Published: 27 October 2005
Polar Ice Research
Science & Innovation Minister, Lord Sainsbury, has announced a £20million investment in the revolutionary Halley VI Research Station in Antarctica, which will be operated by the British Antarctic Survey.
This investment comes from the DTI's Large Facilities Capital Fund, established to ensure UK scientists have access to leading edge, large-scale experimental projects and facilities.
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which the DTI funds, is also supporting the project with a grant of £4.5m and the facility, plus a £11.7million commitment to cover future decommissioning and clean-up costs for Halley VI.
British Antarctic Survey is a world leader in research into global issues in an Antarctic context. It is the UK's national operator and is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council with an annual budget of around £40 million.
It runs nine research programmes and operates five research stations, two Royal Research Ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica.
In understanding global change the Antarctic has a crucial role to play as, locked up in its 4 km thick ice sheet, is a record of past climate for the last 500,000 years.
Trapped bubbles in the ice hold an archive of atmospheric gases, and evidence for levels of global pollution by industry, agriculture and atomic bombs is frozen into the ice.
Equally important is the evidence for ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere. Studies on the ice sheet and its contribution to world sea level rise are vital to our understanding of global change.
Lord Sainsbury said:
"The new station is essential to continue the long-running research on global change at the site.
Antarctic discoveries, such as the ozone hole and the disintegration of ice shelves, are of vital importance if we are to protect our fragile planet Earth.
There is much more we need to understand to plan for our future. Our investment is key to ensuring we have world class facilities to carry out this vital research."
The funding announcement comes after a competition to design the new facility was completed by the British Antarctic Survey over the summer.
The ground-breaking design is a modular station, elevated on ski-based jackable legs (to avoid burial by snow), which can be towed across the ice.
The modules are simple to construct and can be re-arranged or relocated inland periodically as the ice shelf flows towards the sea.
A central module packed with stimulating areas for recreation and relaxation is flanked by a series of modules designed to suit the changing needs of the science programmes.
It features renewable energy sources and new environmental strategies for fuel, waste and material handling. (All waste, including bodily waste, has to be removed from the continent).
The new complex, replacing the current Halley V Research Station, will be located 10,000 miles from the UK on the Brunt Ice Shelf, which is 150m thick and flows at a rate of 0.4 km per year northwest from Coats Land towards the sea where, at irregular intervals, it calves off as vast icebergs.
Scientists predict a major calving event around 2010 and there is a growing risk that ice on which the existing Halley Research Station sits could break off in the next decade.
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