Russia every year establishes the "Barneo" station on the ice close to the North Pole. Photo: rgocenter.ru

International Arctic ice station next year

Scientists from several countries could be spending next winter doing research from a drifting ice floe in the Arctic.
March 16, 2016

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Organizations, companies and individuals from Russia, Norway, Great Britain, United States, Monaco, and Iceland are supporting a project to establish a scientific research station on the ice. The Norwegian explorer Inge Solheim recently visited the Russian Geographic Society (RGO) in Moscow to present the project of “Arktika-1”, which is the working name for the station, RGO’s website reads. 

According to Solheim, the station is planned to be opened in April 2017 and function for a year, until the spring of 2018. The station will have room for more than 40 scientists and technicians.

The station will start its drift from the north of Siberia, and move along with the ice towards Greenland and the coast of Canada.

“The Russian Geographic Society will answer for logistics and technical support to the station. I believe that also the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, oceanographic institutes and other scientists will take part in this project,” Head of RGO’s Expedition Center Aleksander Orlov says.

The organizers are now in the process of looking for partners and sponsors to the project.

Russia has had floating research stations in the Arctic for many years. The last couple of years it has become more and more difficult to find ice floes solid enough to hold a station. The last “real” ice station, “North Pole-40”, was established in October 2012, and had to be evacuated in May 2013, because the ice floe the base was placed on, started to break apart.

Russia did not set up any floating stations in 2013-2014 or in 2014-2015. In April 2015 they established a station called “North Pole 2015”, that only existed for four months.

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Inge Solheim presenting the project at the Russian Geographic Society. Photo: rgocenter.ru

 

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