UAS based Atmospheric Research in Polar Regions Experiences and Perspectives from Sea-ice and Ship-based Operations

The application of unoccupied aircraft systems (UAS) has gained increasing popularity, also in the field of atmospheric research. Despite its great potential, the use of UAS poses several challenges in terms of design, operation, and data processing. Based on our experiences from the Innovative Strategies for Observations in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ISOBAR) over the ice-covered Baltic Sea and the icebreaker-based operations during the Nansen Legacy project, we highlight some challenges and best practices related to UAS operations during polar winter. Sensor integration considerations, sensor and altitude bias, response time are general issues. However, under statically stable conditions, characterized by strong vertical gradients in the basic meteorological parameters, these issues become evident and corrections may have to be applied. To capture meteorological phenomena such as turbulent intermittency or wave breaking events time-dense UAS sampling is beneficial but implies demanding operations. Additional continuous observation systems are also of advantage. For ship-based UAS operations, fixed-wings offer some advantages over rotary-wing systems, but limited landing space remains an issue. As a solution for this, we developed a net-landing system which we successfully operated during two campaigns.