Image

From Ice to Eire

April 27, 2014

In 2011 WHOI researchers working from Russia’s Ice Camp Barneo and using a Russian helicopter installed an Ice-Tethered Profiler, ITP-47, in thick ice near the North Pole. Beneath the yellow buoy (foreground), an instrument crawls up and down hundreds of meters of line measuring water properties—data that help scientist John Toole and colleagues learn how the Arctic is responding to climate change. In 2013, an Irish filmmaker, Fergus Sweeney, discovered the buoy washed ashore in western Ireland, tracked down its origin, and created an exhibition telling the tale of ITP-47’s long journey. The researchers are back at Barneo installing another North Pole ITP. (Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)