Plans for oil-in-ice experiment in spring 2017

An experiment to freeze oil in ice with the aim to investigate oil-spill detection capabilities in sea ice with remote sensing techniques and to study the oil’s micro-scale behaviour and transport, is under planning and will be carried out in March/April 2017. CIRFA work package 3 Oil Spill Remote Sensing will carry out the joint oil-in-ice experiment together with PETROMAKS 2 research project MOSIDEO (http://mosideo.no) at the Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (HSVA) tank.

MOSIDEO and CIRFA plan experiments at HSVA as follows: the micro-scale interaction of oil with sea ice will be investigated following an under-ice oil spill during freezing and during a warming event though a combination of destructive sampling and non-destructive remote sensing techniques. Using destructive sampling, sea ice properties and distribution of oil will be analyzed by common geophysical methods and tomographic synthetic aperture radar (tomoSAR) imaging, including a portable tomoSAR device on-site. The remote sensing techniques will include the tomoSAR system, a wideband radar, a hyperspectral camera, and a Hyperspectral Laser Induced Fluorescence (HLIF). A particular focus of remote sensing measurements is the quantification of the detectability of oil as it approaches the ice surface during warming. The aim of this experiment is to convert and preserve a data set in a form that allows future scientific analysis and publication.

The planning of the experiment is lead by Camilla Brekke (CIRFA WP3 leader) and Christian Petrich (project manager of MOSIDEO and CIRFA WP3 co-leader).