CCTV News: Recently, China's 41st Antarctic Expedition Team set off for the Antarctic Ross Sea joint voyage. They will conduct a scientific investigation of the Antarctic Ocean in the autumn. When we come to Ross Sea again, what kind of investigation work will the scientific expedition team members conduct and what challenges will they face?

CCTV reporter Wang Nan: This is the "Snow Dragon 2" polar scientific research icebreaker that China's 41st Antarctic expedition team took. Now, we are returning to the Ross Sea area of ​​Antarctica. Newly boarded Chinese and foreign scientists will conduct ocean scientific investigations together. This is also the first time that my country has conducted ocean scientific research in the autumn of Antarctica.

The scientific expedition team members from multiple countries carried out marine dark ecosystem scientific expeditions

There are 44 new scientific expedition team members, including inspectors from nine countries including China, the United States, South Korea, and Malaysia. They will conduct a scientific expedition on marine dark ecosystems in the Ross Sea of ​​Antarctica for about one month. At present, internationally, the survey data on the Southern Ocean in summer is relatively rich, but there is extremely lack of survey data on other seasons. China's 41st Antarctic Expedition Team Antarctic Ross Sea joint voyage focuses on scientific issues such as the Southern Ocean in autumn, that is, the "dark season" ecosystem process and carbon burial, focusing on how Antarctic organisms such as krill survive in extreme environments without sunlight, lack of food, and most of the sea surface is covered by sea ice.

Antarctica enters autumn, and scientific expeditions will face multiple challenges

Antarctica is currently entering autumn and temperatures will gradually drop. The first challenge the expedition team encountered was to cross the westerly belt.

In addition, the cold will bring extreme tests to scientific expedition team members and scientific expedition equipment.

He Jianfeng, deputy leader and chief scientist of the 41st Antarctic Expedition Team of China: "Snow Dragon 2" has two parts of the operation, part of which is in the office. The office is not bad, because we have a moon pool and a certain warming function. However, krill trawls can only be at the stern and are completely open outside. This season, the temperature outside is about minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius, so the stern icing problem and how to ensure the safety of scientific expedition team members are our key considerations.