National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce

Arctic

PMEL’s First Flotation Controllable Ocean Mooring Resurfaces in the Chukchi Sea

After 8 months of sitting on the seafloor, PMEL’s latest engineering development, the Flotation Controllable Ocean Mooring (FCOM) system successfully resurfaced in July. Over the last two years, PMEL has been developing a profiling mooring for use in Arctic regions that submerges when ice arrives in the fall and refloats in the spring after ice retreat. The FCOM system has a surface float that is anchored to the ocean floor, and includes a Prawler that moves up and down the mooring line collecting profiles of temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, and dissolved oxygen.

Yellow surface buoy floating in the water during testing of the first flotation controllable ocean mooring system

 Flotation Controllable Ocean Mooring (FCOM) system resurfacing during testing in Puget Sound. 

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