September 30 2008 NABOS expedition
The Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn will start her cruise in Kirkenes, Norway on October 1st at 8:00am. The duration of the cruise is 30 days. Dr. Vladimir Ivanov will be the Chief Scientist during the cruise.
click on the image to enlarge
September 29 2008 Polar expeditions on display in Oslo
On the 24th of June 1893, Fridjof Nansen and his companions left Oslo onboard the Fram ship. More than 100 years after the Norwegian ship's departure, the french schooner Tara took the same journy. Now the two ships journeys are compared in Oslo.
24th of June 1893 marked the date when Norwegian Fridjof Nansen and his companions left Oslo onboard the Fram ship, for what the Royal Geography Society of London considered to be then the most dangerous project ever conceived: a drift across the Arctic Ocean.
Fram crossed the Polar Sea, frozen into the ice by drifting in a transpolar current. A hundred years later, the French schooner Tara completed the same journey. Now the stories of the two journeys are compared in the Fram museum in Oslo.
September 24 2008 Arctic permafrost may not hasten global warming, study says.
Arctic permafrost, the frozen soil that contains carbon deposits beneath polar ice, has withstood periodic temperature swings, indicating it may not contribute to current global warming, Canadian scientists said. The soil examined is the oldest-known permafrost in North America, the research said. Soil more than two meters (6.6 feet) below the Arctic surface in Canada's Yukon territory has remained frozen for as long as 740,000 years, Duane Froese of the University of Alberta and colleagues said in a preview of a study to appear in Science. Surface temperatures have since surged and dropped without the permafrost melting, which can release greenhouse gases.
September 23 2008 Akademik Fedorov is back to Arkhangelsk
Today, on September 23 d at 8 a.m. RV "Akademik Fedorov" is back to Arkhangelsk. Expeditipon works completed
September 16 2008 Russia to boost its presence in Arctic
All the leaders of Russias power ministries last Friday met at the far northern Franz Josef Land for an unprecedented meeting in the National Security Council. -The Arctic must become Russias main strategic resource base, council secretary Nikolay Patrushev said after the meeting.
There is a growing interest in the Arctic from a number of countries, and the competition between Arctic countries and trans-national corporations over access to Arctic energy resources is on the increase, the meeting participants said, a press release from the Security Council reads.
The Security Council members also highlighted the increasingly important role of the Russian Arctic zone.
-With the time, this must become our most important strategic resource base, Mr. Patrushev underlined.
The Franz Josef meeting was unprecedented never before has the whole national power elite assembled this far north. The meeting included Director of the FSB Aleksandr Bortnikov, Defence Minister Anatolii Serdyukov, Minister of Interior Rashid Nurgaliev, Head of the Presidential Administration Sergey Naryshkin, Minister of Regional Development Dmitrii Kozak, Minister of Transport Igor Levitin, Speaker in the Federation Council Sergey Mironov and Speaker in the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, a press release from the Security Council reads.
The Franz Josef Land is a Russian archipelago located at latitudes between 80.0° and 81.9° north. The archipelago consists of 191 ice-covered islands with an area of 16,134 km? and is largely uninhabited. The archipelago is only 900 to 1110 km from the North Pole, closer than all land masses except for Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland.
September 9 2008
September 9 2008 at 9-00 p.m ceremonial hoisting the flag of Russian Federation took place on the drifting station "North Pole-36" At 6-00 p.m. the first weather report was transmitted into the Global Communication System .
18 persons are involved in the station:
Katraev Yu.I. head of the station,
Churun V.N. ass. of the science
Luginin A.V> senior engineer-meteorologist,
Bobkov I.A.- engineer-meteorologist,
Ovchinnikov S.A. the head of the aerological team,
Gromov Yu.V. senior engineer-aerologist,
Ipatov A.Yu. head of the team,
Kuzmin S.B. senior engineer-oceanologist,
Petrovskiy T.V. -senior engineer sea ice researcher,
Panov L.V.- senior engineer sea ice researcher,
Kuznetsov N.M. engineer sea ice researcher,
Kornilov A.A head of the radio center,
Medvedkin E.V. senior engineer-hydrographer,
Klimov A.V. head of the engine electrostation,
Bykov ΐ.ΐ. engineer-operator
Kumyshev G.M. engineer-operator of the transport vehicles,
Semenov V.M. operator-technologist,
Chubakov V.P. physician
September 3 2008
Today, September 3, 2008 the drifitng station "North-Pole- 36" began its work in the area of the Arctic Ocean between Vrangel Island and North Pole.
Two days ago Rv "Akademik Fedorov" reached the area, recommended for ice flow choice. For a long time scientists from AARI has been observing the ice cover to the north from Brangel Island . And now their recommendations allowed to shorten the time for searching the ice flow at the most . Last year the search for the ice flow required u pto two weeks due to warm weather .
Organization of the drifitng station is carried out by AARI .
Station developing is carried out suring high latitute voyage of RV "akademik Fedorov" in the frames of IPY suumer program 2008.
September 1 2008 Confessions on the sea floor
For an intense week at the end of august this year, scientists working on the IPY-projects SciencePub and Norclim has been collecting sediment samples from the Kongsfjorden-Krossfjorden System. Their aim is to deciphre the climate history of the last 2000 years.
2000 years back in time
Taking off from Longyearbyen, Svalbard in august 18., the research vessel Lance lodged marine geologist and technicians from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Department of Geology at the University of Tromso (UoT), Vrije Universiteit, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR), India and the Northern Illinois University (NIU).
The main goal of the cruise was to collect a suit of multi-cores from the Kongsfjord-Krossfjord system to sample surface sediment samples for living benthic foraminifera to monitor assemblage changes in reaction to ocean climate changes, and to study the history of the inflow of Atlantic water to the area during the last 2000 years.
