Aurora Borealis – Development of a New Research Icebreaker with Drilling Capability

Abstract

The International Polar Year (IPY), with its attempts to coordinate and foster cooperation on an international level in an unprecedented way, offers a unique chance for a leap of progress in our understanding of polar processes and their dynamics with their influence on the adjacent continents and the global environment. However, polar research both on land and in the sea cannot achieve the progress needed without novel and state of the art technologies and infrastructure.There are many novel tools presently being developed for polar research. In this report we will concentrate on the planning for a new research icebreaker, Aurora Borealis (Fig. 1), with an all-season capability of endurance in permanently ice-covered waters and with the possibility to carry out deepsea drilling in ice-covered basins.

Keywords

• Aurora Borealis