Due for launch in 2023, the mission led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin will be the first time Greenland’s glaciers - which make up the world’s second-largest ice sheet - will be seen up close underwater.
Engineered by project partner the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), NUI will encounter icebergs and riptides as it approaches within feet of the glaciers and returns with data and samples from the underwater environment.
The scientists’ primary focus will be on the sand walls (moraines) that buttress the glaciers and are thought to naturally stabilise the ice sheet. What they learn will reveal what’s shoring up glaciers across the entire Greenland ice sheet, which could lead to more accurate model projections for future sea level rise.
“The big uncertainty in Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise is how fast the ice sheet is going to lose mass,” said Ginny Catania, a professor at UT’s Jackson School of Geosciences who is leading the voyage. “We know how much sea level is stored in the ice sheet, we know climate is warming and changing the ice sheet, but what we don’t know is the rate at which these glaciers will contribute to sea level rise.”
Funded by the W.M. Keck Foundation, the mission will investigate three glaciers in western Greenland that lie in the path of warming Atlantic waters but have responded in different ways. Since 2000, Kangilliup Sermia has experienced only minor retreat, Umiammakku Sermiat retreated rapidly before stabilising again in 2009, and Kangerlussuup Sermia has remained largely unaffected by warming.
“They provide a nice test case for ideas about what’s building the moraines and how those processes may vary between location,” Catania said in a statement.
NUI will make its way underwater to each glacier’s face, mapping the seafloor topography as it goes. Once it is at its target site, operators aboard a nearby support ship will remotely guide the robot’s manipulator arm to retrieve sediment cores from the glacier’s moraines. The vehicle will also gather samples from the massive sediment plumes jetting from under the glaciers.
According to project co-lead Mike Jakuba, a senior engineer at WHOI, the robot was engineered with layers of built-in redundancy, including multiple thrusters, battery packs and navigation systems to allow it to operate in difficult conditions far from its support ship.
Its primary communication link is a 10-mile-long optic fibre connecting NUI to its support ship, allowing operators to control its cameras and arm. The robot can still be piloted using underwater acoustics if the fibre breaks and automatically returns to a pickup point if all communication fails.
Jakuba said the mission will help scientists understand the critical link between the world’s oceans and ice sheets.
“With NUI, the vision from the beginning was to provide a system that would project human presence into environments like this that demand greater access if we’re going to get a better handle on how the planet is changing,” he said.
Partner institutions include the University of Idaho, the University of Florida and the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).
“This is high-risk, high-reward science, but it’s exactly the kind of bold step needed to tackle the pressing and societally relevant questions about climate change and geohazards,” said Demian Saffer, director of UTIG. “If it succeeds, it could transform our understanding of sea level rise.
Red Bull makes hydrogen fuel cell play with AVL
Surely EVs are the best solution for motor sports and for weight / performance dispense with the battery altogether by introducing paired conductors...