#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Arctic Floating University (APU) participants from 16 scientific and educational organizations, including those from Norilsk, conduct hydroacoustic research and study the Arctic underwater world using a descent vehicle.
As part of the Arctic Floating University 2023 expedition, two voyages take place. The first one started on June 23rd. Scientists around the clock watch the Arctic animals, birds, explore the plankton and Arctic islands’ plants.
The expedition members keep fascinating diaries about what they manage to record and study along the way. The stories feature bumblebees, a bird named pipit, walruses, dolphins and other animals. There are also interesting facts that the devices that study the bottom were previously called Polar Explorers with numbers, but then they decided to give them names in honor of Arctic animals, for example, Lemming.
“…Well, why not a lemming, especially since there is a legend that these little animals sometimes, for unknown reasons, gather in huge flocks and throw themselves into the sea”, says one of the expedition diaries.
The other day the ship Molchanov anchored near Kolguev. This island is a real spellful place and does not particularly like explorers, the expedition members joke.
On June 29, the floating university was heading further, to Arkhangelsk. The scientists plan to monitor the hydrological regime of the White, Barents and Kara seas: they will study their pollution, including microplastics, take soil samples for the heavy metals’ presence.
Among the AFU new directions is the study of space weather factors influence on the small spacecraft parameters in the polar regions of low earth orbit.
The project partners and sponsors are the Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, VTB bank, PJSC Novatek, Nornickel, the Arkhangelsk Region government and the Russian Geographical Society.
Recall that last year APU scientists studied the Arctic plants adaptation to cold conditions, water and the Arctic tourism possibilities, as well as Novaya Zemlya snowfields, some of them for the first time.
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Text: Marina Horoshevskaya, Photo: Olga Polyanskaya and Denis Kozhevnikov
