Uss seawolf class submarine12/9/2023 The military is already seeing the impact of a changing climate with rising temperatures and melting ice. Through the Navy’s task force on climate change and its Arctic Roadmap project, the Navy is using a large array of robotic technologies – including small oceangoing drones – to study the atmosphere, the ice and the sea. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same session that “the Russians have just taken a decision to activate six new brigades – and four of them will be in the Arctic.”Īll this comes as the Arctic environment itself is rapidly changing and the Navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory is embarked on a high-tech effort to understand what exactly is happening in this remote region. The Russians are active there,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March. “The Arctic is going to be a place of growing strategic importance. President Barack Obama makes the first trip of a sitting president to the Arctic Monday to highlight the region’s importance and the implications there of climate change. But now the location has become even more serious for national security. Submarines have been conducting under-ice Arctic operations for more than five decades, sometimes completing exercises that include building “ice camps,” or temporary bases, on the surface. ![]() The Pentagon has long thought of the North Pole as much more than the mythical home of Santa Claus. The deployment allows the Navy to showcase “freedom of navigation,” the capacity to maneuver a ship or sub anywhere on Earth, and to do so in a region, the Arctic, that is growing more important every year. “It’s an important operational priority to demonstrate we can operate in that environment.” “Our focus was demonstrating the ability to surface through the ice,” he said in a telephone interview from his naval base in Bremerton, Washington. So why do it, aside from giving the sailors aboard the thrill of their naval career? Why does the Navy regularly send submarines to the Arctic ice cap, especially with nobody else there, and no threat on the horizon?īierly said the mission has important operational goals. Though the sub went to sea with plenty of food, the commander said the fresh fruit and vegetables were eaten “in about a week.” Fresh air wasn’t the only thing the crew of 154 lacked. The Seawolf has just returned home after a six-month deployment in which the crew had no communications with their families during the two months they were submerged – several weeks of which were entirely under ice. ![]() When you first open the hatch, “the thing that strikes you is, it’s so quiet. ![]() “There was nobody there but us,” Bierley said of the Seawolf’s August 1 trip to the Arctic surface, hundreds of miles from the nearest human.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |