CHINARE 2017 Trans-Arctic expedition

The CHINARE2017 started on 20 July and it will last about 3 months until 10 October. The R/V Xuelong navigated through the Bering Strait and sailed thought the central passage and returns back through the north-west passage. A number of SIMBA sea ice mass balance buoys operated by the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre (NMEFC), Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) and Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) have been deployed during CHINARE2017 expedition in the high Arctic. The regional sea ice forecast along the R/V Xuelong cruise trajectory has been made by the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre (NMEFC) during the expedition.

The NMEFC and PRIC are official non-EC partners of INTAROS project. FMI has a leading role in INTAROS performing sea ice observations of sea ice using SIMBA buoys. Data from the SIMBA buoys are transmitted through iridium satellite network in near real time. The SIMBA buoy observations can be part of Integrated Arctic Observing System. An algorithm developed jointly by NMEFC and FMI will be applied to retrieve snow and ice thickness from SIMBA temperature data when freezing season starts in late September.
More information from NMEFC: yqh@nmefc.gov.cn after 10, October; From PRIC: leiuibo@pric.org.cn
From FMI: bin.cheng@fmi.fi