India Heads off on First National Expedition to South Pole
04.11.2010 - Logistics, Atmosphere & Space, Land & Geology, Ice & Snow, Antarctic
India is heading off to Antarctica the first week of November on its first ever national expedition to the South Pole. The purpose of the 40-day mission will be to analyze environmental changes that have been happening on the continent over the past 1,000 years.
The team will take a route never before used to get to the South Pole, according to the expedition’s leader, Rasik Ravindra, head of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) in India. Ravindra will be leading a team of seven scientists on a 20-day and 2,400 km trek across the Antarctic Ice Sheet from India’s Maitri Station (located in a rocky area on the Princess Astrid Coast known as the Schiramir Oasis) to the American Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole. Then after spending a day or two at the South Pole, the team will take the same route back to Maitri Station.
The scientists will be conducting a wide range of experiments along the uncharted route in order to analyze climactic and other changes that have occurred in Antarctica over the past millennium. This will include doing meteorological experiments, recording humidity, temperatures, wind speed, and atmospheric pressure. The team will also be conducting experiments in geomorphology.
