This Woman Tracks Icebergs for the International Ice Patrol
Commander Gabrielle McGrath entering the aircraft where she and her team conduct their missions to search for icebergs in the North Atlantic. Using HC-130J aircraft, their operations are based out of St. John’s, Newfoundland, for a nine-day period twice a month.
Photographer: Caroll Taveras for Bloomberg Businessweek
At Work With is our ode to unsung professions. This week, meet a Coast Guard officer who patrols the North Atlantic for icebergs.
This is embarrassing, but I’ve never heard of the International Ice Patrol.
It’s a lesser-known entity to the U.S. Coast Guard. We’re at 17 people now. I joined in 2006 and have been commanding officer since 2013.
And you, what, patrol icebergs?
Following the Titanic disaster in 1912, several countries founded the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea that put in place safety regulations and also created the International Ice Patrol, which tracks icebergs and alerts passing ships to their presence. The Ice Patrol is run by the U.S. Coast Guard, but there are 17 contributing nations that pay for our work.
Why do you patrol only the North Atlantic?
Because it’s the only place in the world where the path of icebergs intersects with shipping lanes. We can track up to 10,000 icebergs in any one season. It takes one to three years from when an iceberg calves off a glacier to when it gets to our area.