The offshore oil and gas industry utilizes personnel underwater during all phases of the exploration, construction and production operations required to find oil or gas and bring it onshore. Underwater tasks vary in nature from the purely observational to those requiring a high degree of manual dexterity and manipulative skills and extend in depth from the splash zone to the seafloor.

Putting a diver to work beneath the sea poses several unique problems not encountered in normal surface environments, and maintaining thermal comfort is one of the major problems to be overcome in providing an undersea environment that promotes efficient work. The thermal problems that man encounters when he goes directly into the sea are interrelated with the general life support problems created by the physical characteristics of water.

This paper discusses the unique problems with putting a diver to work beneath the sea.