Trans Arctic 2019 is the largest expedition in recent 30 years

VLADIVOSTOK, March 12. /TASS/. The Trans Arctic 2019 expedition, which will involve four research vessels, will be the biggest Arctic scientific expedition in recent 30 years, the Far East’s Hydrometeorology Studies Institute’s Acting Director Alexander Dunayev said in an interview with TASS on Tuesday. The expedition, which will continue to autumn, will consist of four stages. Scientists will study the Russian Arctic seas. Earlier, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev inked an order to allocate almost 870 million rubles ($13 million) for the studies. "We are happy to see the recovering state monitoring, including in the Far East seas," the scientist said. "This work to monitor the region’s sea and air conditions is very important." "Previous studies of similar scales were only in the late 1980s," he stressed. "Later on, certain studies continued, at least by our Institute, but they were rather local - only one sea at a time." The coming expedition will help scientists to understand how ice drifts in the Arctic Ocean, how to forecast the thawing processes, how to make more accurate forecasts regarding ice cover in the ocean, he said. In addition to that, researchers will collect hydro-physical, hydro-chemical, meteorology and geology data, which would be used further on by different experts. During the cruise from Vladivostok via the Bering Strait to the Kola Peninsula, teams of the research vessels Mikhal Somov and Professor Multanovskiy will monitor the Arctic seas’ environment, while the Akademik Treshnikov vessel will be frozen into ice. Besides, the Professor Molchanov vessel will traditionally host the annual Floating University. Read more