Filchner Station (1982-1999)

Filchner-Ronne Shelf Ice, southern Weddell Sea

The Filchner Station, opened in 1982, was situated in the southern Weddell Sea on one of the largest ice shelves in the Antarctic (470,000 km2). It was named after Wilhelm Filchner, geographer and leader of Germany's second South Pole Expedition (1911/12). 

The calving of a many thousand square meter large iceberg from the Ronne Shelf Ice, which took the Filchner Station with it, was observed via satellite on 13th October 1998. The Rescue Operation (the station was unmanned and drifted in the Weddell Sea) succeeded in February 1999. Within ten days containers and laboratories were removed and 170 tons of equipment were loaded on the resarch vessel "Polarstern".

The station was used during the Antarctic summer only, when the "Polarstern" research ship and the polar aircraft operated by AWI call. It served as a base for glaciological work in the international "Filchner-Ronne Shelf Ice Programme" (FRISP). Research focused on the flow properties of the shelf ice, substance loads to ice from the atmosphere and the interactions between shelf ice and the ocean. AWI also operated an automatic weather station in the immediate vicinity of the station since 1990. From here, data on air pressure, temperature, wind speed and wind direction were continuously fed into the global weather data network.

The containers comprising the Filchner Station were on stilts, and provided accommodation for up to twelve researchers and technicians. Snowfall caused a steady increase in the depth of snow on the ice, so the containers had be raised by about a metre every two to three years. The station's position was subject to constant alteration due to movement of the ice shelf. Its north-easterly drift was in the order of 1,000 metres per year.