Indian scientists’ team leave for South Pole expedition

An eight-member Indian team today left from Goa on an expedition to explore climatic changes in the frozen depths of the Antarctic region over the past 1,000 years. The team of Indian scientists is led by Goa-based National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR)

Director and glaciologist Rasik Ravindra.

“Most of the team members have gone to Antarctica but this will be a different experience,” Ravindra told PTI before leaving for the expedition.

Ravindra said the Indian team is in touch with Americans, who have extended a lot of cooperation.

“Internationally, we are getting good cooperation and we will do the Indians proud,” the scientist said.

The team today left for Cape Town in South Africa from where it will fly to Indian research base station ‘Maitri’. NCAOR officials said that from there, the team will travel up 1,200 feet to the South Pole. It will be conducting

various experiments on the route to analyse climatic and other changes over the past 1,000 years in the icy continent.

The team will bring back air and rock samples that will be tested in NCAOR’s laboratory in port town of Vasco. The expedition team will also conduct various scientific experiments on its way to the South Pole and record humidity, temperature, wind speed and atmospheric pressure.

NCAOR officials said the expedition comes almost 99 years after man first reached the South Pole and three decades after India’s first expedition to Antarctica.