Ice drift station
Ice drift station ( Russian : дрейфующая станция) was first used by Størker Størkersen during the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1918, but was subsequently developed by Soviet polar explorers to explore the Arctic with the help of research stations on drifting ice floes. The first Soviet ice drift station was Nordpol-1 (Russian: Sseverny Poljus , abbreviated: SP ) under the direction of Iwan Papanin , which was set up on May 21, 1937 near the North Pole . It drifted 2,500 kilometers into the Greenland Sea in 274 days .
The Second World War initially prevented further ventures. It was not until April 1950 that “North Pole-2” was deposited under Mikhail Somov northwest of Wrangel Island at 76 ° 02 'north, 166 ° 48' west. After more than a year, the station was closed on April 11, 1951 at 81 ° 45 'north, 167 ° 48' west. During this time, “North Pole-2” had drifted 2600 kilometers. In 1953 two stations started their work at the same time, and since then the research program has been continued without interruption until July 1991, so that long-term observations were also possible. From 1937 to 1991 there were a total of 31 Soviet ice drift stations in the Arctic; Radiosondes were started 40,000 times and depth measurements were taken at 50,000 locations.
The research program demonstrated that there are two main currents of ice drift in the Arctic . The transpolar drift leads from Siberia to Greenland , the Beaufort vortex turns clockwise off the north coasts of Greenland, Canada and Alaska when viewed from above . Most of the ice drift stations were in the area of transpolar drift and had to be canceled after two to three years. In contrast, five stations worked in the Beaufort vortex and were usually ended after a tour. Only "Nordpol-12" continued to work with a fully automatic weather station after the closure, while the position was determined with radio bearings. The results were incorporated into the “Atlas of the Arctic Ocean” (1980) and the “Atlas of the Arctic” (1985). The total of 200,000 weather observations were used by the Soviet and international weather service.
“Nordpol-22” holds a unique record with a lifespan of nine years. It began on September 13, 1973 at 76 ° 16 'north, 168 ° 31' west and covered a distance of 17,069 kilometers first through the Arctic bordering Canada and Alaska and then with the transpolar drift over the North Pole towards the Fram Strait . It was closed on April 8, 1982 at 86 ° 10 'north, 00 ° 00'.
The ice drift stations were normally set down by airplanes, and ice breakers were only used for this from 1961 . At last, a typical station comprised a dozen prefabricated houses and a dozen tents that could accommodate 15 to 17 people. The houses were also used as living space and scientific laboratories. Its foundation consisted of runners so that a house could also be moved out of the danger zone of crevices. A station also included a dining room, kitchen, infirmary, radio room, diesel generator, steam bath, garages and provisions store. Emergency depots have been set up around the station for emergencies.
There were repeated incidents due to ice breakage, which is why ice drift stations had to be evacuated. The team from "Nordpol-9" moved the entire camp nine times within eleven months. The “Nordpol-14” ice drift station even collided with Jeannette Island on January 27, 1966, when the ice floe broke into two pieces.
Nowadays, icebreakers can reach any area of the Arctic, and researchers can work from the comfort of the ship. On the other hand, the ice as a natural basis influences the results of the scientific work less than a ship, so that the data obtained from ice drift stations are more reliable. For this reason , Russia has recently resumed the tradition of ice drift stations. In September 2007, 36 expedition members looked for a stable ice floe in the area of Wrangel Island . With “Nordpol-35” they wanted to drift through the Arctic Ocean for a year - that is, to overwinter in the polar night - and hoped to cross the North Pole. Jürgen Graeser , a German scientist from the Alfred Wegener Institute , took part in the expedition for the first time for seven months. When the floe began to break, the expedition members were picked up by the research ship Michail Somow from July 7th to 9th .
A modification of the drift technique consists in freezing a ship with a round hull in the ice in such a way that the hull is lifted from the ice and comes to rest on the ice. This technique was first used by Fridtjof Nansen in 1893 when attempting to reach the North Pole with the Fram . From 2006 to 2008, the French research vessel Tara drifted through the Arctic Ocean in this way.
In September 2019, the international MOSAiC expedition headed by the Alfred Wegener Institute set out on a one-year drift expedition.
literature
- Aleksej W. Turchin and Nikolaj A. Kornilow: Drift: Russian ice drift stations in the Arctic . In: Arctic - Antarctic . Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn 1997, pp. 36–42.
Web links
Blog of the German participant of "Nordpol-35", Jürgen Graeser
Individual evidence
- ↑ Press release of the Alfred Wegener Institute on the ice drift station "Nordpol-35"
- ^ Henning Sietz: Drifting through the Artkis: Deutscher spends seven months on ice floe , Spiegel Online from April 14, 2008, accessed on January 21, 2014
- ↑ Press release ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on www.oceanographers.ru, accessed on January 21, 2014
- ↑ MOSAiC expedition. Retrieved April 20, 2020 (American English).
