1. Australian Antarctic Data Centre
2. Discover and Manage Data
3. Records
4. 199697020

Description

This dataset contains the underway data collected during the Aurora Australis Voyage 2 1996-97. This voyage departed Hobart for Casey and then travelled to Davis after completing some marine science research. Underway (meteorological, thermosalinograph and bathymetric) data are available online via the Australian Antarctic Division Data Centre web page (or via the Related URL section). For further information, see the Marine Science Support Data Quality Report via the Related URL section.

From the voyage leader's report:

Voyage 2 of the 1996-97 season left Hobart during the early evening of 26 September 1996 and returned there nearly nine weeks later after delivering personnel and cargo to Casey and Davis and conducting a variety of marine science programs.

All activities assigned to the voyage at Casey and Davis were achieved in full, however the failure of an engine coupling when near Casey early in the voyage significantly reduced the vessel's ability to break ice and that, combined with what was a particularly heavy year for ice, meant that much of the marine science program could not be achieved.

Twenty people were delivered to Casey, 37 to Davis, two to Zhong Shan and, within a week of the ship departing to Davis, 28 people had been delivered to Mawson by air. All 86 people were thus able to start a wide-variety of summer programs on the continent on schedule.

A small amount of cargo was delivered to Casey, while at Davis the annual resupply of the station was carried out across the fast ice. Mawson and the Chinese station, Zhong Shan, also received small amounts of cargo delivered by air from Davis.

Had the voyage returned to Hobart for repairs when the couple failed at Casey then transit times required to and from Tasmania, plus any time required to repair the coupling, would have meant that no "ship-stopped" marine science would have been accomplished at all. Despite the difficulties, useful work was carried out in a number of fields, particularly glaciology and seal research programs.

Due to very heavy ice conditions caused in part by the presence of very large icebergs in Prydz Bay, an unusual route was used to exit the region with the ship travelling clockwise around the south part of the bay before departing the area via the Fram Bank - an area that has caused significant problems for ANARE shipping in the past.

As a result of the ice conditions and engine problems, the ship arrived back in Hobart on 24 November, 11 days late. Given the considerable difficulties experienced, the overall program "load"" carried by the voyage and the impact the problems experienced could have had on the 1996-97 season as a whole, the overall result can be considered to have been generally satisfactory, although the loss of a large part of the planned marine science program was of great disappointment to all onboard.

Quality

See the Marine Science Support Data Quality and Programmer's Reports at the Related URL section.

Where data for a particular sensor do not exist for a particular time, the last known value is used unless the sensor has been disabled or has encountered an error. For example, some sensors only record data every minute, but the resolution for the underway dataset is 10 seconds, so the same value will be used 6 times a minute. No averages are taken for sensors that capture data at a rate other than every 10 seconds. Instead, each record will be a snapshot of each sensor at that time.

Access

Data are available online via the AADC web page. A "supplementary" dataset is also available for download from the provided URL. It contains raw data collected directly from the ship, which has not been quality checked.

Reports from the voyage are also available for download.

Temporal Coverages

• Start date: 1996-09-26 - Stop date: 1996-11-24

Spatial Coverages

Science Keywords

• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE
• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > HUMIDITY
• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > CONVECTION
• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > SOLAR RADIATION
• EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > BATHYMETRY/SEAFLOOR TOPOGRAPHY > WATER DEPTH
• EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > WATER TEMPERATURE
• EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SALINITY/DENSITY > SALINITY
• EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE

Use Constraints

This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=199697020 when using these data.