounter high winds, or be grounded from dense fog. Communicating with responders and decision makers on other ships, on shore at a command post, or even farther away in the lower 48 states will be an enormous challenge.
Also, we don’t know precisely how the many oils and chemicals that could be spilled into the frigid Arctic waters will react to the conditions there--the cold, the water’s salinity, ocean currents altered by weather conditions not seen elsewhere--and how traditional response tools of booms, skimmers, dispersants, and microbes will function in this extreme climate.
Technology maybe the key to a successful response should a spill ever occur. NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard he partnered in a series of annual simulated spill response exercises to try a variety of new technologies to offset the lack of in-place infrastructure. Among the tools being tested are unmanned aerial aircraft, autonomous underwater vehicles, balloons with cameras, as well as drifter buoys tracked by space satellites. Additionally NOAA, the Coast Guard and regional partners he been working with industry and academia to fill the Arctic ERMA mapping system with advanced scientific based information concerning natural resources, communities and existing infrastructure that could be affected, as well as developing proposed response plan scenarios.