(RIA Novosti, 21 September 2007)** -- The drifting station research unit 'North Pole-35' was set up in the Arctic Friday, said Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

"The research unit will begin work by sending the first weather-report to the Global Weather Network", he said, adding that the Russian and St Petersburg flags would also be hoisted. Balyasnikov said 22 researchers and scientists would work at the unit, most of them Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) staff, plus a German scientist from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. The unit was set up on a 3.3km-wide and 5km-long ice-floe with an average ice thickness of 1.5m. An ice-floe suitable for the unit could not be located until September 18, when the Akademik Fedorov scientific-expedition ship, following in the path of a Russian ice-breaker, discovered an area with a two-year build up of ice.

The research unit was set up during the third stage of the Arctic-2007 expedition carried out by Russian scientists as part as International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008, a campaign focusing on the exploration of the Earth's polar regions. The expedition will provide a better understanding of global climate change, as well as more precise weather forecasts.

Tagged: IPY project, News