MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY PAKDEMİRLİ:
"WE ARE DETERMINED TO BE A COUNTRY COMPETING WITH THE WORLD ON METEOROLOGY"
STUDIES ON ESTABLISHING A TURKISH SCIENCE BASE HAVE BEEN LAUNCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME
Underlining the importance of conducting meteorological studies in Antarctica within the scope of the 3rd National Antarctic Science Expedition, Bekir Pakdemirli, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry has said: "We are determined to be a country competing with the world on meteorology."
Under the auspices of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the 3rd National Antarctic Science Expedition will be held on January 29, 2019 under the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Technology and in coordination with İstanbul Technical University Research and Application Center for Polar Research.
Participated in the bases of other countries in the observer status in the 1st and 2nd National Antarctic Science Expedition organized in 2017 and 2018, Turkey, for the first time this year, will conduct the studies of building the temporary "Turkish Science Base".
For the first time this year, Mehmet Yıkılmaz who is an engineer working in the General Directorate of Meteorology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will also participate in the 3rd National Antarctic Science Expedition which will last for about a month as well as the scientists attending from various universities.Some scientific studies and researches will be conducted in the framework of the "National Polar Programme" of Turkey in the Project that will be performed with the participation of 11 scientists.
LOCAL AND NATIONAL OMGİs FOR ANTARCTİCA
General Directorate of Meteorology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MGM) will establish two Automatic Meteorological Observation Stations (OMGİ) within the scope of the 3rd National Antarctic Science Expedition in the continent of Antarctica. It will be possible to obtain data for two years thanks to the OMGİs created through the integration of some of the devices produced in Turkey within the scope of the studies for developing local and national products with the products provided from abroad via systems engineering by Turkish engineers.
The meteorological parameters that will be obtained from the OMGİs such as wind speed, wind direction, temperature, humidity, precipitation, pressure, snow thickness, global solar radiation and sunshine duration will be transferred to the central server of MGM via satellite modem communication and recorded in the database. All this observation data will be shared with the relevant units by the General Directorate of Meteorology for later use in research studies.
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli has made a statement on the subject: "With the mission of our President of being one of the 30 countries in Antarctica, we are sending an engineer from the General Directorate of Meteorology (MGM) to the Turkish Base to be established in Antarctica. He will stay there for 40 days. We hope that we will soon gain the status of consultant country and continue our permanent studies in Antarctica. So, I wish good luck for all the scientists going to Antarctica and our engineer Mehmet YIKILMAZ in particular.
TURKEY'S TARGET IS TO BE THE CONSULTANT COUNTRY
With the Antarctic Treaty signed on December 1, 1959, the continent's management is now comprised of 53 countries, of which 29 are consultant and 24 are observer countries. Turkey has been on the "observer status". Turkey aims to gain "consultant status" after the scientific expeditions and studies launched for Antarctica.
The personnel who will participate in the Antarctic Science Expedition were provided some trainings in November by the Coast Guard Command in Antalya to enable them to live under difficult conditions in the "White Continent". As 80% of the journey to the continent will be at sea, participants were informed about life on board, customs and rules on board, hierarchy within the ship, technical terms, basic first aid training, use of fast boats, etc.