Polar 5 to Make Precedent-setting Antarctic Voyage to Study Climate Change
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- The Polar 5 in Antarctica.
- (© picture-alliance/dpa)
The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association set off its Polar 5 towards Antarctica. The vessel which left November 12 will be tasked for three research missions over 2009/2010 as well as to support the Antarctic flight network DROMLAN (Dronning Maud Land Air Network) and other field research. In its expedition to Antarctica and back, the Polar 5 will clock some 375 flying hours.
Aboard the Polar 5 will be scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and a crew from the Canadian company Kenn Borek Air Limited. For the first part of the expedition, they will be based at the Novo Airfield near the Russian station Novolazareveskaya. There they will carry out two geophysical-glaciological projects.
The Alfred Wegener Institute’s polar research aircraft has been mapping the geology above the ocean and the ice-covered inland areas near the Neumayer Station for years. This research is providing a detailed look at the breakup of the supercontinent known as Gondwana and how the broken fragments have been moved.
The Polar 5 research mission will expand the area to be investigated towards the sea over the coming weeks. To do this, the Polar 5 is equipped with a high precision magnetometer system and gravity meter to detect the geology of the Earth’s crust. The Polar 5 is also one of a very small number of aircraft in the world to have ice radar, enabling its departure and landing from the high-altitude East Antarctic ice shield. Due to its inaccessibility, little research has ever been conducted in the area.
Mapping of Antarctica will be used to create new models
The two sections of the Antarctic already mapped thus far by the Institute connect the many deep drill sites of the ice core. Once the radar profiles between the sites are identified, the ice cores from these sites can then also be compared with each other. The spatial changes between the sites will be identified by the Polar 5’s radar mapping of the internal layers of the ice sheet. This allows scientists to reconstruct the climactic conditions to help develop models and projections of climate change events.
In February-March 2010, the atmospheric layer just above the sea ice will also be studied by the Institute’s researchers together with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Flights leaving the British station Rothera are set to go over the western Weddel Sae. The Polar 5 will then make atmospheric measurements of wind, temperature, humidity, and degree of ice cover in Antarctica for the very first time. These measurements will enable researchers to determine the heat exchange underway between the ice-covered ocean surface and the atmosphere. The data will be used in weather forecasts and for climate change models.
The Polar 5 will return to Bremerhaven in the spring of 2010, ahead of the so-called Arctic season 2010. The research aircraft will then be on-view for the public July 3-4 at the regional airport Bremerhaven Luneort.
