SCICEX Investigations of the Arctic Ocean System

In 1993 the United States Navy and the marine research community embarked on an ambitious program to study the Arctic Ocean using nuclear-powered submarines. The program, termed SCience ICe EXercise (SCICEX), was designed to simultaneously sample and map the ice canopy, physical, chemical, and biological water properties, seafloor and seabed subsurface. The small size of the Arctic Basin relative to Earth's other oceans and the unique capabilities of the nuclear submarines, high speed coupled with the ability to operate independently of the sea ice cover, combined to allow the first holistic investigation of an entire ocean basin. The data acquired during eight submarine cruises helped refine hypotheses and models for the broad spectrum of subdisciplines that comprise arctic science and, perhaps more importantly, illuminated the linkages between the various components of the Arctic Ocean system. This paper presents an overview of the SCICEX program, summarizing the results published to date and briefly describing each submarine deployment and the instruments used to acquire various datasets, to demonstrate the important contribution of this collaborative venture to arctic science.