Sustainable Arctic Marine and Coastal Technology

When a hole in the ice is a big problem

When your airport runway is located at 72 degrees south latitude and more than 4000 kilometres from the nearest major city, it better be in tiptop shape. But in Antarctica, where most runways are made of snow or ice, holes can be a big problem.

Making Arctic travel safer

Help is not just a phone call away if you have an accident in the Arctic. That’s why the far northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is establishing an educational and research centre for Arctic safety.

Crushing ice to save platforms

It’s been a warm winter on Svalbard this year. But this doesn’t apply to the laboratory where Niek Heijkoop works. There it’s a stable -10° Celsius

Keeping Arctic villages, infrastructure from falling into the sea

The Arctic is set to be a 21st century boomtown, as summer sea ice melts away, opening the area to increased trans-Arctic shipping and oil and gas development. A new understanding of Arctic coastal erosion offers clues to how to best protect the docks and other infrastructure this development will bring.

Drilling down to understand sea ice

Global warming is upending virtually everything that scientists know about the Arctic ice cap. During the first half of 2015, a multinational team of researchers froze the RV Lance into the Arctic ice to learn more about how this ice has changed. NTNU researchers were among the scientists seeking to learn more about this changing environment.

SAMCoT

Working safely to protect a cold, remote place

Researchers with NTNU’s Sustainable Arctic Marine and Coastal Technology centre don’t just study health, safety and environment (HSE) issues in their research in the High Arctic – they live HSE first hand. That first-hand experience makes industry safer, and protects the Arctic’s fragile environments.

Celebrity ice

Not since the Titanic has a block of ice been quite so famous. In early June, Discovery Channel Canada came to NTNU’s Structural Impact Laboratory (SIMLab) to watch ice researchers from NTNU’s Sustainable Arctic Marine and Coastal Technology programme use a giant machine to simulate what happens when a ship slams into an iceberg.

Crash course

As the Arctic Ocean’s summer ice cap melts away, new trans-Arctic shipping routes will open and see a growing amount of shipping traffic. But what’s the best way to protect ships and other ocean structures if they crash into icebergs?