86 



the current level of sea ice studies, this trend of adapting or modifying existing 

 equipment will probably continue for some years. 



Many recent advances in the knowledge of sea ice have been afforded 

 through better facilities such as heavy icebreakers, long-range reconnaissance 

 planes, and Arctic stations. These facilities and the electronic navigational 

 gear for defining position or locating targets can hardly be called oceanographic 

 instruments. No discussion of sea ice instrumentation, however, "would be 

 complete without considering them. Other recent aids in studying sea ice in- 

 clude attempts to standardize ice terminology, long provincial, so that the dif- 

 ferent ice observers will understand each other. The ice glossary, ice atlas, 

 ice reporting forms and instructions for ice observers published by the Hydro- 

 graphic Office should promote better ice observations and facilitate interpreting 

 the observations. 



In the following paragraphs, an attempt is made briefly to outline sea ice 

 problems and attendant instrumentation. It is recognized that the listing will 

 have many large gaps. It is hoped, however, that it will serve as a starting 

 point for the various commentators to add new material and present new view- 

 points. 



FACILITIES FOR SEA ICE STUDIES 



In only limited areas of navigational importance has sea ice received 

 much attention in the past. These, in general, are the fringe areas containing 

 important commercial ports, or those lying on direct access routes thereto, 

 which at times may be ice blocked. An outstanding example is the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence area in which ice of the gulf and river for about five months each win- 

 ter blocks access to Montreal, eastern Canada's largest seaport. Eastward on 

 the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, sea ice and icebergs have caused shipping to 

 detour far to the south in the spring. Although icebergs here have caused not- 

 able marine disasters, the sea ice has been the real barrier to navigation. 

 Lands along the periphery of the Arctic Ocean and to quite low latitudes on the 

 western sides of the Atlantic and Pacific are ice blocked for periods of a few 

 months to twelve months each year. In some areas, the annual shipping needs 

 must be satisfied in a brief summer period. In others, commercial exploita- 

 tion may await better transportation facilities. The exploration of the Arctic 

 Basin proper and the pack ice area surrounding the Antarctic has been carried 

 out on a relatively few isolated expeditions. No comprehensive synoptic surveys 

 have been made and the climatic picture of ice conditions is based on sporadic obser- 

 vations. A big obstacle in obtaining this information has been the lackof suitable fa- 

 cilities to provide the investigator adequate contact with ice areas. These facilities 

 include surface vessels, submarines, aircraftof various types, and suitably located 

 stations based on shore or on the ice itself. 



Surface Vessels - The first surface vessel built specifically to explore the 

 depths of the Arctic, and succeeding in doing so, was the FRAM under Fridtjof 

 Nansen (Nansen, 1897) in the years 1893 to 1896. The FRAM was a wooden 

 vessel of 402 gross tons, 128 feet over-all length, 36 feet extreme breadth and 

 17 feet depth. It was schooner rigged and powered with a 220 h.p. triple ex- 

 pansion steam engine. Once frozen in the Arctic pack, it was carried along by 

 the ice until its release by natural discharge of the ice from the periphery. 

 Prior to the FRAM, whalers and others had contributed much general knowledge 

 of the fringe areas of the Arctic. Subsequent to Nansen 's expedition, improved 

 and more powerful icebreakers have been made, notably by the United States and 

 Russia. These modern breakers are still at the mercy of the pack ice in win- 

 ter. For example, the Russian SEDOV expedition (Zubov, 1940) covered much 

 the same area as the FRAM and was entrapped from October 1937 to January 



