FROM SEA DEPTHS TO IONOSPHERE

Mysteries of the Arctic...

The environment has changed, what are the changes?

Inna Ivanova

        Entering here one seems to enter the Captain's Bridge of a research vessel. Outside a "porthole" on can see the perspective of Vasilevsky Island, inside the room there are scientific instruments, computers, most advances microscopes, automatic analysers, capable of processing 120 samples of water and bottom sediments in two hours.
        This Polar Research Russian -German Laboratory was opened in the autumn of 2000. It is named after a remarkable Russian scientist Otto Yu. Schmidt, at one time the Director of the AARI. The Laboratory was set up as a result of long-term cooperative studies of Russian and German scientists in the Laptev Sea.
        The work started in the Laptev Sea in 1993 and the first coordinators of the mission were the AARI, representing Russia, Germany being represented by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Marine and Polar Research in Bremenhaven and the GEOMAR in Kiel. The study subject was not a random choice. The Laptev Sea is a "plant" generating ice. The processes occurring there exert influence on sea ice circulation across the entire Arctic Ocean. There is perennial ice around, islands are born and disappear in this area, the coast line is constantly changing. As soon as these processes are studied, climatic forecasts for Europe would become more accurate and that would facilitate economic development in the vicinity of the northern Sea Route. There are some prospects of fundamental scientific discoveries. The analysis of mineral and organic matter in samples collected in the Laptev Sea Basin allow the scientists to learn how the environment in the area changed during the past hundred thousands years, including vegetation, wild life and migration of humans.

        After 1993 there were more than 20 joint Russian -German expeditions within the Laptev Sea System Project" - Dr.Leonid Timokhov , Head of the Laboratory of Polar and Marine Studies says. These investigations resulted in such a vast amount of data that needed to be managed and summarised, and to draw conclusions on their basis. This situation prompted us that a Laboratory should be organised.

        The second factor that led to organisation of the Laboratory, we should add, is an opportunity to further develop the Russian polar school. The research is funded by means of one year grants to the scientists who proposed most interesting projects to the Joint Russian-German Scientific Council. The staff of the laboratory is well paid, they have access to the most advanced equipment organised for the Laboratory by the efforts of the Russian and German Ministries of Science.
        The Laboratory named after Otto Schmidt supports about 30 young scientists from St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yakutiya.
        "They are not afraid of ice at all!"
        The ship slowly reaches water, then she slowly starts out. Thin ice is no problem, the ship goes on towards thicker heavier ice and then.... ridges. The ship's hull experiences stronger pressures., while instruments are carefully recording the slightest hull's response to the changes in ice conditions.
        We are not in the high sea, we are neither in a movie theatre where a newsreel on the latest heroic polar voyage is shown. We are in the AARI Department where the scientists study ship performance in ice. We were watching a ship model test in the AARI Ice Test Tank. The results obtained here give us a better insight of what is going on. For instance, what pressure can be critical for a given ship's hull, what the optimal speed is depending on the ice type and what loads the model in the test can endure, just to name a few. There are about 10 similar tanks worldwide. The ice formed here is an exact replica of natural Arctic sea ice, it is possible to simulate here any conditions that might occur in the northern polar waters like various states of the sea surface, ice cover changes, iceberg drift. The effects of these factors can be studied here not only on ship's hull but also on offshore structures.

        -Our Department in its present shape started to operate in the earlier 50"s, when the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute by the Resolution of the Government was made a leading supervising institution in the field of ice strengthened and ice breaking ship designs - Vladimir Likhomanov, Head of the Department of Ice Ship Performance tells us, - since then all the icebreakers appearing in this country have been designed, tested and built with our participation, these are ships of Moscow and Lenin class (the 60's), then came the famous Arktika and later the Yermak which started a new series. The years of perestroyka unfortunately have brought about a crisis in ship building. But I would like to believe that this period is over and the ship building industry in this country will start building ships again. We are hopeful because the work of our Department is in great demand. We work in partnership with our old-time partners like RUBIN and MALAKHIT Design Bureaus, nowadays we are testing submarine models in addition to conventional arctic ship models. There is a new direction in our work, we are now studying the effects of ice on the offshore platforms.
        Plans are being developed for the first time in our country to produce natural gas at the polar gas fields. It is a great challenge to implement such a project. Natural gas can be produced in the areas with water depths of 320 meters, about 100 kilometres of pipe should be laid at the sea bottom, the jobs are to performed in sea ice infested waters. To develop an optimal route for a gas pipeline and to start the development of offshore gas fields numerous bulk tests and pre-design surveys and studies should be undertaken and the AARI is ready and looks forward to the start of this activity.

        A few words about the weather
        "Northern wind, moderate, growing strong, raining later in the day ...."
        To provide us with this routine weather forecast every morning and to remind us not to forget to take an umbrella more than six thousand weather stations of the World Meteorological Organisation Network all over the world carry out weather observations round the clock. Every three hours to a minute they all simultaneously are recording the state of the environment and measurements results are transmitted to three World Weather Centres, located in Moscow, Washington and Melbourne. The data are not confidential, experts can exchange these data and use them in their weather forecasting.
        The information that we use in our everyday life are prepared by the HYDROMETCENTRE. In St. Petersburg, in the AARI in one of its Departments, forecasts for the Arctic are being developed. These forecasts are critical for life and work in the Russian Arctic, they are used by the ships navigating the Northern Sea Route, they are needed for the Arctic offshore development. These forecasts are quite special, they are prepared in the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute long in advance.

        - "As early as the 30's a well known scientist - climatologist Professor G.YA. Wangenheim postulated a certain regularity. Atmospheric processes in the Arctic were shown to be closely associated with the global atmospheric circulation" - Vladimir Ivanov, Head of the AARI Department of Long-Range Weather Forecasts, explains. -" That is why understanding large-scale processes in the Northern Hemisphere and comparing them with the World Weather Centre data, studying the processes occurring elsewhere made it possible to develop highly reliable weather forecasts".

        The AARI produces several types of forecasts.
        A general Weather Outlook is issued once a year. It contains information on expected structural variability of pressure field anomalies, temperature and air mass anomalies from month to month across the Arctic. Such Outlook is then used as the basis for a medium-range forecast which is slightly more detailed, including parameters of wind, air temperature, prevailing cyclone paths. On the basis of all available information specific forecasts are prepared, these are sea ice and hydrological forecasts. Finally on the basis of detailed integrated forecasts (sea ice, hydrology and weather forecasts) ship navigation is planned, ships are distributed to various Arctic sectors, beginning and end of the navigation period are predicted, routes of ice breaker convoys are planned as well as all other types of human activity across the sea or on the land in the Arctic.
        The AARI scientists receive data for their forecasting and research not only from the World Weather Centres, but also from their own polar stations, research vessels, buoys and satelites.
        The skill score of the AARI forecasts is found to be 80 -90 per cent. By the opinion of experts it is a very good result."

        "Keep well and go on drifting!"

        "We have a strange case here, thorough examination is needed!" This message was received in the AARI from a polar station. However nor aircraft neither ships headed for the station. That was not needed. The examination started immediately in a few minutes after the emergency message was received. There at the station the sick person was switched on to the cardiograph, the cardiograph ... to a computer which was connected to the medical unit in the AARI. A polar medical doctor took a cardiogram and his colleagues in St. Petersburg read out and interpreted it. Experts after consultations with their colleagues agreed on a diagnosis and gave instructions what to do and what treatment to start." This case was described to us by Gennady Gorbunov, Head Doctor of the Russian Antarctic Expedition. Dr. Gorbunov added " Medical care by means of telecommunication has helped us to resolve a number of problems, that a polar physician used to face, while remaining single handed with his patient . Now he can discuss a case with his colleagues by phone or via a computer, to transfer an X-ray picture to the mainland, to display a patient on a computer screen for his distant colleagues to watch, to send them a cardiogram and the like. The most important is an immediate answer to a distant query . In fact, today if there is a need a sick person on board a ship, or at a polar station can be diagnosed by experts. Instructed by the surgeons from the mainland a polar doctor can perform a surgery in an emergency.

        The AARI Telemedicine Centre is connected with south polar stations Vostok, Mirny, Progress, Novolazarevskaya and with the R/V Akademik Fedorov. The core of the system is represented by module computer stations of the AMBULATORIA -YS 071 type, which is linked by communications channels to the Consultation and Diagnostic Centre at the AARI Medical Department. The data are transmitted via INTERNET. This remarkable equipment was developed by the Institute of Automatics and Informatics and the International Academy of Sciences for Environment, Health and Safety.
        Since 1996 the Polar Medicine Centre of the AARI is working in accordance with the Presidential Programme. "Health of the Children of the North". In Yakutiya and Kamchatka okrug pilot implementation of the telemedicine system has been made. Tests with medical data transmission to St. Petersburg were accomplished. The obtained results lead to certain conclusions and recommendations worked out. In the near future planned and emergency medical aid will be routinely provided by telecommunications links to the population living in the Far North.