It was the third season in a row icebreaker Oden worked in Antarctica. The basis of the cooperative effort was that NSF chartered Oden from the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat to break an ice channel to the McMurdo Antarctic Station in the Ross Sea, allowing supply vessels to reach the station. As Oden sailed through the Southern Ocean, researchers had an opportunity to perform marine studies.
The research projects
The marine research conducted during Oden Southern Ocean 2008/09 was interdisciplinary, and involved environmental chemistry, chemical and physical oceanography, climate research, epidemiology and evolutionary biology. The scientific findings from the expedition will play an important role in our understanding of the Antarctic system and its role in climate change. Its extreme climate and isolated location makes the Antarctic a unique platform for studying the Earth’s climatic, biological and geological evolution, and the environmental problems of the future.
Swedish principal investigators
Katarina Abrahamsson
University of Gothenburg
Tero Härkönen
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Melissa Chierci
University of Gothenburg
Agneta Fransson
University of Gothenburg
Henrik Kylin
SLU
Göran Björk
University of Gothenburg