Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Is this Polar Pod genius or just plain insanity?


Polar Pod
from Sylvain Bergeon (for francophones)

The polar Pod is a project of vertical buoying scientific exploration station that will allow a team of 7 people, scientist and crew, to navigate around the Antarctic pole during one year.
This project, lead by the famous explorer Jean-Louis Etienne, is currently in its study phase. 

From Deep Sea News

People come up with all sorts of wacky ideas to explore the oceans.
And here is another one of those ideas.
Meet the Polar Pod, a manned research platform dreamed up by French Explorer/Physician Jean-Louis Etienne to drift around Antarctica in the Southern Ocean.
My first thought when I saw this concept was WTF.


But upon further inspection, I became intrigued.
Modeled after Scripp’s R/P FLIP, the Polar Pod is a floating stick with a giant weight at the bottom to keep it ballasted and upright so the living quarters that are stuck on top don’t tilt into the ocean (this FLIP don’t FLOP).
When FLIP is upright, it is a super stable platform is almost completely unaffected by waves.
The Polar Pod is a little different, as it has an open frame, making it more susceptible to wave action. Even so, the designers think it will still be pretty stable, only swaying as much as 5 degrees making it nearly seasickness proof.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current :
24000 kms / 15000 mi long and 1000 kms / 620 mi wide, it is the most powerful current on the planet.
Driven by legendary winds - the famous "furious fifties" - nothing stops its great swell around Antarctica.
The biological activity there is intense; it is a vast sanctuary for seabirds and marine mammals.

And this is perfect, because Explorer Etienne wants to set this thing adrift in the Southern Ocean, circling Antarctica via the massive current that flow around it, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

 A major player in the climate :
Its cold waters absorb a significant portion of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.
Just like a drive belt, it connects the waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, to the cold waters of the cold waters of the Antarctic ocean.
It helps insulate the cold of Antarctica from the mid latitudes heat fluxes.
It is the main source of the World Ocean deep water formation.
The freeze and thaw periods around Antarctica feed the formation of deep water.

As I said before, I’ve been somewhat fascinated by this entire concept since I first learned about it. Mostly because it really made me think of the feasibility of such an experiment.
So let’s start on a positive note, the cons of this project:

1. The Southern Ocean can be nuts.
Massive winds, waves and not to mention icebergs make it a sane mariners nightmare (bah, who am I kidding. No dedicated mariner is completely sane).
If they can manage to stay afloat for an entire year, then kudos to them.

2. They plan to use the platform to observe the Southern Ocean.
Getting oceanographic data in the Southern Ocean is hard.
The window of ‘good’ weather is small so ships don’t go there to take data during certain times of the year. But the Polar Pod will be there!
And maybe what they observe will help to fill the gaps in our scientific knowledge.

3. Power.
When scientists themselves aren’t exploring the Southern Ocean in ships, they are sending all sorts of autonomous oceanographic robots down there to explore it.
But these things are run on batteries, and batteries don’t have a lot of power.
Whatever instruments are mounted on these autonomous samplers need to sip power.
And the number of instruments that do this are limited.
But hopefully for all of those onboard, the Polar Pod will have a bigger power generator.
This means MOAR POWER and MOAR INSTRUMENTS!
Even fancier, you could even power satellite internet.
Send all that data back to us scientists on shore and simultaneously Skype with all your friends back home.

4. Instrumentation.
The underwater spar can be rigged up with all sorts of instruments.
Get profiles of water velocity with high-powered ADCP current meters, sure.
String of CTD’s down the side, yes please!
Drop turbulence profiler off the side, OUI!
And for good measure, slap a meteorological station on the top.

Jean-Louis Etienne, France's most famous living explorer, sat with the French Embassy press team to discuss his life of adventure.
Dr. Etienne has led or been a part of expeditions to the farthest-flung corners of the earth — including Mount Everest, worldwide sailing journeys, and both poles — since 1975.

Now for the cons:

1. The Southern Ocean can be nuts.
Who is going to rescue them if they run into trouble?
And how is a freely drifting ship going to avoid ice bergs?
What if hits one of those pesky ice bergs?

2. Supplies.
Both food and fuel will have to resupplied via boat, which is a sort of nutty idea.
From talking to people that have been on FLIP, moving anything from a small boat that is going up and down with the waves to a platform that is not moving at all is a potentially stupid dangerous situation. I can’t even imagine what it would be like in the Southern Ocean swell.
But from what I can gather, is seems as though everything will be done by winch from the ends of it’s wings, which may make it a lot easier.

3. A proposed oceanographic research platform with no science plan (that I can find).
Is this guy for real?
You can’t tout your new multimillion euro vessel as a oceanographic research platform and have no science plan *pulls hair out in frustration*.
But then again, his plan could be that this is a ship of opportunity for scientists who will then dictate what can and can’t be done.
Anyway, I am curious to see what will happen with this project.
It may never materialize.
But at least it got me thinking of all the expensive shit I could drop into the Southern Ocean.

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