| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 19, 2001 |
Chinese 18th Team for South Pole Study Set Sail |
 Sources from the Polar Region Study Office of the National Bureau of Oceanography said that the Chinese 18th team for South Pole study set sail by "Xue Long" ship from Shanghai Pudong at 9:30 on November 16, inaugurating China's polar region study in the 21st century.
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the Team Setting SailSources from the Polar Region Study Office of the National Bureau of Oceanography said that the Chinese 18th team for South Pole study set sail by "Xue Long" ship from Shanghai Pudong at 9:30 on November 16, inaugurating China's polar region study in the 21st century. The National Bureau of Oceanography and departments concerned in Shanghai held a warmly seeing-off ceremony for the team.
The team is formed of a crew of 143 members, including 7 scientists from the US, Japan, Germany and Taiwan Province. As has been set on a planned "two destinations" route, the team will stop at the Great Wall Station via New Zealand, and then send some team members and goods and materials to Zhongshan Station.
Wang Shuguang, director of the National Bureau of Oceanography, indicated at the seeing-off ceremony that China has trained a competent study team and made great achievements in South Pole ever since the Great Wall Station was set up in 1984.
the Team to Conduct Six Research ProjectsThe South Pole study is going to be conducted to cover six special research projects including South Pole ecology, geology, atmospheric physics and sea level monitoring, through-summer and through-winter study in the Great Wall and Zhongshan Stations and a study of the Southern Ocean and the South Pole inland. Moreover, some international cooperative projects will be launched such as GPS international monitoring, jointly establishing automatic meteorological station with Australia, observing sea birds with Germany in the Great Wall Station, monitoring physics laser with Japan in Zhongshan Station.
In addition, this time the team is supposed to accomplish the following tasks: providing the Great Wall and Zhangshan Stations with fuel, establishing a power house at the Great Wall Station, upgrading power systems and first-phase construction of life facilities as a major part of Zhongshan Station.
| The South Pole Observatory was established at the geographical south pole at 2837 m above sea level in 1957 as part of the International Geophysical Year. The National Science Foundation provides the infrastructure for the NOAA/CMDL scientific operations including a state of the art science building named the Atmospheric Research Observatory opened in 1996. Two CMDL observatory staff spend one year tours of duty at the station which includes a 9 month period of isolation and six months of darkness.
The South Pole Observatory (SPO) is one of four atmospheric baseline observatories for NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnositics Laboratory (CMDL). The Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO) was built by NSF in 1997 to house current atmospheric research and replaced NOAA's Clean Air Facility in operation from 1977 to 1997. Atmospheric data has been collected from South Pole since the International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1957 - 1958.
sources from: http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/obop/spo/
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by PD Online Staff Yang Ruoqian
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