India's Antarctic Expedition "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• Indian scientists on a South African vessel are in Antarctica, midway through an expedition across the Southern Ocean. 

 

 

More from the news:

• This is the 11^th expedition of an Indian mission to the Southern Ocean, or Antarctic Ocean.
• On board the vessel is 34 scientific staff from India, which is an 18-institution team led by Dr Anoop Mahajan.
• The first mission took place between January and March 2004
• Currently, the vessel is at Prydz Bay, in the coastal waters of “Bharati” which is India’s third station in Antarctica.

 

Objective of the mission:

• The mission mainly aims to understand the influence of the Southern Ocean across eco-system and atmospheric changes; and how it affects the tropical climate and weather conditions.
• The carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere goes to the Antarctic and polar regions, through atmospheric circulation.
• Since the temperature is very low there, these gases are absorbed and converted into dissolved inorganic or organic carbon.
• Through water masses and circulation, it is coming back to tropical regions. Since it is warmer in these areas, it re-enters the atmosphere.
• It is this cycle, which the mission will help understand better.

• Sampling - For this, the team is collecting air and water samples from around 60 stations along the cruise track.

 

Six core projects:

1. Study hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry of the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean; involves sampling seawater at different depths. This will help understand the formation of Antarctic bottom water.
2. Observations of trace gases in the atmosphere, such as halogens and dimethyl sulfur from the ocean to the atmosphere. Will help improve parameterizations that are used in global models
3. Study of organisms called coccolithophores that have existed in the oceans for several million years; their concentrations in sediments will create a picture of past climate.
4. Investigate atmospheric aerosols and their optical and radiative properties. Continuous measurements will quantify the impact on Earth’s climate.
5. Study the Southern Ocean’s impact on Indian monsoons. Look for signs in the sediment core taken from the bottom of the ocean.
6. Dynamics of the food web in the Southern Ocean; important for safeguarding catch and planning sustainable fishing.

India’s research stations in Antarctic and Arctic India presently has two research stations at Antarctica namely  Maitri  Bharati At both stations, research and investigations are undertaken to understand the Polar processes and phenomenon. Indian Arctic station ‘Himadri’ is located at Ny Alesund, Spitsbergen Island, Norway and has served as a hub of Indian scientific investigations since 2008. India does not have ice-breakers for exploration and research in the above places.

 

Progress so far

• The mission has extracted one of the largest sediment cores from the Southern Ocean measuring 3.4 metres.
• The changes that have occurred in the climate and the ocean over the years can be observed from the sediments collected.
• It is estimated that the sediments may date back to at least 30,000 years.
• When the samples collected are on shore, the first thing will be done is establishing the chronology using radio carbon dating.