Warning Prompts Call For Fine-Tuned U.S. ASW
The scientific community has U.S. Navy submarine operations and data to thank for a truer picture of how climate change is affecting the world’s polar regions.
Now, though, the service needs to tweak its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) methods to better prepare for the effects of the climatic changes in those regions, according to a National Academies report released on Thursday, “National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces.”
“Open access to previously classified Navy data and to other Department of Defense assets,” the report notes, “have enabled advances in climate change research that have benefited the scientific community studying climate change. A clear example of this benefit is the analysis of submarine upward-looking sonar, which shows that sea ice has been thinning in response to climate change.” The report adds, “Virtually all knowledge of Arctic climatology is from submarine transits.”
There are no “significant first-order effects” from climatic changes on ASW capabilities, the report says. “Climate change will, however, mandate that submarine and ASW operations become more robust in the Arctic Ocean, where essential data are sparse or nonexistent in both spatial and temporal senses.”
Moreover, as submarines have become acoustically quieter, “ASW operations have evolved away from a pure submarine-on-submarine mission to a cooperative, coordinated one involving fixed and mobile sensors, and surface, subsurface and air platforms,” the report says. “This extensive and deployable ASW infrastructure that supports the principal (submarine) hunter platforms is generally deployed in the temperate oceans but would be challenged to operate in the Arctic and does not presently do so.”
Further, the report says, the supporting tactical oceanographic data collection, analysis and distribution system does not extend to the Arctic. The Navy will need that data for “effective ASW operations in that region, which will become an inevitable national imperative.”
The report recommends the Navy increase its Arctic submarine presence for training purposes, extend its supporting ASW oceanographic data infrastructure to the Arctic Ocean and begin to conduct multi-platform ASW training in the Arctic. The Navy Arctic ASW plan also should include: increased research for Arctic passive and active sonars; long-range planning to install facilities that support Arctic ASW, such as refurbishing and expanding the fixed array systems; planning for aircraft support from the new P-8A; development of high-latitude communications systems for relaying tactical and environmental data; identifying ports for emergencies; and incorporation of a more robust under-ice capability on Virginia-class submarines.
Virginia-class subs, the report notes, were not built to penetrate thick ice. “Locations for surfacing need to be carefully checked to make sure the ice is thin enough for these submarines to penetrate without damage.” This implies, the report says, that there is a capability for finding regions of thin ice for surfacing opportunities. “This needs to be put in place,” the report says, “based either on data from the upward-looking sonar or by somehow transmitting satellite reconnaissance information.”
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
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