China's 16th Arctic Ocean expedition is underway. The expedition was jointly conducted by four ships: "Xuelong", "Xuelong 2", "Polar" and "Exploration 3". Recently, the "Xuelong" and "Xuelong 2" have completed their missions and returned to Shanghai. The "Polar" and "Exploration 3" are still performing inspection missions and are expected to return in mid-October. During this inspection, the inspection team tested and commercialized domestic advanced equipment.
For example, during the expedition, my country used a domestic communication satellite system for the first time to achieve video calls across the Arctic and Antarctic, and built an unattended three-dimensional observation network mainly with domestic equipment in the central Arctic Ocean, marking that my country's Arctic scientific expedition has entered a new stage of "ship-based surveys + ice-based year-round networking". What fruitful results has China achieved in its 16th Arctic Ocean expedition? Among them, what domestic advanced equipment is showing its talents? Check out the reports from China Voice reporters Wang Zehua and Han Meng.
On the Mid-Autumn Festival not long ago, China's 16th Arctic Ocean expedition team "Snow Dragon", "Polar", "Quest 3" and China's Antarctic Qinling Station completed a video call across the North and South Poles, with a video delay of less than one second. Zhang Bin, an engineer at the National Oceanic Information Center, said that this is the first time that my country has used a domestic communication satellite system to achieve a video call across the largest latitude.
Zhang Bin: We have ensured the communication of the "Xuelong", "Polar" and "Exploration 3", as well as the real-time communication of the National Ocean Information Center and the Polar Center. After entering the ice area for operations, file transmission and navigation logs are transmitted through the star network equipment.
China Star Network’s “GW Constellation” is my country’s first giant satellite Internet plan. In this polar region test, the maximum uplink and downlink speed was around 30 Mbit/s, which is equivalent to about ten minutes of downloading a 1GB file. The equipment can also be used for emergency rescue and maritime communications. This successful test of domestic satellite communication equipment marks that our country has achieved independent controllable communication in polar regions, and the data does not leave the country, effectively ensuring data security.
The expedition focused on responding to global climate change and its impacts, and carried out comprehensive survey and monitoring of sea ice, hydrology, biology, ecology, atmospheric environment and other fields in key areas of the Arctic Ocean. Currently, countries mainly rely on satellite remote sensing to observe changes in the Arctic Ocean and sea ice evolution. He Jianfeng, chief scientist of China's 16th Arctic Ocean Expedition, explained that satellites can achieve full-area coverage, but the accuracy of small-scale changes is insufficient, and optical remote sensing is more susceptible to interference from clouds and weather. In-situ observations by scientific researchers can improve forecast accuracy.
He Jianfeng: By comparing sea ice observations during navigation with satellite remote sensing data, we can better test the reliability of satellite data and improve the level of sea ice satellite remote sensing observations. This is indispensable data support for the prediction of sea ice changes.
In addition, the central Arctic Ocean is one of the polar seas that is most poorly understood by the international community, and continuous observations throughout the year have not been achieved in the past. During this expedition, the Chinese expedition team built an unattended three-dimensional observation network in the central Arctic Ocean, mainly using domestic equipment, which can obtain monitoring data throughout the year. How was this observation network “floating” in the North Pole woven? He Jianfeng said that this requires placing ice-based buoys on the sea ice and letting them drift with the ice.
He Jianfeng: Relying on this network, data on seasonal changes can be continuously transmitted back to China, allowing us to better understand the characteristics of rapid changes in sea ice. Especially for changes in autumn, winter, and spring in addition to summer, we can also have first-hand data.
During this inspection, multiple types of domestic equipment such as polar ecological unmanned ice stations and ice-based ocean profile buoys were deployed in batches, with the domestic buoy equipment rate exceeding 90%. He Jianfeng said that this provides strong support for us to deeply understand and effectively respond to global climate change and promote sustainable development of the Arctic.
He Jianfeng: Imported equipment is subject to international technical restrictions and the cost is relatively high. Domestic equipment can be independently controlled and the price has dropped significantly, so we can deploy more quantities and form a network effect. In this year’s voyage, domestic equipment realized multi-site wide-area network deployment. I think this is a very good phenomenon.
This expedition has completed the operations of 19 ice stations, marking that my country's Arctic scientific expedition has entered a new stage of "ship-based survey + ice-based year-round networking". He Jianfeng said that ship-based operations have broadened the breadth of surveys, and the ice-based observation network has extended the observation time, achieving a leap from short-term sampling in summer to continuous monitoring throughout the year, which is an important breakthrough in building my country's Arctic observation capabilities.
He Jianfeng: If we can build a larger-scale observation network, it will provide strong support for improving the prediction accuracy of Arctic climate change, and also help Chinese scientists make greater contributions to climate models.
my country's climate is mainly affected by the East Asian monsoon and the Siberian cold current in both directions. However, the specific impact of changes in the Arctic Ocean on my country's climate still needs to be studied in depth. The first-hand continuous observation data obtained by this scientific expedition can improve the relevant research system, effectively improve the accuracy of sea ice and weather forecasts in the Northeast Passage, and provide important support for the optimization of my country's climate prediction models and disaster prevention and reduction work.
In addition, He Jianfeng said that during this expedition, scientists discovered more juvenile polar cod in the high-latitude ice area of the northern Canadian basin, which refreshed the understanding of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem. At the same time, the team obtained a complete record of the electrical structure of the lithosphere spanning a time scale of 25 million years, promoting new breakthroughs in the geophysical survey of the Gak Ocean Ridge.
He Jianfeng: We have found an increase in the injection of warm water from the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 50 to 100 meters in the Canadian basin. In dense ice areas at high latitudes in the northern part of the basin, more juvenile pole cod and forage organisms have been found. This indicates that high-latitude ice areas may become an important area to support the development of polar cod populations. In the Chukchi Sea area, we combined biological image records and collected thousands of fish otoliths, which confirmed that economic fish species such as pole cod are common in this sea area. In addition, using new domestic seabed exploration equipment, we obtained a complete lithosphere evolution record spanning a time scale of 25 million years in the eastern section of the Gak Ocean Ridge, and found that the bottom interface of the lithosphere extends nearly horizontally at a depth of about 60 kilometers. This discovery breaks through the prediction of plate thickening by traditional plate cooling models and further consolidates my country's advantages in research on the accretion mechanism of ultra-slowly spreading mid-ocean ridges in the Arctic.
Producer丨Fan Xinzheng
Reporter丨Wang Zehua
