In the 1940s, the United States had ambitions to create an ice airport; however, this is not the reason why they continue to operate the ice monitoring agency today.
Ice analyst from the United States Navy (USN), Katherine Quinn, is conducting routine inspections of two icebergs that have recently calved from the A-74 iceberg in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.
The larger iceberg, A-74A, measures 28 nautical miles in width and 18 nautical miles in length, while the smaller iceberg, A-74B, is 9 nautical miles long and 4 nautical miles wide—similar in length and half the width of the diameter of Washington, D.C.
Ms. Quinn’s work raises the question of why the USN is interested in how icebergs at the “bottom” of the Earth behave and why there is an agency dedicated to monitoring them.
Two divers from the United States Coast Guard (USCG) preparing to dive in Antarctica in 2020.
The United States National Ice Center, part of the USN’s Oceanography and Meteorology Command based in Suitland, Maryland, is currently the only entity monitoring the movement and formation of icebergs globally—and they have been operational since World War II.
In the 1940s, while the idea of an ice airport did not materialize, they continue to closely track the formation of icebergs and their movements today.
Katherine Quinn explains that the center’s ongoing work is to provide information to military vessels and research ships to aid in operational planning:
“If a ship, whether it’s a US Coast Guard (USCG) vessel, a USN ship, or a research vessel, is heading somewhere, they can ask: ‘This is where we are going. What information can you provide us?'”
A USCG vessel breaking ice in Antarctica in early 2022.
In addition to monitoring ice formation and forecasting, analysts from the center are also deployed on USCG icebreakers to conduct research and provide information to the crew.
However, there is a more significant reason that underscores the necessity of the center.
This relates to the fact that top officials from the USN and USCG have repeatedly mentioned how newly opened shipping routes in the Arctic are “changing the national security landscape and creating a new global competition.”
Russia’s nuclear icebreaker Arktika, believed to be the largest of its kind in the world.
