A Convoy of Antarctica New Zealand, (PistenBully and polar vehicles) with the first of the Team departing Scott Base (WAP NZL-Ø1) on their extreme polar road trip, 15 days across the Ross Ice Shelf is officially underway to open the SWAIS2C’s 2024 on-ice season.
Watch a Video (TNX Joe McDougal (from the Ross Ice Shelf!) at:
https://www.facebook.com/Antarctica.New.Zealand/videos/7949292535170862
Convoy is towing sleds laden with fuel, equipment, and provisions to sustain the deep-field research camp for the approximately 8-week season.
Once they complete their 1128 km journey and arrive at KIS3 they’ll create a runway on the ice, so the drillers and science team can fly into the camp.
See more at: https://www.swais2c.aq/…/international-team-launch…
SWAIS2C, acronym for “Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheets to 2 degrees Celsius of warming”, is a Multinational program that aims to determine whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has advanced and retreated during the Holocene. This was a period of relatively stable climate that has characterised the last 10,000 years prior to the industrial revolution and the onset of the Anthropocene. In addition, to determine how marine-based ice sheets respond to a world that is 1.5°–2°C and >2°C warmer than pre-industrial times and understand the local, regional, and global impacts and consequences of the response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to this warming.
West Antarctica is largely covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, but there have been signs that climate change is having some effect and that this ice sheet may have started to shrink slightly. Over the past 50 years, the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula has been – and still is – one of the most rapidly warming parts of the planet. and the coasts of the Peninsula are the only parts of West Antarctica that become (in summer) ice-free.
The SWAIS2C Team is made up of more than 120 people including 25 young researchers from 35 institutions of New Zealand, the United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan, Spain, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Italy is well involved in this task with several universities and research institutions participating in the project, including the Geological Sciences at the Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences – DISTAV of the University of Genoa, the INGV – National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (contracting body and national leader), the University of Siena, the University of Trieste and the OGS – National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics. Italian researchers are also supported by PNRA – National Antarctic Research Program with the “Italy for SWAIS-2C Project”.
SWAIS2C drill sites are:
Kamb Ice Stream Site 3 or KIS-3 for short located at 82° 37’ 42” South, 156° 18’ 16” West. (pic on the Right).
Over there, researchers need to drill through floating ice about 590m thick, with an ocean cavity of about 30m and tidal range of 2 m.
Crary Ice Rise Site 1 or CIR for short is at 83° 01’ 48” South, 172° 40’ 04” West. (pic to the Left)
In this site, the ice is grounded and about 516m thick with no ocean cavity, so no tidal compensation is required.
These two remote Camps: Kamb Ice Stream Site 3 (KIS-3) and (CIR) will be add on WAP-WADA Directory, under MNB-NEW