Icebergs are ice formations that confer high risks for marine activities. Drifting and entering the Arctic offshore waters, icebergs greatly influence the operational regime of hydrotechnical structures, choice of supply vessels and ice management system, etc. To track ice formations in the Arctic shelf, radio buoys allowing for detection of coordinates and signal transmission were extensively used in the scope of field surveys for Rosneft Oil Company throughout 2012–2017. In the present paper, we focus on the main results obtained for the iceberg drift. The aspects of experimental design and key drift parameters, such as velocity and its variability in summer and winter, are discussed. The revealed difference between the iceberg drift patterns in the southwestern Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea can be explained in the first place by the fact that the masses and sizes of icebergs originating from two archipelagos, Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya, are different.
Icebergs are ice formations that confer high risks for navigation; their drift is among factors influencing the safety of hydrotechnical objects in the Arctic Offshore (Mironov, Frolov, 2010; DRAFT ISO/DIS 35104). Even though technical means have progressed significantly after the infamous iceberg-caused tragedies of XX century that led to enormous human and ship losses (Titanic, 1912, Hans Hedtoft, 1959), there are still minor ones (Overseas Ohio, 1994) and near-emergency events (Sea Rose FPSO, 2017) (Tangborn et al., 1998; Hill, 2000; Enquiry report, 2018).
Understanding patterns of the iceberg drift and the respective morphometric parameters is essential for designing hydrotechnical structures and safe exploration of hydrocarbon deposits in the seas of the Russian Arctic. Drifting and entering the waters near the prospective deposit icebergs significantly influence the operational regime of hydrotechnical structures, choice of supply vessels and ice management system, etc. For many regions of the Russian Arctic, the data on the iceberg drift are not available or scarce.