ARKHANGELSK, June 26. /TASS/. Participants in the 2026 Arctic Floating University expedition will use new approaches to measure waves and currents in the Arctic seas, the expedition team's leader Alexander Saburov told TASS. Studying ocean surface dynamics, which is determined by the interaction of waves and currents, is important for the navigation hydrometeorology support and for understanding of climate change in the Arctic.
"This is a new study for the Arctic Floating University. The study on remote contact methods for measuring waves and currents off a ship will be conducted by specialists of the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As for the current state of knowledge about wave and hydrodynamic processes in the Arctic, it has a high level of theoretical models development, while there are still significant gaps in available field data, especially in areas affected by ice," the scientist said.
So far, it is impossible to obtain high-resolution data from satellites, thus research conducted off ships remains crucial for understanding changes in wave and hydrodynamic processes in the Arctic Ocean. For example, the ice cover area, shrinking in the Arctic, leads to the increasingly important role of surface waves in shaping the general regime of the Arctic seas. An increase in wave acceleration leads to an increase in wave height and length, which, in its turn, accelerates the ice destruction through mechanical fragmentation, increased vertical mixing, and thermal effects.
