Sentinels of ice-ocean exchange: Development of a reusable iceberg science platform

Here we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a novel, first-of-its-kind in situ iceberg monitoring platform (tentatively, the IMP). There are two main objectives of this development project: (1) Enable a first of its kind iceberg and ice-ocean exchange science, and (2) develop a state-of-the art system that will become an operational asset. Icebergs are fascinating to a broad audience, but their scientific value is often overlooked. This value is at least two-fold: Not only is it imperative to better understand iceberg evolution and dynamics from the paleo- and future-climate perspectives to characterize climate impacts of changing ice cover on the global scale, but they can also be used to probe several aspects of the current state of ice-ocean, polar coastal, and climate systems that are often hard to study. Icebergs are essentially self-contained in situ climate laboratories, but they remain grossly under-explored. As such, we propose to develop a novel iceberg monitoring platform that will enable long-term monitoring of icebergs as they calve and drift out to sea. This platform will be a sustainable and reusable system to enable unprecedented insights into icebergs and ice-ocean exchange processes.