Abstract
Sampling under ice-covered seas, such as the Chukchi and Bering, is difficult. Vessels capable of working in ice are limited, ice destroys surface floats, and ice keels on the shallow Chukchi shelf can extend downward 30 m, confining subsurface moorings to the near bottom. Hence, there is limited data from beneath the ice and in the marginal ice-edge zones. The Innovative Technology for Arctic Exploration (ITAE) program focuses on development of specialized tools tailored to these challenging environmental conditions. In addition, a new data acquisition system will improve transmission of full resolution data in real time. These new technologies are important for the Ecosystems and Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI) program, which maintains NOAA’s largest observing network in the US Arctic (Tabisola et al., 2022).