China began 9th Arctic expedition to promote “Polar Silk Road” building

Beijing. Jul 23. Silkroadnews - The Chinese research ship, Xue Long, also known as “Snow Dragon”, left Shanghai on Friday for the Arctic to conduct the country’s ninth polar expedition, a move scientists said will better build China’s “Polar Silk Road”, Global Times reports.
The team, as expected, will undertake a 12,300-nautical-mile journey and return to China by the end of September.
The expedition, which involves more than 100 scientists, will focus on the study of marine ecology, with priority given to China’s needs for exploring the Arctic regions, which is of great importance for solving the tasks of future expeditions.
Reportedly, the expedition will be similar to the previous one, but this time several new devices will be used, to test the Chinese technology for marine observation and supervising the Arctic waters.
The main attention will be paid to investigation of the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea and the polar latitudes of the Arctic Ocean.
The expedition will help scientists to better understand the marine hydrology and ecology, distributive characteristics of marine creatures and thalassochemistry; provide basic material for the evaluation of the Arctic environment and climate; support research on Arctic pollution and its marine resources.