U.S. Navy submarine USS Hartford breaks through sea ice to surface near Ice Camp Sargo, a temporary station constructed atop the ice in the Arctic Ocean, during Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2016.
ICEX is a five-week exercise designed to test and evaluate the Navy's "operational readiness" in the region, and to conduct scientific research, the Navy wrote in a release.
The Hartford, based in Groton, Connecticut, is joined on the exercise by the San Diego-based USS Hampton. Both are Los Angeles-class attack submarines, according to a report from Navy Times.
Submarines have conducted ice operations in the Arctic region for more than 50 years. The submarine USS Sargo, after which this year's ICEX camp is named, was the first submarine to make a winter Bering Strait transit, doing so in 1960.