Purpose: The project aims to study the super-cold currents of the Ross Sea by combining the performance of the SARA Submarine Robot with the navigation support provided by the RAS land vehicle, used in parallel cruises under and above the ice, respectively. Year 2005 In Antarctica: no activities. In Italy: completion of activities planned in PEA 2003. Preparation of a test campaign of the systems developed for SARA; installation of a CTD sensor on board; evaluation of the performance of the navigation system, measurement of the effective usability of an acoustic communication channel.

The Ice-ClimaLizer research investigates the role of two Antarctic bioconstructional and bioindicator organisms (bryozoan and coralline algae), responsible of promoting marine biodiversity, as proxies of environmental conditions (temperature, light intensity, pressure, oxygen, conductibility and pH). An experimental laboratory has been placed in Tethys Bay (Ross Sea) at 25.5 m deep. The project will compare 1 year of environmental data obtained via continuous recording (every hour) by CTD probe with reconstructed data obtained via geochemical proxies of skeletons/thalli of the investigated species. Data are collected from November 2018 to November 2019.