This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Beneath the Arctic Ocean is an orchestra featuring natural and human composers, from cracking sea ice and whistling beluga whales to humming shipping-vessel engines. Researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory heard some of this cacophony when analyzing data from commercial off-the-shelf sensors that they integrated and deployed in 2024 during the U.S.
Navy's Operation Ice Camp (OIC). This past March, during OIC 2026, the researchers returned to the Arctic with a higher-fidelity version of one of the sensors, a geophone that detects vibrations in the sea ice. "We're interested in things that make sound underneath the ice," says Ben Evans, a researcher in the laboratory's Advanced Undersea Systems and Technology Group.
"For example, our OIC 2024 data contained marine mammal songs. We need a better understanding of how such signals propagate through ice and how to distinguish these signals from other sources." This underwater soundscape is shifting as sheets of Arctic sea ice rapidly break and melt, opening previously impassable maritime routes for military and commercial activity. Determining the unique sound profiles, or acoustic signatures, produced by fracturing ice will enable researchers to develop predictive capabilities that can build coastal community resilience, inform geopolitical strategy and surveil adversary Arctic activity.
The Fiscal Year 2027 Administration R&D Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions calls for agencies to "prioritize research and associated research infrastructure investments that enhance America's ability to observe, understand, and predict the physical, biological, geologic, and socioeconomic processes and interacting systems of the Arctic to protect and advance American interests and ensure prosperity of America's Arctic residents," and to "invest in R&D that assures America's uncontested navigation and strategic utilization of the Arctic." Evans and David Whelihan have been trekking to OIC since 2022, advancing their vision to distribute a set of low-cost sensors across the Arctic for continuous monitoring. Hosted by the Navy's Arctic Submarine Laboratory (ASL) every two years, OIC is a three-week event during which U.S. and allied military forces conduct operational readiness exercises. The temporary infrastructure ASL sets up for OIC—a drifting sheet of Arctic sea ice, atop which sit a runway and insulated tents for lodging and command and control—simultaneously enables researchers to test prototype equipment and conduct experiments in an environment otherwise inhospitable to humans.
This opportunity is particularly valuable as Arctic monitoring systems are developed in support of U.S. Department of War priorities. This year proved especially challenging, with back-to-back blizzards creating whiteout conditions.
Temperatures persistently plunged to -25°F (-32°C), and winds blew at 25 to 30 miles per hour (40 to 48 kilometers per hour), with gusts of 40 mph (64 kilometers per hour). Although the team, which also included Ella Wawrzynek and Ryan Saenger, had intended to complete two stints on the ice—one to deploy the sensors and the other to retrieve them after a few weeks—the weather had other plans. Their initial trip to camp was delayed by a week as windblown snow halted all inbound and outbound flights.
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