An icebreaker sailed from Murmansk yesterday to pick up 17 scientists after four months on an ice floe near the North Pole.
The icebreaker “Kapitan Dranitsyn” left Murmansk on August 4th to pick up equipment and personnel from the floating research station “North Pole-2015”. The planned evacuation will take about two weeks, and the icebreaker is expected to return to Murmansk in mid-August, TASS reports.
“The scientists have been able to get really valuable scientific data on biodiversity and signs of climate change in different environments,” Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources Sergey Donskoy said.
Climate conditions made possible to prolong the floating research station work. “North Pole-2015” officially stared operations on April 19, barentsobserver.com reports.
“The research has great scientific value as it allows us to watch natural processes that not only have an impact on the climate of our planet, but are indicators of the ongoing climate change,” Donskoy added.
Russia has had floating research stations in the Arctic since 1937. Normally a station was established on an ice floe in September-October, and some two dozens of scientists would spend the winter there, measuring climate and weather conditions. The stations have had numbers from North Pole-1 to North Pole-40, so this year’s station – North Pole-2015, is the first to break this tradition.