NOAA to Update Arctic Navigation Charts

As Arctic ice recedes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sending one of its surveying vessels, the Fairweather, to detect navigational dangers in critical Arctic waters that have not been charted for more than 50 years.

The Fairweather, whose homeport is Ketchikan, Alaska, will spend July and August examining seafloor features, measuring ocean depths and supplying data for updating NOAA’s nautical charts spanning 350 square nautical miles in the Bering Straits around Cape Prince of Wales.
As more ships begin to ply the increasingly ice-free waters of the Arctic Ocean, updated charts will be needed to give them sufficient information for navigation or changing maritime conditions – such as sea level rise or movements of the seafloor – that are not yet tracked.

“Commercial shippers aren’t the only ones needing assurances of safety in new trade routes,” notes Captain John Lowell, director of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. “The additional potential for passenger cruises, commercial fishing and other economic activities add to pressures for adequate response to navigational risks.”

The U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone includes 568,000 square nautical miles of U.S. Arctic waters. The majority of charted Arctic waters were surveyed with obsolete technology dating back to the 1800s. Most of the shoreline along Alaska’s northern and western coasts has not been mapped since 1960, if ever, and confidence in the region’s nautical charts is extremely low.

About a third of U.S. Arctic waters are considered navigationally significant. Of that area, NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey has identified 38,000 square nautical miles as survey priorities. NOAA estimates that it will take more than 25 years to map the prioritized areas of the Arctic seafloor.

The Fairweather is equipped with the latest in hydrographic survey technology – multi-beam survey systems; high-speed, high-resolution side-scan sonar; position and orientation systems; hydrographic survey launches; and an on-board data-processing server.