There is more to scientific research than just going through books and data, especially if you are venturing out to the planet’s coldest and stormiest continent, the Antarctica.
Large areas of the Antarctic present major technical and logistics problems to science if scientific endeavour is to achieve the research targets that have been set. Storms and ice floes make it necessary to use icebreakers as research ships when exploring the Southern Ocean.
The image above shows RV Polarstern battling through the snow storm at windforce of 10 knots.
RV Polarstern is a German research icebreaker of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. Polarstern was commissioned in 1982 and is mainly used for research in the Arctic and Antarctica.
[mappress] World Maritime News Staff, August 12, 2014; Image: Stefan Hendricks, Alfred Wegener Institute