The Development of Thermister Chain Buoys for Use in Ice Infested Waters

The use of temperature profiles gathered in near real time can greatly increase the accuracy and timeliness of forecasts such as the prediction of freeze-up. This paper describes the development of ARGOS based thermistor chain buoys to operate in the Gulf of St. Lawrence up to an beyond the appearance of ice. The buoys employ a slack, buoyant mooring system which allows them to remain in place until the arrival of ice cuts them free to drift with the ice pack while providing uninterrupted data transmission. Data recovered from field operations are presented along with some analysis describing the significance and usefulness of observed cooling trends.