News
PS114 - Weekly Report No. 1 | 10 - 15 July 2018
Into the Arctic
A walk through the ship shows: Everything is ready to go! Just a few days ago there were partly unpacked transport boxes everywhere (from whole containers to small cardboard boxes).
The Antarctic
Why the tongue of the Pine Island Glacier suddenly shrank
The Pine Island Glacier in Western Antarctica is not only one of the fastest-flowing ice streams in the Southern Hemisphere; over the past eleven years, four major icebergs have calved from its floating tongue. In February 2017, researchers on board the German research icebreaker Polarstern successfully mapped an area of seafloor previously covered by shelf ice. A comparison of these new maps with satellite images of the ice stream reveals why the glacier suddenly retreated toward the coast: at important points, it had lost contact with the ground, as the experts report in the online journal The Cryosphere, a journal of the
PS113 - Weekly Report No. 5| 4th -10th June 2018
The Final Strai(gh)t
On 5th June after leaving Las Palmas on Gran Canaria we again reduced our speed for 5 hours so that we could tow the Triaxus/topAWI for one final test. Thereupon followed a final comparison station with CTD and the optical measurements package. Thereafter, we were supposed to head to Bremerhaven with all haste and without further ado.
Blog
Polarstern blog
Swoosh
By Andreas Muenchow, University of Delaware | Peter and I could hear the swoosh of our ocean sensors breaching the surface like a whale taking a deep breath before s/he dives down again. Only after the “swoosh” did we see the yellow, blue, and red tones of the sensor packet bobbing at the surface. We […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Polarstern blog
Excursion into the mountains
By Susanne Lunz and Christoph Knöfel | Sometimes one has to move quickly. We got the green light for our first flight after the daily weather brief in the morning which is short and sweet. We have half an hour to get ready, collect our gear, move it up stairs to the helicopter deck, don into […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Polarstern blog
Earthquakes on the seafloor
By Michaela Meier | Everyone knows that I get sea sick, and I hate sea sickness. So, why am I here and what am I doing? I study earthquakes below the oceans off Africa, India, and in the Arctic. My teacher and mentor Vera Schlindwein at the AWI asked me about 6 months ago to […]
Author: Polarstern Fahrtleiter
Where is polarstern?
Figures and facts
| Port of registry | Bremerhaven |
|---|---|
| Length | 118 metres |
| Width | 25 metres |
| Max. draught | 11.20 metres |
| Max. displacement | 17,277 tons |
| Empty weight | 12,012 tons |
| Commissioning AWI | 1982 |
| Engine | 4 x KHD RBV 8M540 |
| Engine power | 19,198 PS (four engines) |
| Range | 19,000 nautical miles / 80 days |
| Max. speed | 16 knots |
| Operation area | Everywhere including pack ice zone |
| Crew | 44 |
| Days on sea per year (2013) | 310 |
| Shipyard | Nobiskrug, Rendsburg and Howaldswerke - Deutsche Werft Kiel AG, Germany |
| Scientists per day / long term sailing | none / 53 |
More Information
Polarstern is not only a research vessel but also a gigantic measuring instrument. Data are constantly collected aboard, some of them are also sent consecutively to different receivers. Further information about Polarstern can be found on the following pages:
AWI
Cruise Reports (data overview)
Extern