Ice-Tethered Profiler schematic. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
WHOI researchers take part of an ice-tethered profiler (ITP) from a warehouse where they tested and prepped it to outdoor storage at the airport in Resolute Bay, Canada. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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 to learn how the Arctic is responding to climate change. (Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
In 2011, an international team of researchers spent more than a month on board the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent deploying five ice-tethered profilers (one shown here) as part of the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project in the Arctic. (Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Researchers from WHOI and crew from the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent prepare to deploy an ice-tethered micro-mooring (ITM), which consists of a yellow buoy embedded in a hole in the ice and a line supporting instruments hanging 100 meters down into the ocean below. (Photo by Rick Krishfield, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
An ice-tethered profiler takes one last look at the sky in 2011 before passing through four meters of ice in the Beaufort Sea to begin a study of ocean physics, biology, and chemistry beneath the sea ice. (Photo by Steve Lambert, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
After spending 12 hours on the ice more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from their ship, engineers installed the first Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) in Antarctica. (Photo by Scott Worrilow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
How the ITP Works: Movie showing the operation of an ITP system in the field and a vision for an array of ITPs sampling the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. (Animation by Tim Silva, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
The ice-tethered profiler is a type of moored profiler that consists of a small surface capsule attached to the top of an ice flow and supporting a plastic-jacketed mooring line that extends through the ice and down into the ocean, ending with a weight that keeps the wire vertical. A cylindrical profiling package mounts to the mooring line and cycles vertically along it, carrying oceanographic sensors through the water column. Water property data are transmitted from the ITP to shore in near-real time.
| Profiler diameter | 10cm (26 inches) |
| Maximum depth | 800m (2,625 feet) |
| Duration | 1,500km (930 miles) Over 3 years |
| Minimum operating temperature | -35°C (-31°F) |
