A 1994-1998 program whose overall objective was to develop and design an acoustic system for long-term monitoring of the ocean temperature and ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean, including the Fram Strait, for climate variability studies and global warming detection. The specific objectives included:

• compilation and analysis of existing ocean and ice data from the Arctic ocean for use in climate and acoustic models;
• simulation of present and future ocean temperature, salinity and speed of sound fields, ice thickness concentration and extent in the Arctic Ocean caused by natural variability and global warming scenarios, as input to acoustic modeling;
• simulation of present and future basin-wide acoustic propagation using natural variability and global warming scenarios to investigate the sensitivity of acoustic methods for global warming detection;
• simulation of present and future acoustic propagation in the Fram Strait to investigate the sensitivity of acoustic methods for monitoring heat and volume fluxes in an area of strong mesoscale eddy activity; and
• design of an optimum acoustic monitoring system for climate change detection in the Arctic Ocean.