Tangaroa voyage 2023: Researchers to unveil Antarctic secrets

11 January 2023

As New Zealanders search for the summer sun, 38 researchers and crew will board RV Tangaroa tomorrow for a six-week science voyage deep into the waters of Antarctica.

The multi-disciplinary research team will sail more than 3500km south aboard NIWA’s ice-strengthened research vessel. They will undertake a packed science programme focused on the ecosystem and ocean physics within the Ross Sea.

A key focus of the voyage is the 1.5 million km² Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA), which is the world’s largest and protects some of the most productive ecosystems in the Southern Ocean.

The voyage is funded by a combination of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, the Antarctic Science Platform and international research partners including the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA).

The Tangaroa voyage supports the Antarctic Science Placeform's research into the biological and physical aspects of Ross Sea ecology that provides information essential to understanding threats from the changing environment. Field work of this kind is critical to development and validation of the projection models that the ASP is developing to better understand climate-related threats to the Ross Sea MPA and further afield.

Find all of the voyage updates here