60414 U.S. NAVY OCEANOGRAPHIC PREDICTION SYSTEMS SEA ICE FORECASTING ASWEPS ARCTIC OPERATIONS

This 1965 unclassified U.S. Navy training film MN-10167 provides details about three oceanographic prediction systems: Sea-Ice Forecasting, Wave Forecasting, and ASWEPS. With the advent of rocket launches such as Polaris A-1 (1:04-1:15) from nuclear submarines, new oceanographic methods were needed for the Arctic Ocean. The Sea-Ice Forecasting Program supported Thule Air Base in Greenland (3:17) and early warning sites (3:23). Nuclear Skate-class submarines such as the Nautilus, Sargo, and Sea Dragon needed to prevent damage when surfacing through ice (4:26). The Naval Oceanographic Office (Navoceano) gathered data from various above and below sources for its Forecasting Center (5:23). These included a DC3 airplane (5:46), a GB5 icebreaker ship (6:41), nuclear submarines, the ARLIS II manned drifting ice station (7:06), experimental portable automatic weather stations (7:35), and joint weather satellite projects with the US Weather Bureau and the Canadian government (8:00). The data was received on high-speed teleprinters (8:45). In 1964, data collection was extended to the Antarctic Ocean to support Operation Deep Freeze, the Navy’s logistic support for the scientific probe at Antarctica. The HMNZS Endeavour (10:51) is shown unloading at the McMurdo Station on Ross Island. Such ships received information from radio teletypes (11:27). On the flying laboratory planes, new equipment includes an infrared temperature sensor (13:12) and buoy tracking devices (13:15). This information is sent to an IBM 7074 (13:37-13:47) data processor. Wave forecasting was needed for creating synoptic and prognostic wave charges and long-range forecasts. Data was sent to computers (15:53) and an Alden Flat Copy Scanner (16:03) distributed charts by radio facsimile broadcasts. NASA also requested wave charts for the barge Promise (16:47-17:10), which transported the Saturn rocket boosters down the Mississippi River.

Wave information was also gathered from Argus Island, a Naval research platform 22 miles off Bermuda. Tools shown to transmit data to the lab are a current meter (17:49), a thermistor chain (17:59), and a wave staff (18:13). Another project used sensors to measure both direct solar and reflected radiation (18:45). Airplane stereo photography needed aerial readers to view the photos (19:27). Data continued to be sent to high speed computers and XY plotters, such as the CALCOMP 565 (20:23). ASWEPS (anti-submarine warfare environmental prediction service) was created in the late 1950s to provide oceanographic and meteorological factors. One of its first new projects was to develop a sea surface temperature model. A mechanical bathythermograph (22:15), also known as a BT, was used to measure water temperatures at various depths. An airborne expendable BT is dropped from an aircraft (23:23-24:12) and a shipboard expendable BT is deployed (24:15-24:40). Also used is a near surface reference temperature device (24:51-25:24) and an airborne wave profiler (25:32). A NOMAD buoy (25:44-26:16) gathers information. Data is sent to IBM computers using magnetic tapes (27:50) and a curved follower printer is used for printing (28:07). The success of these new ways of gathering information were proven aboard the USS Gillis ship in 1964. In 1966, a new Oceanographic Air Survey Unit was formed (29:04) under CDRM H.R. Hutchinson.

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