Czech researchers to spend second season in Antarctica

PRAGUE, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- A Czech research team will leave for Antarctica to spend a second season at the Johann Gregor Mendel polar station on James Ross Island, local media reported Wednesday.

Eight Czech researchers will leave the country on January 3 and return at the end of March, which is the most suitable period for research, said the team's head, Pavel Prosek, from Masaryk University in Brno, in the east of the Czech Republic.

On James Ross Island, Czech geologists, biologists and geographers have been examining changes in climate and the "Antarctic oasis," the places where the glacier has retreated, giving way to some basic life in the form of simple plants, seaweed, lichen and moss.

The station, which is to serve for 20 to 30 years, cost 60 million crowns (3.4 million U.S. dollars).

The project aims to answer some of the questions hanging over global warming.

"We will have to patiently wait for the results of the research. Some data need to be gathered for researchers to have quality records," Prosek said, referring mainly to the climatologists' project that is to last at least 30 years.

He said the Czech geologists are working on a unique geological map of the ice-free part of James Ross Island which is to be completed soon.

The biologists have been simulating conditions that are likely to be on the planet after 150 years, using four small greenhouses built on the island. The greenhouse tests are projected to give their first results in five years.