«The Arctic floating university» came back from the first trip

The team of the «The Arctic floating university» came back to Archangelsk from the first trip. According to the information given in the press-service of Roshydromet (the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia), beside the crew 49 people participated in the expedition.

This year the expedition again conducted researches on Spitsbergen, took samples of water in the district of Novaya Zemlya and reached Franz Joseph Land. According to the words of the chief of the expedition Konstantin Zaykov, the planned amount of work was completely fulfilled. The results are colossal; samples of water were taken in 153 points. As it is explained in Roshydromet, on the basis of the conducted researches it is possible to make complex analysis of origin of water masses, to learn about warm and cold currents, what will help to form ice maps and operations in the Arctic, about concentration of chemical elements – food base for fish, and, proceeding from this information to understand, where it is better to catch fish and to where it will migrate. Besides, transits of harmful substances on water areas of seas were defined. Concentrations of methane at melting of permafrost were analyzed for the first time. It is possible to say that those received characteristics were within the norm. Temperature regimes, even lower than last year, were registered. Colossal changes to the tendency of warming are not observed. All this information was given by Konstantin Zaykov.
The organizers of the trip explain that unique character of the expedition is in so that two groups – maritime and field – were working for the first time. The maritime group was on the voyage during 30 days. The field group was transported to Spitsbergen by aircraft and worked in the district of Barentsburg and Barentsburg fjord, where the specialists conducted geo-morphological work: chemical analysis of soils, drafting of horizons of sea terraces and defining of their composition. Besides, work on development of tourism in the district of the settlement Pyramiden was started, as it is noted in Roshydromet.
The next trip of «The Arctic floating university» is planned for August to the Kara Sea up to Severnaya Zemlya.