Climate research in the Southern Ocean

摘要

The Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany has risen to the challenge of undertaking an expedition to the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic under pandemic conditions. As a result, the participants in this year's first Polarstern expedition have been able to resume their long-term measurements in the Southern Ocean, gathering data that forms the basis for our understanding of polar processes and for urgently needed climate forecasts. Having painstakingly prepared for the expedition, and after a fortnight in quarantine and taking several Covid-19 tests, an international team of scientists set off for the Antarctic on 31 January on a chartered Lufthansa A350-900. The aircraft flew the scientists - in stringent isolation -to Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. From there they set sail for the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic, starting their two-month expedition on board the AWI Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research research icebreaker Polarstern. The target region lies just off the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf, in the far south of the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The aim of the 50-plus researchers involved is to gain insights into the role of interactions and changes in the ocean-ice-biology system with regard to climate change, and to better predict their consequences.