Martech Polar - Polar News

Russian Ice-breaker Krasin Heading For Antarctic To Rescue U.S. Polar Station McMurdo

VLADIVOSTOK (Anatoly Ilyukhov) - The Far-Eastern Marine Shipping Company's icebreaker Krasin leaves Vladivostok on Tuesday for the Antarctic to rescue the US polar station McMurdo.

According to the shipping company, the cruise to the Antarctic was ordered by the Russian government at the request by the US authorities for an ice-breaker to assist in urgently resupplying

the US Antarctic mission.

McMurdo Station is a major research center in the Antarctic. It is situated on the coast of the Ross Sea. Two US Coast Guard icebreakers - the Polar Sea and the Polar Stat - supply the station with everything its crew needs for sustenance and research.

However, the Polar Sea is undergoing overhaul, with the other icebreaker being unable to handle the resupply mission on her own. Therefore, the US authorities turned to the Russian government for help, the Far-Eastern Marine Shipping Company says.

The Russian and US icebreakers are slated to rendezvous in the Ross Sea between January 10 and 14, 2005.

The link-up is to pave the way through ice for a tanker to get to McMurdo Station. The larger Krasin is to lead the way in making a channel through ice for the tanker to follow, with the leg from the edge of ice to the shore to span 470 nautical miles, the shipping company says.

On February 1, the Russian and US icebreakers are to link up with the American Tern motor vessel carrying 10,000 t of cargo.

According to estimates, the Krasin's Arctic mission is to total 5-6 weeks, after which she is to head for home to start leading Arctic convoys through Russian waters in the northern sector of the Pacific in April 2005.

Hydrogen Generated by Antarctic Winds

Mawson, Antarctica [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The viciously-cold winds that howl down to the coast of Antarctica from the inland icecap are now harnessed by wind turbines that supply remote power to an Australian research facility, which is developing methods for on-site hydrogen production.

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) received a grant of half a million dollars from the Australian Greenhouse Office to demonstrate the use of hydrogen generated by wind in Antarctica. The demonstration project at the remote Mawson site will research the safety and operational aspects of using hydrogen on station, as well as its viability as a major energy carrier.

Hydrogen is not, as many people believe, an energy source. Neither is electricity. In contemporary energy systems, electricity serves as an energy carrier. It is produced from primary energy sources using technology such as diesel powered generators or wind turbines. It is the same case with hydrogen.

Hydrogen will be generated using energy from the Mawson station's wind turbines, stored and used in a test fuel cell, as fuel in a heater and in one of the station vehicles. Two Enercon wind turbines, capable of withstanding blizzards in excess of 300 km/h, were recently installed. Together, the units provide one MW of electricity for use at the research station and for the hydrogen project -- and dramatically lower the need for imported diesel fuel.

"The Mawson system will generate well over ten times the power of existing Antarctic wind-power systems while having a much lower environmental impact than the current option of diesel fuel now used throughout Antarctica," said Australia's Environment Minister Robert Hill, regarding the wind turbine construction. "When the system is fully developed, an Antarctic station will, for the first time, be able to use a renewable source to meet virtually all its energy needs."

For the upcoming hydrogen demonstration project, the AAD plans to install the test fuel cell and heater at the field camp on Bechervaise Island. They will provide electricity and heat for the scientists involved in the penguin monitoring program.

By the completion of the project, the staff at AAD expects to gain sufficient information to be able to model the large-scale use of hydrogen to supplement their energy requirements.

Hydrogen used by the Bureau of Meteorology staff for daily weather balloon flights is currently generated on site. Electrolyzers, powered in part by wind energy, produce hydrogen from water. Any excess hydrogen produced will be stored and utilized for the project. The system will be installed and implemented during the 2005-06 season.

The AAD expects that the use of hydrogen as a fuel will reduce the need for fossil fuels during those times when the wind energy is insufficient to power the station. The hydrogen will fuel either a large-scale fuel cell system or an internal combustion engine generator.

The ultimate aim is to be able to run the station and all the field camps without the use of any fossil fuels. The AAD believes this may be the first attempt to use hydrogen as a major energy source in Antarctica.

ST.PETERSBURG - Since when it began research work on September 9, the Russian drifting station North Pole-33 (SP-33) has covered 520 kilometres in the Arctic, said Vladimir Sokolov, head of the High-Latitude Arctic Expedition of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute under the Russian Hydrometeorological Committee.

The average drifting speed was about three kilometres a day, he said. The maximal speed - 22 kilometres a day - was registered on November 17.

"The station has been wholly deployed and is ready for wintering. The programme of research, such as probing of the atmosphere, ice cover, ocean floor, is in full swing. Polar night is on and the auroras can be observed periodically. Unfortunately, there is no geophysical group here and they are not studied", Sokolov said.

The term of service of SP-33 is two years. In March 2005 the research programme will be broadened and the expedition increased to 24 members.

SP-33 was opened on September 9 and now has eleven members. Three dogs - Dixan, Nadya and Karat - are kept here to warn of the approach of Polar bears.

SP-33 continues years of research of the central Arctic region, begun in 1937 by the first-ever drifting station North Pole-1. Research data will broaden knowledge of the process going on in the natural environment of the central Arctic, help explain the global climatic changes and improve weather forecasts.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - A faster-than-expected thaw of the Arctic is likely to open legendary short-cut routes between the Pacific and the Atlantic but experts say icebergs and high costs will prevent any trans-polar shipping boom.

"There will be opportunities for shipping, but even in summer vessels would need thick hulls and icebreaker support," said Arne Instanes, a Norwegian scientist who wrote on transport in a eight-nation survey of global warming's Arctic impact.

The survey, being presented at a four-day conference in Iceland lasting until Friday, projects the Northern Sea Route along the coast of Russia is likely to be navigable for 120 days a year in 2100 against just 30 in 2000 as ice recedes.

It says the Arctic Ocean could be almost ice-free in summer by 2100 and that a build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels is heating the Arctic twice as fast as the rest of the globe.

Yet the routes between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, an icy graveyard for explorers in past centuries, are unlikely to spur a shipping rush. As the ice melts there may be more icebergs, and even more fog.

"Greater use of the transpolar routes isn't going to happen quickly because there are too many uncertainties," said Walter Parker, chairman of the Circumpolar Infrastructure Task Force of the Arctic Council.

"Bankers are not interested in lending unless governments also get involved in funding," he said. "Major shippers are not interested yet." The Arctic Council groups the United States, Russia, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.

In the long term, the United States and other nations might find the remote routes a safer alternative to more southerly routes where terrorism or piracy could be growing risks. Cargoes like nuclear waste might be transported via the Arctic.

"Maybe these (Arctic) routes will be used because other routes have security issues," said Lawson Brigham, deputy director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. "Maybe terrorists don't like the cold."

The United States now has no ice-hardened warships except for nuclear submarines that can smash through ice to surface.

The polar route has clear attractions for shippers -- from Osaka, Japan, to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a trip around the polar sea could save about two weeks on a 45-day voyage through the Suez or Panama Canals.

Yet the Arctic report also says a thaw may add complexities. The Northwest Passage through a maze of islands north of Canada, for instance, might become more clogged by icebergs if ice bridges blocking northern channels thaw out.

The report, by 250 scientists, says the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet partly because darker ground and water, once uncovered, soak up more heat than snow and ice.

Brigham said the polar region was already used for shipping -- 52 vessels have blasted their way to the North Pole with a Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker the first in 1977.

Global warming's main benefit for shipping, he said, would be to help transport minerals like nickel from Russia, zinc from Alaska or oil and gas from future Arctic fields. Fishing vessels or cruise ships could also get easier access.

But governments would face huge problems of how to rescue crews in case of accidents, or how to clean up oil spills.

"The Arctic could be a new Wild West," said Samantha Smith, director of the WWF conservation group's Arctic Program. "When the ice melts there will be a huge value in opening the region to shipping. We're afraid it will be done without regulation."

For the first time in the history of the Russian shipbuilding the Baltiysky Zavod JSC is docking the nuclear powered icebreaker under construction. On September 7 "50 Let Pobedy" was towed into the dock of the Kronstadt Repair Yard.

Usually docking of nuclear powered icebreakers was carried out at Murmansk shipyards after several years of operation of the ships.

"50 Let Pobedy" was towered stern first from the outfitting quay with a help of three tug boats. Later the vessel was turned bows on. Towage procedure took 4 hours.

The necessity of carrying out of dock works steams from the long-term construction of the vessel. " 50 Let Pobedy" , originally named "Ural", was launched on December 29, 1993. Then due to lack of financing construction of the icebreaker has been suspended. At the end of 1990s the financing has been partially resumed. In February 2003 Baltiysky Zavod JSC and Directorate of the Sea Transport Development have signed the contract on outfitting of the icebreaker. In accordance with this document Rubles 2,5 bln. should be allocated from the federal budget for the icebreaker outfitting during 2003-2005 (in 2003 - Rubles 820 mio. in 2004 - Rubles 913 mio., in 2005 - Rubles 767 mio.).

In dock of the Kronstadt Repair Yard specialists of Baltiysky Zavod JSC will check up the serviceability of the underwater systems and devices installed onboard the ship at the beginning of 1990s. The most tedious procedure is the stern tube checking. To do this would require dismantling of propeller and propeller shaft. Dock operations will take for about 2 months.

For successful performance of these works Baltiysky Zavod has designed and manufactured special accessories. Checking of the stern tube will be carried out in cooperation with the Wartsila specialists, Finland, and other foreign experts. Serviceability of the stern tube is a necessary condition for the commencement of mooring trials. Apart from the stern tube the following systems should also be examined: the right propeller shaft, sea valves, piping and protection system of the sea valves, navigation devices, cathodic protection system, etc. Besides specialists of the shipyard will wash out the underwater part of the shell, sea chests and sea valves branch pipes.

All works in dock will be carried out under the supervision of specialists of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping and Murmansk Shipping Company. As on July 1, 2004 "50 Let Pobedy" was 93 % completed. Hull, superstructure and after mast are completely erected. Installation of the main machinery and electric equipment is completed as well.

During 1974-1992 Baltiysky Zavod JSC has constructed a series of nuclear powered icebreakers of the second generation type "Arktika". In 1989-1990 two nuclear icebreakers ("Taimyr" and "Vaigach") were constructed in cooperation with Wartsila, Finland.

Today specialists of the shipyard work at the extension of the serviceability of the power plants of icebreakers in operation. Baltiysky Zavod modernises steam generators of the nuclear powered ships operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company.

Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming, Survey Finds

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
A comprehensive four-year study of warming in the Arctic shows that heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks around the world are contributing to profound environmental changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing of permafrost and shifts in the weather, the oceans and the atmosphere.

The study, commissioned by eight nations with Arctic territory, including the United States, says the changes are likely to harm native communities, wildlife and economic activity but also to offer some benefits, like longer growing seasons. The report is due to be released on Nov. 9, but portions were provided yesterday to The New York Times by European participants in the project.

While Arctic warming has been going on for decades and has been studied before, this is the first thorough assessment of the causes and consequences of the trend.

It was conducted by nearly 300 scientists, as well as elders from the native communities in the region, after representatives of the eight nations met in October 2000 in Barrow, Alaska, amid a growing sense of urgency about the effects of global warming on the Arctic.

The findings support the broad but politically controversial scientific consensus that global warming is caused mainly by rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and that the Arctic is the first region to feel its effects. While the report is advisory and carries no legal weight, it is likely to increase pressure on the Bush administration, which has acknowledged a possible human role in global warming but says the science is still too murky to justify mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The State Department, which has reviewed the report, declined to comment on it yesterday.

The report says that "while some historical changes in climate have resulted from natural causes and variations, the strength of the trends and the patterns of change that have emerged in recent decades indicate that human influences, resulting primarily from increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, have now become the dominant factor."

The Arctic "is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth," the report says, adding, "Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social and economic changes, many of which have already begun."

Scientists have long expected the Arctic to warm more rapidly than other regions, partly because as snow and ice melt, the loss of bright reflective surfaces causes the exposed land and water to absorb more of the sun's energy. Also, warming tends to build more rapidly at the surface in the Arctic because colder air from the upper atmosphere does not mix with the surface air as readily as at lower latitudes, scientists say.

The report says the effects of warming may be heightened by other factors, including overfishing, rising populations, rising levels of ultraviolet radiation from the depleted ozone layer (a condition at both poles). "The sum of these factors threatens to overwhelm the adaptive capacity of some Arctic populations and ecosystems," it says.

Prompt efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions could slow the pace of change, allowing communities and wildlife to adapt, the report says. But it also stresses that further warming and melting are unavoidable, given the century-long buildup of the gases, mainly carbon dioxide.

Several of the Europeans who provided parts of the report said they had done so because the Bush administration had delayed publication until after the presidential election, partly because of the political contentiousness of global warming.

But Gunnar Palsson of Iceland, chairman of the Arctic Council, the international body that commissioned the study, said yesterday that there was "no truth to the contention that any of the member states of the Arctic Council pushed the release of the report back into November." Besides the United States, the members are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

Mr. Palsson said all the countries had agreed to delay the release, originally scheduled for September, because of conflicts with another international meeting in Iceland.

The American scientist directing the assessment, Dr. Robert W. Corell, an oceanographer and senior fellow of the American Meteorological Society, said the timing was set during diplomatic discussions that did not involve the scientists.

He said he could not yet comment on the specific findings, but noted that the signals from the Arctic have global significance.

"The major message is that climate change is here and now in the Arctic," he said.

The report is a profusely illustrated window on a region in remarkable flux, incorporating reams of scientific data as well as observations by elders from native communities around the Arctic Circle.

The potential benefits of the changes include projected growth in marine fish stocks and improved prospects for agriculture and timber harvests in some regions, as well as expanded access to Arctic waters.

The retreat of sea ice, the report says, "is very likely to have devastating consequences for polar bears, ice-living seals and local people for whom these animals are a primary food source."

Oil and gas deposits on land are likely to be harder to extract as tundra thaws, limiting the frozen season when drilling convoys can traverse the otherwise spongy ground, the report says. Alaska has already seen the "tundra travel" season on the North Slope shrink to 100 days from about 200 days a year in 1970.

The report concludes that the consequences of the fast-paced Arctic warming will be global. In particular, the accelerated melting of Greenland's two-mile-high sheets of ice will cause sea levels to rise around the world.

China started its 21st Antarctic expedition Monday hoping to beat other countries to arrive at "the inaccessible pole" by land.

A total of 146 people boarded the Xuelong ship at Shanghai's Minsheng Lu Dock to kick off the 150-day expedition.

The major goal is to climb the highest icecap of the South Pole, said Wei Wenliang, a senior official with the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration.

Other research that will be undertaken include investigating the psychological environment of the polar ocean, and data collection of polar bio-ecology and physical oceanography.

It is the 11th polar exploration trip for Xuelong, a polar science research ice-breaker. This one, however, is considered to be its most difficult mission to date, said sources with the State Oceanic Administration during the send-off ceremony.

The ship will also travel through westerly winds in areas where huge crests and gales are likely to test the staff on board.

"This expedition is going to be a milestone in the history of China's Antarctic exploration," Wei said.

Chinese scientists plan to conduct scientific experiments on the peak of Dome A and collect some ice samples. They will also put up a temporary weather observatory there.

Located far away from the coastline in the interior Antarctica, Dome A has a rigorous climate and a dangerous reputation. It has been named "the inaccessible pole."

If the expedition is successful, China will be the first country to enter the area by land.

Europe must remain at the forefront of polar research and confront the challenge of being the first to conquer the Arctic Ocean, says the European Polar Board. The organisation has just put forward a proposal for the construction of a European Arctic flagship, the AURORA BOREALIS.

In spite of the Arctic Ocean's critical role in climate change evolution in the northern hemisphere, it remains a mystery as no ship in the world has ever been able to go to the centre of this sub-basin.

This lack of data represents one of the largest gaps of information in modern earth science, says the European Polar Board, which would like to see the construction of a dedicated state of the art European icebreaker with a deep drilling capability.

The AURORA BOREALIS would be the first true research vessel in this field. It would enable data collection and the probing of the environment at times when the Arctic region has never been visited (mainly during late autumn, winter and early spring), and would allow European nations to maintain their leading position in arctic research.

'European nations have a particular interest in understanding the arctic environment with its inherent sensitivity to change,' says Professor Dr Jörn Thiede, Chairman of the AURORA BOREALIS' international science planning committee. 'Highly industrialised countries extend into high northern latitudes, and Europe is under the steady influence of and in exchange with the arctic environment.'

Two teams of German and Finnish experts have come up with a design for a vessel that would revolutionise the way research is carried out in the Arctic. With its all-season capability it would provide the most advanced research platform to date and be able to tackle major scientific challenges by enabling long, international and interdisciplinary expeditions into the centre of the Arctic Ocean.

'The critical role of the Arctic in regulating and driving the global climate system is one that requires elucidation in all its complexities,' states the European Polar Board. 'This is necessary to predict future environmental changes and determine strategies that must be adopted by nations to protect the functioning of the earth system.'

According to Professor Thiede, drilling in and examining samples from the Arctic basin will be one of the major scientific and technological challenges of this decade, and one in which Europe must, and will, play a key role.

To venture into the deep, permanently ice-covered Arctic Ocean, Europe requires a new research facility, which should be planned as a joint European infrastructure unit, states the European Polar Board. At a cost of 250 million euro, the AURORA BOREALIS project needs to be supported by a core group of European countries with relevant research interests. Indeed, no single country has a scientific community big enough to use the vessel efficiently. Thus, an effective use of the icebreaker requires the formation of a consortium of European countries and their polar research institutes to ensure a high quality of science and efficient employment of the research vessel during all seasons of the year.

Besides basic research, the AURORA BOREALIS would provide the opportunity for fossil hydrocarbon exploration.

'It would also give European nations an advantage in the planning, construction and deployment of large icebreakers in the Arctic, which seems to be developing into one of the most important regions in the northern hemisphere, said Professor Thiede.

Furthermore, if indications pointing to a 'blue' Arctic Ocean in 50 years time are true, adds the professor, 'this could potentially lead to an opening of sea passages to the north of North America and Eurasia. This project would therefore open up access to new areas of the Arctic and provide a substantial commercial interest.'

Although it has not made any financial commitment to date, the German government has already assessed this as an important project. The European Polar Board hopes to attract a core group of five to eight nations and the European Commission to finance the project.

Non-European countries with an interest in the region, like the US, Canada and the Russian Federation are also interested in some sort of partnership or involvement.

Antarctic research into change in climate

AUSTRALIAN and French scientists are sailing into Antarctica waters this week to resume assessing the region's role in climate change.

They are studying its capacity as a massive oceanic sponge to absorb greenhouse gases and store them away for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years.

Aurora Borealis ‘Europe’s Arctic Flagship’: A Long Term Science Perspective For Deep Arctic Ocean Research

The proposed construction of a European Arctic Flagship ‘AURORA BOREALIS’, the 250 Million Euro joint European Research Icebreaker with a deep drilling capability would result in a considerable commitment of the participating nations to coordinate and expand their Polar Research Programmes. Recent results from drilling of the Deep Arctic Ocean within the Arctic Coring Expedition (Acex) have revealed dramatic changes of climate in the Arctic region during the last 55 million years. European science would substantially benefit from a dedicated jointly owned research Icebreaker to investigate the deep Arctic Ocean. European Nations have a particular interest in understanding the Arctic environment with its potential for change because highly industrialized countries extend into high northern latitudes, and Europe is under the steady influence of and in exchange with the Arctic environment.

The AURORA BOREALIS will be globally the most advanced research platform with state-of-the-art technology for polar research. With its all-season capability it will provide a platform for tackling major scientific challenges, which hitherto has not been possible. It would be a floating European university in Polar Sciences. It would promote the idea of the European Research Area and it would result in substantial competitive advantages. In addition, it would help in the collection of data to advance the definition of the continental margins and increase safety in Arctic operations. The forthcoming international Polar Year in 2007-2008 provides an opportunity to launch such a groundbreaking European research facility.

A long-term science perspective document recommending the construction of such as infrastructure has been developed by The European Polar Board (European Science Foundation) written by scientists and from 10 nations throughout Europe. It highlights the major scientific challenges in the Arctic Ocean over the next 10 years. The AURORA BOREALIS project is an element of the European Polar Board’s Strategic Framework EUROPOLAR a concept which enables strengthening, expansion and commitment to the organization and implementation of European Polar Research. The Commitment of a group of European nations to this project will result in the enhancement of Political cooperation in the Arctic Region as a Whole.

The framework conditions for Norwegian research in Antarctica are completely changing. The Norwegian summer station, Troll, will be a year-round station, and the airstrip beside Troll will soon accommodate intercontinental flights. This will have enormous consequences for Norwegian research.

From February 2005, year-round operations at the Norwegian research station in Antarctica will commence. At the same time, the airstrip will be able to receive heavy intercontinental flights between South Africa and Queen Maud’s Land. Smaller flights can already land on the airstrip out by the blue ice.

Earlier, scientists spent several weeks by boat from South Africa, but now they can fly here in six hours. Then we have year-round operation at Troll, such as all the other six nations having claim on the Antarctic territory besides Norway have, we are sanding before a new era for Norwegian Antarctic research, says Harald Loeng, leader for the Norwegian National Committee for Polar Research.

He leads the Oceanography and Climate research group, part of the Institute of Marine Research. The Norwegian research community has a great presence in the Arctic, and we have several cross-functional research communities that are among the world’s leading in their areas. These functional communities have potential to contribute greatly in the Antarctic. This bi-polar approach gives Norway a unique opportunity to contribute to the comprehensive knowledge exchange between the Arctic and Antarctic, not least of which in comparative studies.

The human dimension” that includes both studies of international politics and maintenance as well as cultural conservation and tourism, is also included. Other themes are atmospheric research, research of greenhouse gasses and the large hole in the ozone layer.

Traditionally Norwegian research in Antarctica was focused on biology, geology, oceanography and glaciology. Some will perhaps say that the new policy document is a very ambitious plan for the Norwegian Antarctic research.

But although we are small, we are not novices within polar research. I think that Norwegian expertise in this area can be better explored with more focus on bi-polar comparative studies. It is the research that should be leading, not the geography. However, we are also standing before new possibilities when it comes to participating in international networking and cross-functional projects.

The new policy will mean a substantial upgrading and changes of Antarctic research. Earlier Antarctic researchers have needed to plan for one season in the field at a time, but the draft of the policy document suggests that the conditions are now right to focus on projects that can last up to four years.

The new logistic situation will also include that research on land and offshore no longer are so dependent on one another. It opens the way for more flexible activities in both areas, besides opening new climate and eco-system models as well as an approach to models that will combine existing and new knowledge and different types of data,” says the leader for the national committee.

A team of British explorers have set off on an Arctic expedition to retrace the steps of Victorian polar pioneers, Sir John Ross and Sir James Clark Ross.

Dom Mee, 33, is leading the seven strong crew, which includes a direct descendant of Sir James Clarke Ross.

The team plan to reach Thom Bay, where the Victorian explorers wintered and hope to find the remains of their ship, which has never been recovered.

Exercise Arctic Quest 1832, as it is called, will take one month.

North-West passage Dom Mee

In 1829 Sir John Ross, his nephew Sir James Clark Ross and 21 men set sail in the "Victory" to search for the fabled North-West Passage, a sea route linking the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

Although the expedition failed in this respect, other important discoveries were made.

During their pioneering voyage, they charted the lands of Boothia - and in 1831 Sir James discovered the position of the North Magnetic Pole .

After enduring three harsh Arctic winters, Sir John and his crew eventually abandoned their ice bound ship in 1832 and headed towards Baffin Bay.

The ice remained strong during 1832, and the crew had to spend another winter stranded in the wilderness. They were finally rescued a year later.

Locked in ice

Dom Mee, from Somerset, UK, and his team of five men and one woman, set off on Monday to retrace the Ross journey.

The group, which includes members of the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy, hope to explore an area of Nunavut, in Canada's Arctic, which has not been visited by a British expedition in over 172 years.

IQALUIT - A young Inuit hunter from the Nunavut community of Arctic Bay has bagged a rare doubled-tusked narwhal whose ivory should fetch tens of thousands of dollars.

Tom Naqitarvik, 18, shot the five-metre narwhal earlier this month in Admiralty Bay, a three-hour snowmobile ride from his home. As he pulled it from the sea, he discovered it had two tusks.

Tom Naqitarvik with his narwhal's double tusks "It was unbelievable. I was too excited," he told the Edmonton Journal.

The male Arctic whale, known as the "unicorn of the sea," has a long, spiralled ivory tusk jutting from its mouth. The tusk develops from one of two teeth and grows to a length of up to three metres.

On rare occasions, both teeth form tusks. Scientists don't know why or how often it happens, but the double-tusked animals are extremely valuable and prized by Inuit hunters.

Naqitarvik's narwal has one tusk 2.1 metres long and another measuring 1.9 metres.

"Last year, from Iqaluit, somebody caught a double-tusk, like six feet long, and this year he sold it for $90,000," he said.

Naqitarvik said he's already received a call from a person in Montreal offering him $30,000. He plans to use the internet to auction it to the highest bidder.

Naqitarvik, the youngest of 12 children, shot his first narwhal at age 12. He said his father didn't believe it when he first heard the news of the double-tusker.

"Our parents were down south at the time and when mom found out she was laughing and almost crying," Tom's sister Darlene Naqitarvik said. "We are very proud of our baby brother."

UK scientists are leading a new European space mission to determine whether the Earth's ice sheets are thinning due to global warming.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) CryoSat satellite is due to be launched at the end of 2004 -- the first in ESA's Living Planet Programme.

Led by Professor Duncan Wingham, of University College London, the mission is a response to the current debate on climate change and the effect this may be having on the Earth's large polar ice masses.

Prof Wingham today told a press conference at the Farnborough International Airshow: "Unlike its Antarctic cousin, the Arctic ice sheet is fragile. It is a thin layer, just a few feet thick, and computer models predict its almost complete destruction over the next 100 years. Today, however, we have no reliable method of testing experimentally these predictions.

"CryoSat will provide the first authoritative measurements of how the ice thickness is changing throughout the Arctic, and allow us to unravel changes due to the wind from those due to melting. The schedule and budget constraints of the Opportunity missions have made CryoSat a challenging mission to design and build; however, we are confident that its data will remain a landmark in understanding climate change for many years to come."

The mission's overall cost is about £87 million (Euro 130 million). Britain, through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), contributes £27 million annually towards ESA's Earth Observation Envelope Programme. British scientists will use the data to make accurate predictions about sea ice conditions.

NERC Director of Earth Observation, Dr Steven Wilson, said: "Sea ice thickness is one of the hottest issues in climate change. It is a huge uncertainty in climate models. The ice sheets are so vast, so inhospitable, it is impossible to gather this kind of information in any other way.

"If the Arctic sea ice is melting, it could change the circulation pattern of the north Atlantic, changing the supply of heat to western Europe."

By measuring ice thickness over a three-year period, Cryosat aims to provide conclusive evidence as to whether there is a trend towards diminishing polar ice cover and consequently improve our understanding of the relationship between ice and global climate.

Cryosat's main payload is a new generation of radar -- the SIRAL radar -- which is capable of measuring the very small difference in height between the sea ice surface and the surrounding water. The satellite will be placed in a polar orbit, to provide complete coverage of the Arctic Ocean. By maintaining the satellite in orbit over a period of years, a picture of the fluctuations in the sea ice can be built up, gradually revealing its effect on the ocean beneath.

CryoSat will measure the ice thickness from an altitude of 720 km. Because of the importance of its measurements to understanding the climate, it is vital to check that its measurements are correct. This can only be done by making 'field' measurements in the polar regions at the same time as the satellite.

CryoSat's importance has allowed scientists to bring together international resources (from Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, the UK and the US) to perform experiments in April and September of 2004, 2005, and 2006 in Arctic Canada and Norway, in Greenland, in the Arctic Ocean, and, possibly, the Antarctic Weddell Sea in the (austral) winter of 2006. These measurements will involve traverses across the ice sheets, and coincident measurements using aircraft and helicopters.

MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax) - Russia will deploy the North Pole 33 drifting research station off the Novosibirsk Islands in the Arctic Ocean.

The Federal Hydro-Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring Service discussed the project on Thursday.

The ship Academician Fyodorov will depart from St. Petersburg on August 10 to deliver the Russian explorers and about 530 tonnes of cargo to the Novosibirsk Islands zone, an Environmental Monitoring Service source told Interfax.

The project will resume hydro-meteorological monitoring of the Arctic basin, which is vital for the regional economy. It will also allow the study of physical processes that determine global and regional climatic changes.

Foreign scientists may spend some time at the station, as well, the source said. Scientific organizations from Norway, Germany, the United States, and other countries have shown interest in the project.

Russia is opening the station in connection with the International Polar Year set for 2007-08, the source said.

Mariner Life Magazine interviews Martech Polar's Captain David Snider on his activities as an Ice Pilot and Ice Navigator.

Bremen (SPX) Jun 09, 2004
In August 2004, a new and exciting chapter will be opened in the history of Arctic research. In the Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), three icebreakers will set off in the direction of the North Pole to extract cores from beneath the Arctic seafloor.

By investigating marine sediments, an international team of scientists will trace the history of the climatic environment of the Arctic over the last 50 million years, from the time before sea ice first appeared in the Arctic to the present climatic period that is marked by the greenhouse effect caused by humans.

This will be the deepest oceanic sediment core yet to be extracted from the Arctic. On completion of the expedition, the cores will be brought to the DFG Ocean Margins Research Centre's core repository at the University of Bremen, where an international group of scientists will carry out detailed investigations in November.

ACEX is the first European contribution to a new international research programme in geosciences, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), which the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) will fund over the next ten years with approximately €50 million. From a scientific, technical and logistical point of view, this expedition to the North Pole is a spectacular project.

For the first time, sedimentary cores are to be extracted from beneath the ice-covered Arctic Ocean – an environmental archive that will yield information about the climate changes of past ages.

The cores give information on water temperature, salt content and ocean currents and, in addition, will show how and when the Arctic sea ice was formed. This information will be highly significant to our understanding of global climate changes.

The drillings will be carried out very close to the pole, on the Lomonosov Ridge. This sub-ocean mountain range stretches from northern Greenland, across the Polar Sea, to Siberia. Extracting sediments from below the Arctic seabed is a major logistical exercise.

The expedition will therefore be carried out by three icebreakers: the Vidar Viking, a specially equipped drillship, the Swedish Oden and the Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker, Sovetskiy Soyuz. The drillings will be carried out at a depth of about 1,000 metres by the Vidar Viking.

The task of the other two icebreakers will be to protect the drillship from drifting ice floes and metre-thick pack ice during the three weeks or so that it will take to complete drilling work.

In November 2003, the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, ECORD, was formed to join the IODP as a European-Canadian joint initiative and make the infrastructure available for special research projects. The USA and Japan, the other partners in the IODP, will each provide one drillship. Projects such as ACEX, for which these ships would be unsuitable, will be organised and financed by ECORD.

The DFG was a main driving force behind the preparations for ECORD and now makes the largest financial contribution, next to France and Great Britain.

The DFG Ocean Margins Research Centre in Bremen occupies a key position in this project as one of the four centres in the world that maintain a core repository. These core repositories are meeting points for marine geoscientists from many nations

The Thrill of Finding the World's Edge

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Since at least 330 B.C., when the Greek explorer Pytheas sailed past the British Isles and probably reached Norway, people have been seeking what he called Ultima Thule, the northernmost land.

All the significant islands ringing the Arctic Ocean have long since been mapped. But off the northern coast of Greenland, where the near-permanent sea-ice cloak has been thinning, a succession of explorers has recently found small scraps of soil, each a few miles farther north than the last.

The first was Oodaaq, an island photographed, visited and charted in 1978 that has apparently vanished. A more northerly islet was found in 1996 by a team led by two Americans, Ken Zerbst and John Jancik.

The newest claim comes from Dennis Schmitt, a seasoned Arctic guide, linguist and composer from Berkeley, Calif., and Dr. Frank Landsberger, an American physicist and entrepreneur who teaches at Cambridge University. Mr. Schmitt and others had seen something from the air on earlier visits, and last July he and Dr. Landsberger led a team over the ice, fording shallow lakes of meltwater and clambering over ice ridges until they stepped onto a 20-yard-long heap. The islet has not yet been recognized by Denmark, of which Greenland is a self-governing territory, but Mr. Schmitt said he was unconcerned about geopolitics.

For him, he said, the thrill is to find a new place. "All my life, there's been a transcendent element to finding something at the edge of the world," he said. "It's a heap of rock to some people, but a beautiful island by my standards of geography."

Arctic Ocean probe to predict ice age
David Adam, science correspondent
The Guardian

Scientists are to drill the deepest hole yet under the Arctic Ocean to investigate whether global warming would plunge Europe into an ice age.

Cores of seabed sediment will be taken 500 metres (1,640ft) down in an underwater mountain chain called the Lomonosov Ridge, 1,243 miles off the coast of Norway. The scientists aim to reconstruct how the Arctic has altered over the past 50m years.

The region plays a crucial role in regulating the Earth's climate, and the scientists hope that discovering when its permanent coat of sea ice appeared will help with predictions of what the future holds.

"The whole of the deep Arctic Ocean remains unexplored at depth and all of its scientific wonders remain unknown," said Andy Kingdon, one of the British team involved in the international expedition.

A region of sea ice the size of France and Germany has melted there in the past 30 years and scientists think the inflow of fresh water could affect global ocean currents, possibly shutting down the Gulf Stream, which bathes Europe in warm water - though not as rapidly as in the film The Day After Tomorrow.

"All the climate models you've ever seen are based on assumptions not real data," Mr Kingdon said.

Unpredictable winds, thick fog and shifting ice floes have made it almost impossible for drilling boats to operate in the Arctic; the deepest sediment core extracted so far is from 16 metres.

The project will use three icebreakers, one of which has been converted to drill with a 34-metre derrick.

"But we can't just park in the ice and say we're here, let's drill," said Alister Skinner, the operations manager. "We need the other two icebreakers just to give the drilling vessel a chance of staying on station."

The two escort ships will use helicopters and global satellite tracking systems dropped on to icebergs to aim at, and break up, drifting ice floes, protecting the drilling vessel.

"It's a very big ship but there's no way it can withstand a hit from an iceberg and keep drilling," Mr Skinner said.

Stationed 155 miles from the North Pole, the drilling ship will use computer-controlled propellors to stay in position for the 25 days it needs to complete the extraction of more than 100 separate 4.5-metre slugs of sediment. It will need to sink its pipe through 800 metres of water and then 500 metres into the peak of the ridge, which rises about 3,000 metres from the seabed.

The sediment was laid down at a rate of about a centimetre every thousand years, trapping the remains of millions of microscopic sea creatures. The relative abundance of these microfossils at various times is a reliable way to investigate the Earth's climate history.

The cores are expected to reveal a swing from a warm hothouse world to the present chillier era characterised by ice ages.

Geological evidence from about 45-55m years ago, such as alligator fossils from the Canadian Arctic, suggest that the Arctic was once warm and ice free.

Ice research project brings Alaska and Baffin together

Unique exchange combines scientific, traditional knowledge from two corners of circumpolar world

An international group that included Ilkoo Angutikjuak and Geela Tigullaraq of Clyde River were in Barrow, Alaska last month as part of a unique research project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

By combining scientific and traditional knowledge from two corners of the circumpolar world, the Sea Ice Knowledge Exchange Project wants to better understand changes in Arctic sea ice.

While they were in Barrow, Angutikjuak and Tigullaraq linked up with Inupiat Warren Matumiak, Darlene Matumiak Kagak and Joe Leavitt, their Alaskan counterparts; as well as researchers Henry Huntington and Jim Maslanik.

Out on the ice, Angutikjuak and Leavitt were keen to exchange observations, stories and safety tips about sea ice, while scientists contributed their observations from experiments and fieldwork.

"The whole key is just being on the ice. You can sit around a table and talk about it, but out there, everyone could relate to it," says Canadian researcher Shari Fox.

Fox says the sea ice itself was also a "research partner" as everyone stopped to touch, taste, kick, climb, dig and chip away at various parts of it in order to share different views about how sea ice works and how it's changing.

"Barrow's ice is very similar to Clyde River's ice," say Angutikjuak and Tigullaraq. "In Clyde River, the ice is different year to year, but there have been some very unusual conditions in recent years, like thinner ice in places and changes in break-up and freeze-up timing. We have to be careful. It seems that Barrow is having some changes too."

For Angutikjuak and Tigullaraq, it was a great privilege to go to Barrow, "an adventure in itself."

"We felt a sense of belonging because our lifestyles are so similar. It's just our language that is a little bit different. Their language was interesting because we understand a lot of their words, but the same word would have a different meaning to them than to us," the two say. "In Clyde River, everyone speaks our native language, Inuktitut, but the Inupiat seem to be losing their language. The younger people speak only English and that was sad to see."

Tigullaraq brought along videos of her family which showed her kids speaking fluent Inuktitut- much to the amazement of many Inupiat.

"My kids were playing in the room," Tigullaraq says. "There was a big crowd behind me. Everybody kept on saying, 'come see, little kids speaking Eskimo!'"

During an elder-youth conference in Barrow, Angutikjuak demonstrated how Inuit from Baffin skin a seal. He helped to teach some Inupiat youth about how he did it, while others looked on and discussed the similarities and differences in the way Nunavummiut and Inupiat skin seals, what parts they eat and how and when they eat it.

In June, the Alaskans will be coming to Clyde River. A trip to the floe edge, a community feast, square dance and a meeting with elders are among the activities planned for their visit.

While the climate changes the Alaskan region faces are severe, the same may be in store for Nunavut, says Fox.

Because the ways Inuit in both regions are affected by and cope with variations and changes in sea ice are very complex, she says this is pushing researchers like herself to consider alternative ways of recording and understanding local knowledge.

For the past 10 years, Fox, now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in Boston, has been involved in several research projects in Nunavut. She collaborated with the communities of Baker Lake and Clyde River on a recently released CD-rom called When the Weather is Uggianaqtuq: Inuit Observations of Environmental Change.

Uggianaqtuq is a North Baffin word that means to behave unexpectedly, or in an unfamiliar way, something weather is doing now more than ever.

The interactive, multi-media CD includes photos, detailed maps and film bites of both communities and many of their residents.

In one interview, you can see and hear Angutikjuak, speaking in Inuktitut, as he tells how the ice in Clyde River now firms in November instead of October as it used to. A translation of his words appears in a small box as he speaks.

Fox says elders were especially interested in this CD because it will be an educational tool for youth and students to learn about Inuit knowledge and observations of the environment.

Russia, U.S. to send joint expedition to Arctic

ST. PETERSBURG. March 23 (Interfax-Nort

hwest) - A joint Russian-U.S. expedition will study the Arctic Ocean in the summer of 2004, Alexander Danilov, deputy director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, told Interfax on Tuesday.

An understanding on this was reached at the institute in the course of a working meeting on Russian-U.S. cooperation in research on the Arctic Ocean, he said.

Russian researchers and researchers from the U.S.-based International Arctic Research Center have been "discussing joint plans for 2004 and adopted a program of joint activities for studying the Arctic Ocean," Danilov said.

The research ship Kapitan Dranitsyn is expected to leave Murmansk for a month-long expedition in the Laptev Sea.

The researchers hope to collect readings from meters installed at two buoy stations.

"That data may help us understand how heat from the Atlantic Ocean propagates through the Arctic Ocean and what affects the ice cover," Danilov said.

Polar thaw opens Arctic sea route
By Julius Strauss in Murmansk
A fabled Arctic sea route which claimed the lives of countless sailors during the Age of Exploration looks set to be transformed into a busy shipping lane connecting Europe and Asia.

Shipping experts say that as the polar ice recedes the notorious North-East Passage, which winds its way along Russia's frigid and barren northern coastline past Siberia, could come to rival the Suez Canal as a global trade route.

Scientists say the Arctic icecap has been rapidly thawing, arguably due to global warming, and is shrinking at the rate of about three per cent a decade. The ice is half as thick as it was 50 years ago.

On present calculations, the North-East Passage could be open to year-round commercial shipping within a decade, making it a viable economic alternative to the southern route through Suez, which is much longer.

Russia is also shedding some of its Cold War reluctance to allow foreigners to use its Arctic waters and officials are talking of upgrading neglected facilities along the forgotten northern coastline.

The result may be a seismic shift in global shipping patterns that have changed little since the opening of the Suez and Panama canals a century ago.

Douglas Brubaker, an expert with the Fridtjof Nansens Institute in Norway, said: "With the ice reduction, the third you can save off distances and the security implications of not having to use Suez, the northern route has a lot going for it."

The North-East Passage has offered the possibility of a short cut for shipping between Europe and Asia for hundreds of years. Its mapping was once considered a global priority.

The first serious attempts at finding a navigable path through the ice were made by English and Dutch sailors in the 16th Century. They were spurred by the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, who closed the spice routes between Europe and the Far East.

Willem Barents led a team of Dutch sailors through the Arctic waters, but they died after becoming trapped in the ice.

Henry Hudson also made attempts in 1607 and 1608, but was forced back by icebergs. In 1648 a Cossack named Semyon Dezhnyov, seeking furs, completed most of the passage. Vitus Bering, a Danish officer serving in the Russian navy, finally passed through the straits that would come to bear his name.

During those pioneering voyages hundreds of sailors died of scurvy or cold and conditions on board were so terrible that at one point the tsar withdrew his backing.

Despite the losses, the full potential of the route was never realised. When the Suez Canal was completed in 1869 the importance of the North-East Passage faded.

During the 20th century the entire Soviet Arctic region became a backwater, sealed behind the Iron Curtain.

Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, western shipping agents continued to shun the passage because of the unpredictable ice, labyrinthine Russian bureaucracy and aggressive posturing by the Red Army.

Now that could all be about to change. Scientists predict that if present weather patterns continue the entire stretch could be ice-free within a century.

The economics are in the northern route's favour. A journey through the North-East Passage from Europe to Japan is 7,000 nautical miles long and takes 22 days. A comparative trip through the Suez canal is 11,000 nautical miles and takes 35 days.

In Murmansk, a frigid, Soviet-built town of 500,000 perched on the Barents Sea coast, talk of a new era of prosperity has energised the local shipping industry. The fleet of Soviet nuclear ice-breakers is being overhauled.

Russian agents envisage a flood of new contracts for their ice-breakers, repair shops and specialists and tens of thousands of new jobs ashore supporting convoys moving along the coast.

Alexander Medvedev, the director of the Murmansk Shipping Company, said: "Companies don't want to invest in ice-class vessels if they can ship only three or four months of the year.

"When we can ship all the year round the tonnage will increase rapidly." But some experts say there are still obstacles to cross before the centuries-old dream of a commercial trade route along the North-East Passage becomes reality.

Insurance companies still charge premiums two or three times higher than for ships on the Suez route and insist they are built with hugely expensive ice-class hulls. Norwegian coastal authorities are expected to demand the same.

Nor have the Russians helped their case by demanding unrealistically high transit fees even as they were forced to admit to insurers that up to 20 per cent of their ships had been damaged while negotiating the passage.

SEARCHING FOR LIFE IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC: York University professor Peter Taylor holds a wind-speed meter before installing it on a tower on the frozen waters of Franklin Bay. Taylor is using information gleaned from the Arctic to perfect models that will make measurements on Mars.

CREDIT: Nathan VanderKlippe, CanWest News Service

The icebreaker Amundsen, a refurbished Coast Guard vessel frozen into the ice at 70 degrees north, is being used as a state-of-the-art platform for Arctic research.

CREDIT: Nathan VanderKlippe, CanWest News Service

Astrobiologist Eric Collins holds an ice core drilled from Franklin Bay.

CREDIT: Nathan VanderKlippe, CanWest News Service

THE NEW ARCTIC EXPLORERS

A Five-Part Series

In a joint project of The Journal and Global Television, CanWest reporter Nathan VanderKlippe travelled to the Canadian research ship Amundsen in the ice of Franklin Bay, N.W.T.

Today: Links to the search for life on other planets. ON GLOBAL TV at 5:30 p.m.: Why the Canadian Arctic is like the Amazon rain forest.

- Thursday: Researchers rely on Inuit know-how.

ABOARD THE CCGS AMUNDSEN - The ice is alive.

It's hard to believe, looking out over an endless frozen stretch of brilliant ice and snow, packed almost a metre thick atop the waters of Franklin Bay. The air temperature hovers around -35 C, and the top layers of ice are about as cold.

But it's not dead -- far from it. In the last three years, scientists have discovered an entirely new habitat in one of the most extreme places on Earth.

Using MRI scans and frozen microscopes, scientists have found that the winter sea ice is filled with a network of millions of criss-crossing tunnels and pockets teeming with life.

Though it looks solid and impenetrable, the ice is actually a microscopic ant hill, packed with bacteria.

The discovery could one day help scientists unlock one of the great mysteries of the universe: whether life exists on other planets. What researchers learn in the Canadian Arctic will help them design experiments and probes on future NASA missions to look for life far away from Earth.

Jody Deming and Eric Collins are astrobiologists. Deming is a professor at the University of Washington; Collins is a master's student studying under her.

Both are researching the Arctic from aboard the Amundsen, a Canadian Coast Guard research vessel frozen into the sea ice at 70 degrees north.

For astrobiologists, the best hope of finding life on other planets doesn't lie in discovering cities of little green men. In fact, both Collins and Deming doubt we will find intelligent life elsewhere in our solar system.

But there is water in the polar ice caps on Mars and the thick, frozen ocean on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and both could support microscopic bacterial life.

"The actual environments that we can explore in my lifetime, in the lifetimes of my students and maybe the three next generations, are frozen environments," Deming said.

To find extraterrestrial life, Deming and Collins want to first understand how bacteria live and thrive in Earth's most extreme conditions. So they came to the Arctic Ocean, looking for the most inhospitable place on Earth for life to grow.

"As humans we think it's a terrible environment, but these bacteria don't. They die if it warms up," Deming said. "We're looking at the possible extinction of these ice organisms if we lose the ice cover."

Deming has spent her entire career finding life in impossible places.

In 1983, she co-authored a paper showing that bacteria discovered near undersea hydrothermal events could live in extraordinarily hot conditions. In lab experiments, she found that the "bugs," as she calls them, thrived in temperatures as high as 250 C and pressure 250 times greater than the normal atmosphere.

Unlike her work on bacteria in extreme conditions inside the laboratory, Deming says Arctic research is particularly satisfying. The pervasive cold and hostile environment place her in the same conditions as the bacteria, allowing her, in a way, to think like the bugs, she says.

The work itself is brutal.

His beard and eyebrows frozen into icicles, Collins uses a hand-powered auger to pull up an ice core, a tubular cross-section of the ice, which he then saws into 10-centimetre lengths for individual study. To avoid contaminating the samples, Collins exchanges his polar mittens for thin latex gloves -- the hot packs he slides into the gloves are hardly enough to keep his fingers from freezing.

"We'll melt it all here and filter it on the ship (to isolate the bacteria) and then we'll take everything back to analyse at home," he says.

The bacteria don't live in the ice itself. As seawater freezes, the ice crystals squeeze out tiny amounts of concentrated liquid salt, called a brine.

As much as eight per cent of the ice is actually made up of the brine, which can be 10 times saltier than normal water and remains liquid throughout the winter.

Scientists have discovered bacteria living in the brine even as temperatures drop to -20. And there's a lot of them: bacteria counts have found as many as a million bacteria living in a single millilitre of ice. Most are extreme-adapted bacteria that only live in very cold or very hot places.

Their ability to survive appears to depend on a curious cold adaptation: supple innards.

Deming and her colleagues have completed a complete gene sequencing of a strain of one bacterium and discovered that its enzymes are unusually flexible, allowing them to function even in very cold temperatures.

Much more needs to be learned, and in their work from the Amundsen, the researchers are trying to find out how the bacteria populations evolve as winter progresses and discover more about what allows the bacteria to live in such frigid temperatures.

As they do, they keep an eye to the sky, both certain that humans will find life elsewhere.

"The ubiquity of life on Earth is really amazing," Collins said.

"Life can live anywhere that there's sufficient water, basically, and some form of energy to take advantage of. And those factors are present in lots of places in the universe."

CanWest News Service 18 Feb 2004

The US Maritime Administration (MARAD) and National Science Foundation have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to collaborate on the creation of a new Polar Research Vessel (PRV). In addition to enhanced icebreaking capabilities, the vessel will be acoustically quiet, possess environmentally sensitive design features, comply with International Maritime Organization guidelines for Arctic vessels, accommodate 50 scientists, and have an 80-day endurance. MARAD's role is to provide technical expertise related to the vessel's design as well as oversight of vessel construction. The initial design of the Polar Research Vessel was recently released together with the cost estimates.

An analysis of the many scientific requirements (moon pool, station keeping, towing of nets, instruments) and operational requirements (low power open water transit and high power ice-breaking) led to the selection of a diesel-electric propulsion plant with podded propulsors. The diesel-electric propulsion plant consists of four main diesel-generator sets, two of 8,046 HP and two of 6,785 HP with a total brake power of 29,600 HP (22 MW). This configuration was selected because it provides great flexibility as it relates to the physical arrangement on the vessel as well as varying electric power demands.

All electrical service loads including propulsors, bow thruster, winches, cranes, light and other general ship service needs are powered from a common bus/integrated electric system. Propulsors on the PRV take the form of two azimuth propeller pods. Each pod contains an 11,200 HP (8.4 MW) electric motor driving a pulling propeller. They are independently steerable through 360 degrees and provide superior maneuverability in ice and open water (station keeping) without rudders. Each pod drives one stainless steel four-bladed open fixed-pitch propeller measuring 17.8 ft (5.4 m) in diameter. This large propeller rotates at a slow speed and ensures low noise in open water and high thrust for icebreaking.


AP
August 2003 photo of research station (St. Petersburg Arctic and Antarctic Museum)