The Swedish Antarctic research programme during the summer season of 2007/08 includes diverse activities in several places on and around the continent, consistenly within international cooperations: A japanese-Swedish traverse will cross Dronning Maud Land, Swedish and US scientists will work in marine projects on the icebreaker Oden, there will be atmospheric physics within the MARA project at the Swedish station Wasa and particle physics within the international project IceCube deep down in the ice at the South Pole.

Oden Southern Ocean(OSO)

The Swedish icebreaker Oden sails to Antarctica for the second time ever. The US research council National Science Foundation charters Oden from the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat to break the ice outside the Antarctic station Mc Murdo by the Ross Sea. Oden left Landskrona 19 October to cross the Atlantic Ocean and will bunker in South America. The research party embarks in Punta Arenas, Chile, and the ship is scheduled to leave from there on 29 November. 20 days will be dedicated to marine science – mainly sampling – on the cruise from South America to the Antarctic. Oden is planned to reach McMurdo on 7 January 2008 and the expedition participants will then fly to New Zealand for further travelling home. The icebreaker will be back in Sweden in March and is manned with its regular Swedish crew throughout the whole cruise. The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat is in charge of expedition management, information technology and medical care onboard.

• Read abstracts from the Swedish scientists » Link
• Read abstracts from the US scientists » Link
• Download the Initial Environmental Evaluation of Oden Southern Ocean (pdf, 18MB) » Link

Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition (JASE)

Four Swedish tracked vehicles will leave the Swedish station Wasa in Dronning Maud Land and drive towards the Japanese station Syowa. At the same time, four Japanese tracked vehicle will go in the opposite direction. The convoys will meet and exchange two persons and some scientific equipment, in order to get the same data acquisition from the whole traverse. Both of the convoys man scientists from respectively countries, and they will conduct:
- surface snow sampling
- aerosol sampling
- snow radar soundings
- internal ice layers in top 1000 m (radar)
- depth soundings (subglacial lakes and landforms)
- GPS mapping of surface topography and absolute positioning

JASE is a Japanese-Swedish contribution to the International Polar Year. In order to carry out the expedition, a good and function technique and logistic is essential. The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat is in charge of the Swedish contribution to operations and logistics. The research planning is carried out at Swedish universities and research is funded mainly from the Research Council. Japanese logistics and science planning is governed by the National Institute of Polar Research. The tracked vehicles are equipped with scientific instruments for sampling and monitoring. The science team will carry out studies in the area where previous drilled ice cores have been taken, that gave valuable information about the climate.

Principal Investigators:

Per Holmlund, Stockholm university, Sweden » Länk

Dr Shuji Fujita, National Institute of Polar Research, Japan » Länk

• Read about the traverse on NIPR's web page » Link
• Download a brochure about JASE (pdf, 1 MB) » Link
• Download the Initial Environmental Evaluation of JASE (pdf, 372 Kb) » Link

MARA, Aboa, Dronning Maud Land

Aerosol measurements will be made at Wasa using a moveable atmospheric radar system (MARA). The purpose of the project is to improve our understanding of aerosol processes and waves in the polar middle atmosphere, and to compare aerosols in the troposphere of the "clean" Antarctic with those in the "polluted" Arctic. This research could also increase our knowledge of meteorological disturbances around Wasa and other research stations in the area. The Swedish MARA scientists will stay at the Finnish station Aboa this season. Principal investigator is Sheila Kirkwood, Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden. » Link

• Download the Initial Environmental Evaluation of MARA (pdf, 310 Kb) » Link

Other projects in Dronning Maud Land

• The seismographic station that was installed last year at the Swedish Svea station will be maintained by people from the installing institution, the German Alfred Wegener Institut. Contact persons are Wilfried Jokat, AWI or Reinhard Dietrich, Technische Universität Dresden. » Link
• The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat will perform maintainenance on the automatic weather stations (AWS) in the vicinity of Wasa and Svea. The AWS were installed in 1997/98 by the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and data from the stations can be received upon demand to e-mail address: imau@phys.uu.nl. » Link
• A medical cooperation called NORMED is started this year between the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and its sister organisations in Norway (Norwegian Polar Institute) and Finland (Finnish Institute of Marine Research), when a first load of medical equipment is flewn to the Norwegian all-year station Troll in Dronning Maud Land.

IceCube, Amundsen-Scott, Sydpolen

The IceCube international particle physics project continues at the Amundsen-Ross Station at the South Pole. Researchers are deploying light detectors deep in the clear ice to capture the light that is sometimes emitted when neutrinos pass through ice. A Swedish citizen has been overwintering during the past Antarctic winter, but will continue to work during the summer season as well. 8 more Swedes, including 5 drillers, will participate in the summer season of 2007/08, when it is planned for 14–18 new strings with light detectors to be deployed in the ice. Before the season there were 22 working strings taking data with the earlier telescope AMANDA. When the entireo telescope is ready it will consist of 80 strings and several hundreds of light detectors. Swedish Principal Investigator is Per Olof Hulth, Stockholm University. » Link