Polar Exploration Research Articles

Особливості варіабельності серцевого ритму полярників під впливом загального короткочасного повітряного охолодження

Особливості варіабельності серцевого ритму полярників під впливом загального короткочасного повітряного охолодження

Scientists Among Merchants: Linnaeus’s “Apostles” Aboard Vessels of the Swedish East India Company and the Advancement of Scientific Travels

In its 82 years of existence, the Swedish East India Company, neither large nor powerful with regard to its economic significance, made an impact on the pursuit of scientific knowledge that lasted beyond the 18th-century maritime trade world. As the “apostles” of Carl Linnaeus traveled amidst the sailors and merchants aboard the vessels to Asia, these 18th-century naturalists reified the spirit of scientific research in its most primordial form: to collect as much material as quickly as possible, and, ideally, in a manner characterized by discipline, order, and efficiency. This type of systematized scientific travel developed in the 18th-century East Indian trade was carried over into the Swedish intellectual tradition in the 19th-century polar exploration and the early 20th-century geological-turned-archaeological expeditions in Asia, motivated by “curiosity” instead of “utility”. This was not necessarily by their own choice, but at the constraint of the historical reality that Sweden, following the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, lacked both the means and the motivation to harbor any military or colonial aspirations beyond her sovereign territory. Against the greater geopolitical scheme of things since the Age of Enlightenment, while commercial, political, and strategic motives informed the exploration of distant continents by the European powers, Sweden was forced to rely on a more modest, but certainly no less vigorous, motive — science itself.

The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration

The writings of polar explorers, those fur-clad figures of lithographs and daguerreotypes, have attracted much attention from scholars for the past twenty years. While explorers described the polar world as a place of solitary adventure, scholarship has shown something different. The high latitudes were alive with plants, animals, and—in the Arctic—peoples with complex cultures adapted for extreme conditions. Far from being solitary figures, explorers depended upon networks of people at home and in the field: commercial patrons and advertisers, urban readers and lecture goers, and Inuit hunters and guides. While scholars have made good use of explorers’ published writings, Hester Blum observes, they have not given much attention to the printed ephemera of expeditions: the shipboard newspapers, menus, and playbills that crewmembers produced for themselves. Nor have they examined other ephemeral writings—messages buried in cairns, hoisted on silk balloons, or stuffed into bottles cast at sea—by which explorers attempted to communicate with the outside world. These texts read very differently from the heroic, embellished prose of published narratives. Polar crews had no interest in reading about the sublimity of the polar world; their newspapers were filled with lighthearted jokes and satires. Here, officers recognized, was an activity useful in focusing the attention of idle men during the grim months of winter.

Recognition method of typical anomalies during karst tunnel construction using GPR attributes and Gaussian processes

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical exploration technique used in a wide range of applications such as polar exploration, hydrogeological surveys, and archeological prospection. In recent years, it has been applied to tunnel construction for forecasting geological anomalies in front of the tunnel face. However, the application of GPR, forecasting geological anomalies in karst tunnels, has always been restricted by the problem of ambiguity. In the paper, based on the GPR investigation of highway tunnels in the karst areas in Guangxi, China, several GPR data of typical karst geological anomalies were selected as the analysis objective. The purpose of this study is twofold: to analyze and summarize the GPR attribute characteristics of typical geological anomalies by studies of laboratory tests and to introduce a new method for identifying different types of karst geological anomalies automatically in karst tunnel construction. Firstly, the attribute analysis technology of GPR is introduced, and the propagation law of electromagnetic waves in karst geological anomalies is studied from three perspectives: the time domain, frequency domain, and time-frequency domain by using physical laboratory simulations. Then, an intelligent identification model for typical karst geological anomalies is established in accordance with a Gaussian process (GP). Results from the Gaussian classification of field cases indicate that the type of typical karst geological anomalies can be effectively identified via comparing model prediction probability. The findings of this research allow for quantitative description of the GPR interpretation of typical karst geological anomalies in tunnel advanced prediction.

Overview of lunar exploration and International Lunar Research Station

As the only natural satellite of the Earth, the Moon is the first target for human space exploration, due to its unique location, highly characteristic environmental resources and abundant material resources. The Earth-Moon system is the proving ground for the exploration of the solar system, and the Moon is a transit point towards farther deep space. Lunar science plays an important role in promoting the development of space science. The development and utilization of lunar resources is of great significance to the sustainable development of mankind. In recent years, China’s lunar exploration has achieved remarkable achievements. After completing the three steps strategy of “orbiting, landing and sample return”, it will aim to better serve the lunar scientific exploration and in situ resource utilization (ISRU), to enhance human scientific cognition and expand Human living space, and to serve the sustainable development of human society. This paper reviews the status and trend of Chinese and international lunar exploration, and summarizes the main tasks, cutting-edge scientific questions and key technologies involved in future lunar exploration and puts forward recommendations for the development of the Chinese lunar exploration. Driven by lunar scientific exploration and lunar ISRU, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) aims to create infrastructure and shared platforms for solving key space science questions, effectively using lunar resources, and developing the Earth-Moon Economic Circle. In this article, the main mission requirements, and functional architecture of the station are analyzed. A three-step construction plan is proposed, involving (1) making good use of planned missions; (2) coordinating home and abroad missions; and (3) seeking for joint missions. In the first stage, relying on series missions of the fourth phase of China Lunar Exploration Program, we will carry out international cooperation and build up the basic type of the ILRS with capabilities of exploration under a long-term scale and complex environmental conditions. The ILRS will contribute to polar region scientific exploration, ISRU, and application verification for the future expansion. In the second stage, international lunar missions will be coordinated with the objective of expanding the scale, and the technical and scientific activities of the ILRS, therefore making a breakthrough in multi-national and multi-module collaborative work and in integration management or other key technologies. Key technologies, including the long-term operation and guarantee of future scientific research stations, and the application of lunar resource, will be mastered. In the third stage, international partners will contribute to upgrade the station in support of long-term and large-scale scientific exploration, technical experiments and the utilization of lunar resources by jointly investment of new missions. New era of human space exploration will be cultivated, and space physics, astronomy, planetary geology, planetary chemistry and other disciplines will be promoted by international cooperation. International cooperative methods planning integration, joint demonstration, mission design, technical cooperation, collaborative implementation, and achievement sharing are analyzed, all of which paving the way for the demonstration and implementation of the international big scientific projects the ILRS. At present, ILRS has become China’s first batch of international major scientific engineering cultivation projects. Along with international partners, China will carry out scientific objective research, engineering feasibility demonstration and joint implementation plan. Organizational management models and operating mechanisms will be proposed, international expert team and international implementation team will be established, on the basis of which the cultivation of the large-scale scientific project the ILRS will be completed under the principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.

How to Have a Rest in the Arctic: Leisure Activities of the Soviet Polar Explorers in the 1930s

Mid 1930s characterized by a change in cultural imperatives: instead of the Spartan and anti-bourgeois ideals of the NEP and industrialization period the authorities proposed a lifestyle full of abundance. The words of I. Stalin: “Living has become better, comrades; living has become happier” was perhaps the most popular slogan. The 1930s were also characterized by the Arctic exploration activity peak, which was to become an objective symbol of the Soviet social experiment success. But was there a place for leisure in it? The aim of the research is to answer this question by investigating the issue of leisure practices of Soviet polar explorers. The author came to conclusion that leisure of the polar explorers was a rest in the style of socialist realism – idealized and unrealistic, practically leaving no hint of deviance or contradiction with the established cultural imperative. They listened to music from Soviet musical comedies, read the right books, played chess, not cards, studied foreign languages and were actively involved in political education. The only weaknesses available – smoking and alcohol – were the means to calmly think over the situation or celebrate a public holiday, once again realizing the importance of their work for the benefit of the socialist homeland and being inspired to new exploits.

People in the Arctic: a reflection on “the polar circle quadrature” on the material of contemporary stories and feature articles

The topic of the article is the problem of exploration of the Arctic and its human potential in sociocultural and linguocultural context. The article contains a brief overview of scientific papers dedicated to fiction related to the Arctic and to polar expeditions. The aim of this article is to describe the characteristic features and unique traits of the image of a person in the Arctic conditions by means of analyzing the plot chronotope and writer’s individual style of contemporary stories and feature articles related to the Arctic. The analysis of emotion-and-imagery of human existence in the Arctic was done on the material of the stories by Anatoly Laiba, a Russian polar geologist, of the autobiography of Morten Rasch, a scientist from Denmark, of journalistic articles and other sources. Obviously, the image of polar explorers presented in fiction and social-scientific works of the first decades of the 21st century, as well as in the literary works of the 19th and 20th centuries, has traditionally been idealized. The characters are courageous, strong-willed and determined people, true professionals in their field. For them, the quest for “quadrature of the polar circle” is their commitment to their work, to research, their resilience in coping with challenges. The image of a person who lives and works in the Arctic is inseparable from the romanticism of its severe nature. A conclusion is made regarding the instrumentation of descriptive and axiological functions and, first and foremost, of dialogue function of literary convergence in “Arctic literature”.

Review: The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration, by Hester Blum

Review: The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration, by Hester Blum

Mars polar science at the end of the world

Key questions about ice on the red planet, its climate record and its potential for habitability were the subject of the seventh edition of the International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration, held for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere.

Sounding the Arctic in Chantal Bilodeau’s Climate Change Plays

Quebec-born playwright Chantal Bilodeau has been responding to the challenges of dramatizing anthropogenic climate change by developing an eight-part Arctic Cycle, each play of which is set in one of the nations that claims Arctic territory. Sila (2014) immerses audiences into a complex network of humans, animals, and mythical beings crisscrossing the Canadian Arctic. These movements circle around the Inuit concept of sila, which is the life-giving force of breath and voice. Thus, the sonic world of Sila focuses on voices speaking words, on performance poetry, and on the sounds of breath and wind. Bilodeau’ s second Arctic Cycle play, Forward (2016), addresses the long-term impact of Fridtjof Nansen’s polar exploration of the 1890s on Norway’s economy and society. In terms of sound, Forward features multiple musical performances rangingfrom traditional songs to European opera arias and Lieder to contemporary Norwegian electro-pop. The sonic features of both plays stress interdependence across time, space, as well as (non-)human, earthly, and metaphysical realms. Sila and Forward address climate change in a non-universalizing manner which promotes a heterarchical (rather than hierarchical) aesthetic fit for a growing awareness of planetary relationality.

Lunar polar exploration mission for water prospection - JAXA's current status of joint study with ISRO

Currently, several polar explorations of the Moon are planned, because it has been suggested that water ice might be present in the lunar polar region based on remote sensing observation of the lunar surface using a neutron spectrometer and visible to infrared spectrometer. However, the precise amount and state of the water ice are still unknown. At the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), we are also studying exploration of the lunar surface for resources, especially cold-trapped volatile such as water ice using a rover. Volatile materials are expected to be useful for future human activity on the Moon and there is strong interest in the origin and concentration mechanism of the water ice. Additionally, the polar regions are among the best candidates for long-term activity because of their long sunlight duration. To realize the mission, we are currently developing various technologies peculiar to exploration of lunar polar regions. This paper details the present status of the Japanese Lunar Polar Exploration Mission.

Using a skillful statistical model to predict September sea ice covering Arctic shipping routes

The rapid decrease in Arctic sea ice cover and thickness not only has a linkage with extreme weather in the mid-latitudes but also brings more opportunities for Arctic shipping routes and polar resource exploration, both of which motivate us to further understand causes of sea-ice variations and to obtain more accurate estimates of sea-ice cover in the future. Here, a novel data-driven method, the causal effect networks algorithm, is applied to identify the direct precursors of September sea-ice extent covering the Northern Sea Route and Transpolar Sea Route at different lead times so that statistical models can be constructed for sea-ice prediction. The whole study area was also divided into two parts: the northern region covered by multiyear ice and the southern region covered by seasonal ice. The forecast models of September sea-ice extent in the whole study area (TSIE) and southern region (SSIE) at lead times of 1–4 months can explain over 65% and 79% of the variances, respectively, but the forecast skill of sea-ice extent in the northern region (NSIE) is limited at a lead time of 1 month. At lead times of 1–4 months, local sea-ice concentration and sea-ice thickness have a larger influence on September TSIE and SSIE than other teleconnection factors. When the lead time is more than 4 months, the surface meridional wind anomaly from northern Europe in the preceding autumn or early winter is dominant for September TSIE variations but is comparable to thermodynamic factors for NSIE and SSIE. We suggest that this study provides a complementary approach for predicting regional sea ice and is helpful in evaluating and improving climate models.

Book Review: The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Cultures of Polar Exploration

Book Review: The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Cultures of Polar Exploration

Вікові особливості психологічної адаптації українських зимівників до життєдіяльності в умовах Антарктики

The peculiarities of winterers’ psychological adaptation to extreme conditionsof life article are discussed in the article. In winter Ukrainian polar explorers,who make researches by the directions consolidated by the State Program, staylong on the limited territory, so that they need adaptation to social isolation andpsychological deprivation. In addition, the adaptation of winterers takes placein the severe climate, and it much depends on the readiness of the participantsof expedition to the fulfillment of professional responsibilities in the extremeconditions.The aim of the article is to present theoretical bases and practical resultsof researches on age peculiarities of psychological adaptation of Ukrainianwinterers for life in Antarctic conditions on the example of the last 9 expeditionsto the Ukrainian Antarctic station «Academician Vernadskyі».Methods. The complex of methods of psychological researches ofadaptation processes of personality of a certain age is used. The experimentinvolved 70 winterers who have been in Antarctica during the year from 2011to 2019.The results of the research. The results of empirical studies on adaptationrates in winterers of different age groups for previous representatives arepresented. After the comparison of survey results during the expedition thepresence of changes in psychological characteristics was revealed. It was foundthat during the stay in Antarctica, some winterers experienced psycho-emotionalproblems, and revealed typical psychological and psychophysiological changes.It was found that the most difficult period of life was the period of the Antarcticwinter.Conclusions. The most adapted age group for life in Antarctic is proved tobe middle-aged adults aged from 35 to 45 years. The representatives of thisgroup make up about 40% of participants of the Ukrainian Antarctic expeditionsthat testifies to the sufficient level of psychological stability of wintering teams.

Structural Design and Pyroelectric Property of SnS/CdS Heterojunctions Contrived for Low‐Temperature Visible Photodetectors

AbstractThe traditional photodetectors based on photoelectric effect exhibit inferior response or even out of operation with the decrease of temperature. However, cryogenic visible light detection is increasingly demanded in deep space and polar exploration. Herein, a self‐powered visible photodetector coupling pyroelectricity and photoelectricity to optimize the cryogenic detecting performance is designed in which hydrothermally grown CdS nanorod array is covered by SnS nanoflakes. The choice of SnS allows the detector with strong visible light absorption and great photoelectric conversion efficiency, while the CdS nanorod structure with pyroelectricity can effectively modulate the behavior of photogenerated carriers at low temperatures. It is found that the response characteristics of the photodetector are dominated by the combination of pyroelectric and photoelectric effects, which becomes more significant with the reduced temperature. Specifically, at 130 K temperature, the photoresponse current under 650 nm light is improved by 7.5 times as that at room temperature, while the ratio of pyroelectric current to photocurrent can be increased to 400%. Meanwhile, the responsivity and detectivity are as high as 10.4 mA W−1 and 3.56 × 1011 Jones, respectively. This work provides a promising approach to develop high‐performance self‐powered visible photodetectors with low‐temperature operating capability.

Сон в Антарктиде: от проблем с засыпанием до понимания проблем

From the first expeditions, adaptation to the harsh environment of Antarctica, the expeditionists complained of a trouble sleeping. During a long stay on the continent, the polar explorers are exposed to a large number of extreme environmental factors both at the station and outside it, but the main physical factors of sleep disturbances are considered to be the peculiarities of light and photoperiod. Recently, more attention has been paid to clarifying the role of psychological adaptation to the Antarctica conditions, regarding the living in a small group and confined space. Existing methods to prevent the sleep disorders, first of all, comprise the manipulating with light parameters, activity and rest schedules. A thorough preliminary selection of expeditionists to establish the necessary psychological climate, thinking about gender and multicultural characteristics of adaptation can also be considered with the perspective of preventive measures. At the same time, little attention is paid to the investigation of the role of 'non-core' factors (chronotype, personality traits and features of personal adaptation to the extreme environment of Antarctica), as well as forced contact with cold, affecting sleep. Probl Cryobiol Cryomed 2020; 30(1): 3-23

The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration by Hester Blum

Reviewed by: The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration by Hester Blum Rohan Howitt The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration. By hester blum. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. xxv + 298 pp. ISBN 978-1-4780-0387-8. $99.95 (hardcover); $26.95 (paper); $26.95 (ebook). The history of the polar regions is a relatively marginal field within world history. As geographically remote, sparsely occupied spaces, the Arctic and Antarctica are easily neglected when scholars seek to examine the past on a global scale. Yet there is dynamic research in this subfield that makes clear that the polar regions have never existed in isolation and should be understood as deeply bound into global movements of people, ideas, and resources. Much of the most exciting research in this area—such as Elizabeth Leane’s Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Francis Spufford’s I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination (New York: St Martin’s, 1997)—has been produced by interdisciplinary scholars working at the intersection of cultural history, literary studies, and environmental humanities. To this can now be added Hester Blum’s The News at the Ends of the Earth: The Print Culture of Polar Exploration. [End Page 640] As indicated by its subtitle, this book takes as its focus the production of printed matter by polar expeditions in the period from roughly 1818 to 1914. Its actual scope is significantly narrower than this description implies however, as Blum is principally concerned with what she dubs “polar ecomedia,” the mostly ephemeral printed matter that was created in the polar regions. Thus, printed works explorers took with them on expeditions to the polar regions and accounts they compiled and published after their return fall outside the scope of Blum’s analysis. Instead, The News at the Ends of the Earth focuses on the eclectic corpus of printed material explorers created under mentally and physically extreme conditions at the literal ends of the earth. The most notable examples of polar ecomedia are newspapers that were published by expedition members to occupy and entertain themselves during the long polar winters, but Blum also examines journals, songs, poems, playbills, menus, messages in bottles, and notices attached to balloons and deposited in cairns. The book is organized around five chapters. Chapter One examines the emergence of a tradition of publishing newspapers during polar winters, the extreme conditions in which they were created, and their place in the wider history of shipboard and amateur newspaper printing. Chapters Two and Three explore the content and reception of expedition newspapers printed in the Arctic and Antarctic, respectively. The central question woven throughout these chapters is why, under extreme conditions in which life itself is precarious, did polar explorers invest their finite time, energy, and resources into not only compiling newspapers but printing them? The answer, Blum argues, is that expedition newspapers evolved as a way to deal with conditions of extremity, serving to recreate the “forms of temporal regularity and imagined community” (p. 73) that ordinary newspapers represented. The book’s fourth and most innovative chapter shifts focus to other forms of ecomedia, examining what Blum calls “Arctic dead letters”— routine pieces of paperwork that documented the movements of polar expeditions and were placed beneath stone cairns or in bottles that were then thrown overboard. Thousands of pieces of paper were produced and deposited in this way in the Arctic but only a tiny minority were ever read, thus becoming undeliverable “dead letters.” This section is a highlight of the book, and Blum argues convincingly that these unusual sources reveal largely forgotten ways of thinking and communicating in oceanic and polar spaces. The final chapter shifts focus again to the unusual exploring career of Charles Francis Hall, an American journalist turned Arctic explorer [End Page 641] who forged close relationships with Inuit in the course of seven years living in the Arctic. Blum examines the ways in which Hall engaged with Indigenous ecological knowledge and suggests that this knowledge shaped the production of polar ecomedia, particularly Hall’s maps and journals...

Тайны острова Диксон: по следам спутников Руаля Амундсена на шхуне «Мод» (1918–1983)

The development of the Arctic is associated with many names of famous polar explorers. The people of legend are all part of the collective memory of the Arctic. Roald Amudsen himself has won worldwide fame for his daring expeditions and discoveries. The entire scientific and cultural world admired his achievements in the conquest of the Arctic and Antarctic. In the mass consciousness, his name was overgrown with legends and myths, as well as the names of their travel companions. The authors, abandoning the well-established versions of these events, turn their eye to the evidence of that era — the reports and reports of N. A. They are trying to build their own interpretation of what happened during these years at Dikson, to Begichev, records about the course of the expedition’s searches, unpublished articles and eyewitness accounts, and expertise from 19201983 deposited in the funds of the Russian State Archives of Economics. Documents and materials indicate that the remains of a Norwegian sailor, found in 1922 by the expedition of Urvantsev-Begichev, belonged to Peter Tessem, who was able to overcome the most difficult route from Cape Chelyuskin to Dikson and died tragically several kilometers from the purpose of his campaign. However, the body of the second sailor was never found, and the version of his death in Mikhailova Bay was not seriously substantiated. Attracting new information from documents on search expeditions is also important to maintain the establishment of the truth about the death of polar explorers. This aspect is part of the cultural memory of the northerners. The documents testify to the voluntary assistance provided by the residents of Taimyr — both Russian and indigenous inhabitants of the tundra.

Eisige Helden: Kälte, Emotionen, und Geschlecht in Literatur und Kunst vom 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart by Inge Stephan

Reviewed by: Eisige Helden: Kälte, Emotionen, und Geschlecht in Literatur und Kunst vom 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart by Inge Stephan Elisabeth Krimmer Inge Stephan. Eisige Helden: Kälte, Emotionen, und Geschlecht in Literatur und Kunst vom 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart. transcript, 2019. 367 pp. Paper, € 39.99. Inge Stephan’s Eisige Helden is a tour de force and a towering achievement. The book explores discourses and metaphors of cold, ice, and snow as they relate to gender, emotional dispositions, and sociopolitical developments, ranging from the Cold War to cryogenics and the climate crisis. The scope of the project is truly impressive. Stephan analyzes a large corpus of texts from the nineteenth century to the present, including different genres and media such as novels, poems, radio plays, comics, film, visual art, and [End Page 132] music. She is interested in both canonical texts and popular entertainment, offering perceptive readings of Adorno’s and Oskar Negt’s notions of “soziale Kälte” (social cold) as well as of Reinhold Messner’s memoirs and Katarina Witt’s Carmen on Ice (1989). Stephan opens with an insightful analysis of Caspar David Friedrich’s Das Eismeer (1823–24; The sea of ice), which influenced artists such as Gerhard Richter and Klaus Staeck. The painting ties the polar region to discourses of the sublime and captures the fragility of human existence amid a nature that threatens to engulf us— even as we work to destroy it. Stephan then traces how metaphors of cold and snow are used to depict existential crises, exile, alienation, or political stagnation in a variety of texts, ranging from Schubert’s Winterreise (1827; Winter journey) to Büchner’s Lenz (1839) and Heine’s Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen (1844; Germany, A Winter’s Tale, 1906). Throughout, Stephan is particularly interested in the links between cold metaphors and gender discourses that characterize narratives of polar conquest and even tales such as Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen (1846). In addition, she devotes a chapter to arctic travelers who were forgotten or left behind, such as Matthew Henson, the author of A Negro Explorer at the North Pole (1912) and subject of Simon Schwartz’s graphic novel Packeis (2012; Pack ice), and the Inuit Minik, who was brought to New York by Robert Edwin Peary in 1897. Unsurprisingly, a large number of texts that deal with the polar regions offer either a celebration or deconstruction of famous arctic explorers. Stefan Zweig, for example, depicts Scott as a tragic hero in his Der Kampf um den Südpol (1927; Fight for the South Pole, 1940), which forms part of his Sternstunden der Menschheit (Decisive Moments in History). Sten Nadolny’s Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit (1983; The Discovery of Slowness, 1987) centers on John Franklin while Jo Lendle’s Alles Land (2011; All the Land, 2018) offers a portrait of the geophysicist and polar explorer Alfred Wegener, who originated the theory of continental drift . Critiques of polar explorations include Lion Feuchtwanger’s Polfahrt (1928; Polar Expedition, 1935), which highlights the egomania of Umberto Nobile, who attempted to reach the North Pole in his airship, and Christoph Ransmayr’s Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis (1984; The Terrors of Ice and Darkness, 1991), which includes citations from historical documents relating to the Tegetthoffexpedition. Although the overwhelming majority of polar explorers were male, Stephan highlights the contributions of women. Josephine Peary, for [End Page 133] example, was a member of her husband’s expedition and documented her experiences in My Arctic Journal (1893). Similarly, Christiane Ritter, a talented painter and illustrator, who spent time in Spitzbergen, criticizes heroic arctic discourses in her Eine Frau erlebt die Polarnacht (1938; A Woman in the Polar Night, 1954). Leni Riefenstahl wrote about the experience of filming S.O.S. Eisberg (1933; S.O.S. Iceberg, 1933) and Die weiße Hölle von Piz Palü (1929; White Hell of Pitz Palu, 1930) in Kampf in Schnee und Eis (1933; Struggle in snow and ice). A subset of texts that link metaphors of cold to the political realm associate coldness with fascism. In Marcel Beyer’s Kaltenburg (2008; Kaltenburg, 2012), a Nazi zoologist embodies the...

Development Strategy for Polar Equipment in China

The polar regions are now becoming strategically important. The exploitation of polar resources is becoming the focus of international community’s attention. Polar equipment is the guarantee for humans to scientifically understand and sustainably exploit the polar resources; they primarily include equipment for scientific observation, navigation, and oil and gas exploitation in the polar regions. This study first summarizes the development of polar equipment in various countries, and the development status and problems of the polar equipment in China. Then, it analyzes the development trend and key technologies of polar equipment. China does not possess sufficient polar scientific equipment and its under-ice observation capacity is not strong. China also lacks the capacities for building polar vessels and the research and design capacities for polar resource development equipment. To promote the development of polar equipment by 2035, China should promote the Arctic environment observation, communication, and navigation technologies, make breakthroughs in key technologies regarding polar vessels, and develop key equipment for polar resource exploration, hoping to support the commercial development of the polar summer routes for the second half of the 21st century.