UK Delves into Arctic Waters with Autonomous Under-Ice Explorations

04 November 2026

The UK is expanding Arctic research to include autonomous under-ice technologies, following years of expeditions revealing the alarming thinness of the region's multi-year sea ice.

Over the past two decades, UK scientists have participated in or led several high-profile expeditions that returned startling measurements of reduced Arctic sea-ice thickness.

In 2009, the Catlin Arctic Survey ventured over 400 kilometers from the northern Canadian coast towards the North Pole, making approximately 1,500 measurements of the ice thickness. The team's average reading was around 1.8 meters—much thinner than expected for the supposed "permanent" multi-year ice at that latitude, according to results published in ScienceDaily and other outlets.

Then in 2019-2020, a group of UK researchers among hundreds from 18 nations joined the year-long MOSAiC expedition, where the German icebreaker RV Polarstern drifted across the central Arctic. The participants found the main ice floe used for the camp was thinner than historic averages for the region, reflecting the region's sea-ice loss.

These missions add to a growing body of evidence that summer sea ice is rapidly diminishing, and the thicker, multi-year ice that once dominated has been forced back. Studies using satellites and on-site measurements by institutions like the UK's Natural Environment Research Council have consistently found less and less thick, old ice remaining, and that the loss has accelerated in the last 20 years.

Now the UK is looking to scale up their Arctic research through a new partnership with the undersea robotics firm Real Ice. Notes released by the firms indicate the firms were awarded up to $5.4 million (£3.5 million) from the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) to test underwater drones that could manipulate and protect vulnerable ice.

In early tests in the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia, the tech firm sent a prototype electric-powered UUV over a kilometer beneath the ice, where it used a heated probe to punch a hole and return to the surface freeflyer, according to the Canada-based National Observer. The UUV has been slated to return to real-world testing this coming winter, when a fleet of these robots will collaborate to determine the feasibility of targeted ice replenishment in sea-ice melt hotspots.

Concerns about global sea-level rise and shifts to Arctic ecosystems have added urgency to Arctic exploration, and UK researchers are trying to stay on the bleeding edge of the work to understand these changes. The University of Huddersfield has suggested that the UK government should do its part to help global efforts by improving availability to the region for Arctic scientists. The same group has called on the UK to commit to a bold ban on flagging Arctic fishing and oil industries, pushing to reduce global warming to 1.5C to 1.8C, and reforming environmentally damaging financial systems, according to Climate and Capitalism.