(Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi) - On Wednesday 17 January, "Alliance" the multi-purpose research ship of the Navy left the port of La Spezia towards the seas of Iceland and Greenland, beyond the Arctic Circle, to implement a scientific mission, in collaboration with the NATO Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), which will end at the end of April 2018. And so after 90 years from the historic mission of Commander Nobile and following the recent expedition carried out in the summer of 2017 called "High North ", The Navy will return to the North Pole, for the first time in the Arctic winter period, to support research activities in support of the international organization Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) as part of the Iceland-Greenland Seas Project multidisciplinary program ( IGP). This time the main purpose of the expedition will be the study of the air / water interaction and the relative ventilation that is created in the Arctic Sea, with the aim of achieving a better understanding of the circulation of sea currents.
The Alliance ship (optical badge A5345 - international call sign IALL) is, as already mentioned, a multi-purpose research unit of NATO, i.e. an oceanographic vessel used for marine scientific research, in particular in fields such as oceanography, hydrography , meteorology, studies on marine currents, aquatic flora and fauna. Characteristic of the vessel is that of being one of the quietest of its kind, having been conceived to guarantee a minimum level of sound propagation in the water, a feature that makes it a platform particularly suitable for those scientific experiments for which the absence of sound below the surface is essential. Equipped with about 400 square meters of laboratories, cutting-edge navigation and communication systems, cranes, winches and winches, with a "portal" stern structure (which allows it to carry out load movements and, at the same time, launch maneuvers and recovery of underwater equipment), since March 2016 the Alliance has been equipped with the personnel of the Navy thanks to an agreement of December 2015 between the Navy and the CMRE. Under the command of Frigate Captain Daniele Cantù, the Alliance, with a crew of 47 soldiers and 22 scientists from various international organizations, will thus find itself traveling in about forty days the strait that separates Iceland from the east coast of Greenland, to obtain in-depth surveys of different parameters (such as electrical conductivity, temperature, depth, geochemical analyzes, speed of sound in water, bathymetric surveys, measurement of bathymetry and meteorological measurements), making the correlation between them and, finally, a statistical collection of the acquired data.
A good synergy has been established between the defense and research sectors which bodes well for planning new missions and giving continuity to the work already done in previous campaigns. Operating on an area of about 650 square km of unexplored areas as early as July 2017, precisely from 09 to 29, the Navy, in collaboration with the most important national research institutions (CNR, OGS, ENEA) and the NATO-CMRE center , had collected a lot of data in the fields of geophysics, marine geology, seabed characterization and physical oceanography during the “High North” campaign carried out in the Arctic Ocean in the waters off the Svalbard Islands in Norway. The expedition, with the aim of acquiring useful elements of evaluation in multiple sectors, starting from the climate one, for a better understanding of the evolution of the climate and its impact on the planet, was perfectly framed within the activities carried out by the Navy Italian Military in support of the so-called "Arctic Table", within which specialist support is offered to the "Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness and Response" working group of the Art Council, a council in which Italy has been admitted since 2013 as observer, recognition that is not granted to all countries, following the complex and continuous scientific activity carried out in the region. The data collected during the “High North 17” campaign highlighted for the first time the presence of a “source” of a series of canyons traced by the currents of ice and water due to the retreat of the ice. These discoveries will be exploited over the next few months and presented in specific national and international scientific publications and fora. The results of the analyzes were also sent to the IBCAO (International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean) project to contribute to the creation of the Bathymetric Map of the Arctic to assess the extent of the changes that global warming is causing in the Arctic Ocean and provide a contribution to predicting the impact these may have on the rest of the planet.
The dynamics of the ice cover in relation to climate changes and the environment and the new possible routes of commercial navigation that could open up to the North (both to protect the safety of navigation, and for the valorisation of socio-economic aspects useful for our country) , are, in fact, a subject of great sensitivity for the international community at different levels and the polar areas, especially the Arctic, are now special laboratories to increase the knowledge of what has been and what will be the future for our planet. The Arctic is, in fact, a region of strategic importance that is increasingly important, both for its commercial nature and for the protection of the ecosystem and safety, in particular due to the presence of 30% of gas reserves and 13% of those oil. The interest in the exploitation of mineral deposits, fishing and tourism is very strong, from the Arctic nations and not only. For all these reasons it is a region of the world that must be studied and protected and the Navy is a leading element of Italian research in the Arctic.
After all, the dream of every sailor, animated by the spirit of adventure, is to be able to sail in unknown seas, especially for a mission in unusual waters for our military ships, where the study and the protection of the marine environment are of great interest. for the entire Navy, since understanding in advance what the future environmental and economic scenarios will be, it is fundamental for a maritime nation like Italy.