71 Spring 2025 Proceedings The sea state classifies the height of waves into nine different levels ranging from sea state 0, or calm with no swell, to sea state 9, or phenomenal with 46-foot swells.6 The sea state impacts how fast a surface asset can transit in the simulation. The wind speed has a direct impact on whether response aircraft can launch on a mission in the simu- lation. For fixed-wing assets, towing aircraft from the hangar can become hazardous in high winds and rotary assets have wind restrictions for starting and stopping their rotors. In the real world, wind also has an impact on surface assets, as well as victim recovery efforts, but those effects were not included in this simulation. The cloud ceiling directly impacts whether fixed- wing assets can air drop equipment and supplies to the scene of a SAR event. If the ceiling is too low, the crew cannot visualize the event, which prevents the drop. The CDS ERA5 dataset provided data on the cloud base height, which is the height of the lowest cloud layer, and low cloud cover, or the proportion of the area of interest covered by the lowest cloud levels. When the cloud base height is below the fixed-wing drop limit and the low cloud cover is above 50%, the simulation deems the SAR event obscured to fixed-wing aircraft by cloud cover. All the environmental data is digested by the simu- lation to create an accurate representation of the envi- ronment that might be presently encountered during an Arctic SAR event. The conditions are continually updated according to the season to impact the behavior of the agents, influencing speed, route taken, and mis- sion success accordingly. The surface response assets included in the simula- tion varied by scenario and were selected by a panel of subject matter experts (SME). For nearly every simula- tion scenario, there are two Coast Guard surface assets included in the response suite—an icebreaking cutter without an onboard helicopter and a non-icebreaking cutter with an onboard helicopter. The simulation includes response delays for planning, recovering vic- tims, and offloading victims. The simulation adapts the respective cutters’ speed for transit through open ocean, ice, and varying sea states. The airborne response assets included fixed-wing and rotary aircraft from the Air Force, Army, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, and the North Slope Borough (NSB) SAR, which serves eight villages in Northern Alaska. The air assets included in the simulation were identified and selected through discussions with SMEs but do not represent every possible air asset available in the region. If a scenario has a manageable victim load and is within range, only Coast Guard and NSB assets are considered. However, if a scenario involves a mass casualty event or takes place in an exceedingly remote location, col- laboration with the Department of Defense is required and was simulated. When a Defense Department asset is requested, an additional planning delay is applied to account for the coordination effort required.7 The Results The result of one simulation run reports the first contact of each asset type responding to the SAR event, as well as the total time it took to recover the last victim from the scene. The six scenarios were each run in the simula- tion 30 times, and those results demonstrated that the five-day minimum requirement is adequate in some of the scenarios but would be insufficient in others. Routes that are beyond the range of response helicopters or rescues involving vessels with significant numbers of people onboard can expect METR to exceed the five-day baseline. Additionally, the starting location of the ice- breaking surface asset had a significant impact on the rescue time of any scenario taking place in the ice extent. If that asset was not already on an Arctic patrol but rather docked in southern Alaska, or worse, in homeport or unavailable, the rescue times would have been radically longer. Considering the realities this simulation presents, it is recommended that the Polar Code be updated to include specific requirements and/or methods companies may use to repeatably and consistently calculate METR on their operational assessment. This will ensure thorough consideration is applied to polar routes, that every Polar Ship Certificate METR is evaluated from a uniform stan- dard, and that there is sufficient safety apparatus for all persons on board polar voyages in the event of a SAR incident. About the author: Christine Mahoney is a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Acad- emy and a 2011 graduate University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as a marine inspector for the Coast Guard in Seattle before becoming an instructor in the mathematics department at the Coast Guard Academy. After separating from the service, she joined the Coast Guard Research and Development Center as an analyst in the Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis Branch. Endnotes: 1. International Maritime Organization (IMO). (2017). International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters. IMO. Section 1.2.7 2. Power, J., Piercey, C., & Neville, M. (2019). Gap Analysis of Expected Time of Rescue and Anticipated Performance of Life Saving Appliances in the Canadian Arctic. National Research Council of Canada. https://nrc-publica tions.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=0f9e1acd-afef-4575-ba36-4e8179 3. SME advisory panel included experts from CG-SAR, USCG District 17, USNORTHCOM, USCG District 17 Fisheries, and the Arctic Council. 4. International Maritime Organization (IMO). (2017). International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters. IMO. Preamble Section 3 5. Climate Data Store (CDS) ERA5 Hourly Single Levels dataset. https://cds. climate.copernicus.eu/datasets/reanalysis-era5-single-levels?tab=download 6. World Meteorological Organization. Manual on Codes: International Codes (Vol. I.1), No. 326. Retrieved October 9, 2024, from https://library.wmo.int/ viewer/35713/download?file=306_i1_2019_en.pdf&type=pdf&navigator=1 7. SAR Advisory Panel discussion, personal communication, January 10, 2023
