NIWA 2012 — Original Deployment (Nature 2014)
The seminal 2012 NIWA deployment — eight WII buoys, the first digital sea-ice wave measurements ever collected. The data became the 2014 Nature paper on storm-induced sea-ice breakup.
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The seminal NIWA deployment: eight WII buoys sent into the Antarctic sea ice in 2012, collecting the first digital sea-ice wave-motion measurements ever made. The data they returned became the basis for the project’s headline publication two years later:
Kohout A. L., Williams M., Dean S., et al. (2014). Storm-induced sea-ice breakup and the implications for ice extent. Nature, 509, 604–607.
This was the work that established empirically — not just modelled — that ocean waves drive sea-ice breakup in the marginal ice zone, with direct implications for the rate and timing of Antarctic ice-edge retreat.
Every WII generation since has been an iteration on the platform first proved by these eight buoys.
See also
- Publications — full bibliography including the Nature paper.
- SIPEX II — a separate 2012 Antarctic observation campaign, also led by NIWA.
- Alison Kohout’s project page — the scientific lead on the deployment.