{
  "id": 5594796,
  "title": "Researchers tune into Arctic under-ice sounds and test through-ice communication",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/04/researchers-tune-into-arctic-under-ice-sounds-and-test-through-ice",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-04T16:25:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "MIT News Research",
    "slug": "mit-news-research",
    "url": "https://news.mit.edu/2026/researchers-tune-into-arctic-under-ice-sounds-test-through-ice-communication-0904"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Under the Arctic Ocean lies an orchestra of natural and human-composed sounds, ranging from cracking sea ice to the humming of shipping vessels. Researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory analyzed data from commercial sensors during the U.S. Navy's Operation Ice Camp (OIC) in 2024, discovering marine-mammal songs in the recordings. They aim to better understand how these underwater sounds propagate through ice and learn to distinguish them from other sources. As Arctic sea ice rapidly breaks and melts, creating new maritime routes, determining unique acoustic signatures of fracturing ice will help researchers predict coastal community resilience, inform geopolitical strategy, and monitor adversary Arctic activity. The Fiscal Year 2027 R&D budget emphasizes prioritizing research and infrastructure investments to observe, understand, and predict Arctic processes, ensuring American interests and prosperity. Researchers Ben Evans, David Whelihan, Ella Wawrzynek, and Ryan Saenger have been visiting OIC since 2022 to deploy low-cost sensors for continuous monitoring. The U.S. Navy's Arctic Submarine Laboratory (ASL) hosts OIC every two years, providing a temporary infrastructure for testing prototype equipment and conducting experiments in the extreme conditions of the Arctic. This year, harsh weather conditions delayed their initial trip and caused system failures, forcing them to return to the lab for repairs. At OIC 2026, they deployed geophones to detect vibrations in the sea ice and tested a magnetic communication modem from Havguard, a Norwegian defense technology startup. The modem uses magnetic fields to communicate through ice, bypassing the rapid reduction of radio-frequency signals by seawater.",
  "summary": "The work is part of a multiyear effort to develop a distributed sensor network for relaying data collected from this critical region.",
  "key_points": [
    "Researchers analyze Arctic under-ice sounds from 2024 data",
    "Aim to distinguish marine-mammal songs from other sources",
    "Testing magnetic communication modem through ice"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}