NOAA mission measuring Arctic sea lanes

A National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration ship is beginning a mission to measure Arctic sea lanes, updating measurements taken by Capt. James Cook in 1778.

On its 30-day survey, the Fairweather will collect information needed to determine future charting survey projects. The mission will cover a 1,500-nautical mile coastal corridor starting at Dutch Harbor, going north to the Bering Strait and east to Canada.

“Much of Alaska’s coastal area has never had full bottom surveys to measure water depths,” Cmdr. James Crocker, commanding officer of Fairweather and chief scientist of the party, said in a prepared statement. “A tanker, carrying millions of gallons of oil, should not be asked to rely on measurements gathered in the 19th century. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what navigators have to do, in too many cases. NOAA is changing that.”

The agency said it needs to improve navigation information to accommodate the increase in Arctic maritime traffic expected as melting sea ice opens additional shipping lanes. Many of the coastal nautical charts for Alaska use readings reported by private vessels decades or centuries ago and were unable to report their exact positions, NOAA said.

Before NOAA cartographers can update the charts, though, they need the depth measurements and other data gathered by NOAA survey vessels, the agency said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who co-chairs the Senate Oceans Caucus, welcomed the news.

“We are living in an age of sophisticated navigational software and significant investments in fisheries, resource development and tourism,” she said in a statement. “We need our men and women out on the waters to have access to comprehensive, accurate information — not data collected by Captain James Cook in 1778.”

—Eric Lidji