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For more than 200 years, the U.S. Coast Guard and
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have partnered together in maritime
resiliency, environmental sustainability and scientific research. In
fact, a variety of NOAA projects encompassed over 50 percent of
Coast Guard Cutter Healy operations for 2016, including a Coast
Guard and NOAA collaborative effort to chart the extended
continental shelf and survey marine habitats and biodiversity.
Today, more than ever in the past, the Coast Guard and NOAA are
working together on numerous levels of profession in the U.S. Arctic
Region, which happens to be Coast
Guard Alaska‘s northern area of responsibility, or AOR. From
daily sector operations and district-led full scale exercises to
partnering on the national level in workgroups under the
Arctic Council, Coast Guard and NOAA have a strong working
relationship supporting and representing the U.S. in cold weather
operations and Arctic initiatives.
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July 20, 2016 - Coast Guard icebreaker Cutter Healy perches next
to a shallow melt pond on the ice in the Chukchi Sea, north, of the
Arctic Circle. During Cutter Healy’s first of three missions during
their West Arctic Summer Deployment, a team of 46 researchers from
the University of Alaska-Anchorage and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) studied the Chukchi Sea ecosystem.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Brian P. Hagerty, CGC Healy)
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In a recent search and rescue case off the coast of the Pribilof
Islands, where the fishing vessel Destination sank suddenly in the
frigid seas, NOAA’s
National Weather
Service (NWS) Regional Operations Center was the Coast Guard’s
‘first call’ to get current weather information in support of search
plan development. NOAA and NWS also played a role in setting the
stage for the potential cause of the incident by providing sea state
information and the dangerous effects of sea spray icing on vessels.
For SAR planning and other mission support, NOAA’s NWS
Ice
Program also works with the
Port of
Anchorage on a daily basis with regards to ice conditions all
along the coastline of Alaska, and provides bi-weekly regional
weather briefs for the district and sector command centers; they are
part of the ‘team’ when it comes to response planning and
preparation. NOAA and the Coast Guard continue to work diligently
together to ensure all possible capabilities from the U.S.
Government enterprise are available to support homeland security and
Arctic domain awareness on a broader, high level position.
On a national level, personnel from Coast Guard and NOAA
headquarters partner together as members of the Arctic Council’s
Emergency
Prevention Preparedness and Response working group. This
group addresses various aspects of prevention, preparedness and
response to environmental emergencies in the Arctic. The Coast Guard
and NOAA jointly play a large role in ensuring operational support
and training mechanisms are in place for vital response capacities
and capabilities.
The Coast Guard also fully employs the use of NOAA’s
Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) in the
Arctic. ERMA is NOAA’s online mapping tool that integrates both
static and real-time data, such as ship locations, weather, and
ocean currents, in a common operational picture for environmental
responders and decision makers to use during incidents. Also used
for full scale exercises, in 2016, the Healy employed ERMA onboard
to help provide a centralized display of response assets, weather
data and other environmental conditions for the incident response
coordinators. In the same exercise, NOAA tested unmanned aerial
systems for use with Coast Guard operations in the Arctic.
Furthermore, NOAA and the Coast Guard are working together with
indigenous communities to learn how ERMA can best be used to protect
the natural resources and unique lifestyle of the region. ERMA has
been in use by the Coast Guard in other major response events, such
as
Deepwater Horizon; where it was the primary tool providing Coast
Guard and other support agency leadership a real-time picture of
on-scene environmental information.
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July 11, 2015 - National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration scientist Kevin Vollbrecht launches a Puma unmanned
aerial vehicle from the bow of the Coast Guard Cutter Healy. The
Puma is being tested for flight and search and rescue capabilities.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo)
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Among a number of future projects, the Coast Guard and
NOAA are developing a focused approach on how to best handle
the damage of wildlife in the areas of subsistence living in
the northern Arctic region of Alaska during and following a
spill event. The Coast Guard and NOAA are also collaborating
on how to better integrate environmental information and
intelligence to proactively support Arctic marine traffic
safety as a whole.
The partnership between Coast Guard and NOAA continues to thrive
and grow stronger as maritime and environmental conditions, caused
by both natural and man-made effects, shift and change over time.
By U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Morgan Roper
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2016
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