The cruise contributed to the work package ‘Physical Drivers’ (Research Foci 1) with process studies to investigate the atmospheric, oceanographic, radiative and other physical controls on sea ice and stratification, with a general aim to identify and quantify the processes that control the heat budget north of Svalbard and in the Barents Sea. 

Work was conducted along three sections across the north Spitsbergen shelf and slope. The cruise deployed six oceanographic moorings, gliders, an AUV, a remotely piloted unmanned aircraft, several controlled meteorological balloons; collected underway measurements from ship-mounted ocean current profilers, wind profilers, radiometer and wave sensors, and measured ocean stratification, currents, and microstructure profiles. Additionally, wave sensors were deployed at ice floes from the ice edge into pack ice.