Multidisciplinary Moorings in the Arctic and Coastal Areas

ii Abstract from thesis: When measuring long-term changes in the ocean, it is essential to have moorings or other observation systems that can reliably provide high-quality measurements. Accordingly, it would be valuable to simulate how it acts in the water column with different designs and environmental conditions. As a result, good simulations could help optimize the mooring design before deployment. Part one of this thesis focuses on reviewing moorings from the UNDER-ICE experiment in the Arctic Ocean by using currents from the GECCO ocean model and ADCPs as input to a mooring design software. The aim is to compare the simulated and observed mooring motions to evaluate how good the design approach is. If the results are promising, this approach can help optimize mooring design. Part two of the thesis focuses on designing, deploying, and recovering a multidisciplinary mooring near a fish farm. After recovery, the measurements and modeling results have been analyzed to investigate how well the observation mooring has performed. In particular, to show the strengths and weaknesses of the mooring design and explain how the aquaculture industry can take advantage of the data obtained. The main result from the simulation using currents from the GECCO ocean model, the sim- ulations disagreed with the observed mooring motion because of insufficient movement. However, when using currents from the ADCPs installed in the moorings, the results were in better agreement. In part two, the design, deployment, and recovery operations went well, despite ending up as a surface mooring instead of the planned subsurface mooring. Still, it proved to be capable of conducting measurements in coastal areas.