On 20 December this year 55 researchers from 30 nations, 10 of them South Africans, will set off on an international scientific expedition from Cape Town to circumnavigate Antarctica for three months aboard the modern 12 000-tonne Russian polar research vessel Akademik Treshnikov, launched in 2011. The Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE), set to last until 18 March 2017 when the ship is due back in Cape Town, is the first project of the recently established Swiss Polar Institute. The journey will be divided into three legs, with Hobart in Australia and Punta Arenas in Chile serving as staging posts.
The 22 selected research projects to be conducted range from glaciology to climatology, biology and oceanography. Specific projects include “mapping whales, penguins and albatrosses in the Southern Ocean; measuring the effect of plastic pollution on the food chain; and logging the extent of phytoplankton—the base of the food chain—and its role in regulating climate. Scientists will also take ice core samples and study biodiversity on the continent in an attempt to reveal conditions before the onset of the Industrial Revolution” (click here).
The expedition’s Science Coordinator will be David Walton of the British Antarctic Survey and a long-time supporter of the Antarctic Legacy of South Africa project. Sarah Fawcett, Department of Oceanography, University of Cape Town will lead on the only accepted South African project (XII) entitled “Profiling the Southern Ocean’s microbial community”, with Rosemary Dorrington, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Rhodes University, as co-Principal Investigator. South African academics are involved with seven other ACE projects. Steven Chown, previously of South Africa’s Stellenbosch University (where he led ALSA’a precursor project) but now at Australia’s Monash University, is the Principal Investigator of an ACE project entitled “Studying Biodiversity in the Antarctic”.
Southern Ocean islands planned to be visited during the circumnavigation include South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.
Read about the expedition’s research projects here.
“To increase the visibility of polar research in general and of the ACE expedition in particular, the ACE management team, together with local and national partners (UCT, DST, SANAP), are planning a series of public events in Cape Town to coincide with the December 2016 departure and March 2017 arrival of the Akademik Treshnikov. In addition, ACE Project XII plans to enhance public engagement in science and research through (1) educational efforts facilitated by SAEON’s outreach network, which currently includes 13 schools and (2) activities that directly engage the public such as a cruise blog, public lectures, popular articles, media events and participation in national focus events such as National Science Week, National Marine Week and SciFest Africa” (click here).
Reference:
Halo, I., Dorrington, R., Bornman, T., de Villiers, S. & Fawcett, S. 2016. South Africa in the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition: a multi-institutional and interdisciplinary scientific project. South African Journal of Science. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2016/a0173.
Feature photograph: the Russian polar research vessel Akademik Treshnikov
John Cooper, Principal Investigator, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, S.tellenbosch University, 19 October 2016