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Dispatch 4: Our First ITP Has Been Deployed!

 

The ITP’s profiling unit being lowered into the water
The WHOI team assembling the ITP’s surface package
The surface buoy being lowered into the water
The ITP post deployment freely drifting away
A map of the cruise track, with the green star indicating our approximate location

Ashley Arroyo

September 18, 2023

Dispatch 4: Our First ITP Has Been Deployed!

Today, the WHOI team (led by Jeff O’Brien) deployed an Ice Tethered Profiler (ITP) in open water (we have yet to see any sea ice on this trip)! An ITP (as its name suggests) is a buoy that is tethered in the sea ice. Below the buoy, there is a 750-meter wire to which a profiling unit is tethered. The profiling unit has batteries and sensors. It rolls up and down the wire making measurements of the ocean beneath the sea ice cover and returns those measurements in near-real time via satellite. In this way, an ITP drifts with its host ice floe around the Arctic Ocean sampling the water column and returning measurements year-round so we can learn more about how the upper ocean works and how it interacts with the sea ice cover. In addition to temperature, salinity, and pressure (which are measured by all ITPs), some ITPs also have sensors to measure important ocean properties including dissolved oxygen, CO2, and chlorophyll.

The surface float on ITPs is designed to float in open water conditions, and it can withstand the ice freezing around it. So, one option for the deployment of ITPs is to put them in open water and anticipate that they will freeze-up in late fall and early winter. The ITP (ITP 141) that was deployed today had been previously recovered and refurbished back at WHOI. The deck operations went very smoothly, which I had a great view of from the Bridge (where the Captain was controlling the ship’s position). While I was watching the WHOI team and deck crew piecing together the ITP, there were two cadets also watching who were very curious about the ITP. They were asking great questions, such as “what is that part and what does it do?” and “what do we learn from these instruments?”, which I was more than happy to provide insight on!

The first ocean data have been returned already, and the ITP is operating just as expected! You can view ocean data from the ITPs here: https://www2.whoi.edu/site/itp/data/. It is super exciting to see the deployment process of the ITP being assembled, lowered into the water, and sent off on its way to collect loads of data which will be put to good use!