MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Endurance to help scientists study the retreating ice.

Ice patrol ship HMS Endurance leaves Portsmouth today for her annual six-month deployment better equipped than ever ? and she will carry out, among other things, work that will help scientists study the impact of the Antarctic's melting ice cap.

Endurance is regarded by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) as vital to south polar environmental research. Her Commanding Officer, Captain Nick Lambert, describes the Antarctic as "the massive engine of the world's atmosphere" as its ice affects the Gulf Stream, and its winds having an impact on the environment of the whole Globe.

Results from the BAS and US Geological Survey published in the journal Science show that over the past 50 years 87 per cent of the 244 glaciers studied have retreated and that average rates of shrinkage have accelerated, with scientists linking the changes to global warming.

Supporting scientific research in the British Antarctic Territories ? an area the size of Western Europe ? is one of Endurance's main tasks. According to the BAS's Operations Manager, Mike Dinn, his institution, which studies all aspects of the region's environment, is heavily dependent on the ship's support during each research season in the Antarctic summer.

Vital elements that Endurance provides are her two Lynx helicopters which can reach parts of the continent that the BAS's two ships and fixed-wing aircraft cannot. In addition they provide the only rapid lift facilities for supplies, being able if necessary to transfer in one day up to 200 drums of fuel ? essential to survival in summer temperatures that plummet to as low as minus 30C.

But that work, important as it is to aid our knowledge of the enigmatic continent and its effect on the world's environment, is only a part of what Endurance ? nicknamed The Red Plum from the colour of her hull ? brings to a frozen world the size of the USA. Antarctica is becoming increasingly popular with cruise liners, many of them sailing in uncharted waters: during her last season, Endurance encountered more than 70 merchant vessels in the icy wastes.

Her survey work which produces data to update British and international charts, is making Antarctic waters safer for tourists and scientists alike. And this year she is better equipped than ever to do so: for the first time on this deployment she will bring into play a new, updated multi-beam sonar ? a version specially tailored to meet the challenges of the area ? which will provide a more accurate picture of the ocean floor to a greater depth.

She will also collect data ashore to provide ?tourist site guidelines', which will give advice on the ten specific sites where tourists may be landed. The UK has been nominated as the focal point of the initiative, run in conjunction with the International Association of Tourist Operators.

The region's heritage is also her concern: this year she will help wreck archaeologist David Mearns, whose organisation Blue Water Recoveries found sunken German battleship Bismarck and her opponent HMS Hood which were sent to the bottom during an epic sea battle in 1941. This time he is searching for the Swedish polar exploration ship Antarctic, and in the following season he plans to scour the Weddell Sea for her more famous contemporary ? explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, crushed by the ice in 1915. (RN)