Chapter 356: Unexpected Discovery
Penguin Station.
It is about 17.6 kilometers away from the Enderby Land Base in Antarctica, and the two sides are connected by a subway.
The main reason for not building the penguin station directly above the base is for safety.
After all, human brutality sometimes has no bottom line. Once people really go crazy, it is hard to say whether the other party will drop a nuclear bomb on the scientific research station.
Wu Yongxing took the subway to Penguin Station.
Take the elevator up to the main building of the scientific research station.
He came to inspect the scientific research station and also to express his condolences to the employees on duty.
The webmaster of Penguin Station is a bald man who doesn't look like a scientific researcher at all. Instead, he looks like a gangster boss. When he is serious, he looks a bit ferocious.
"Andre, have you adapted to life here?"
The bald man Andrei waved his hand: "No problem, my hometown is in Chita, the winter there is almost the same as in Antarctica."
"I heard that people from Showa Station came here some time ago?" Wu Yongxing stood in front of the one-way floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the white ice cap in the distance.
Andre sneered: "It's just the master's mission. America is behind them. They are obviously afraid that we will cause trouble in Antarctica, so they deliberately arranged for those Japanese people to come and test us."
"By the way, in about nine days, the nuclear-powered icebreaker sent by the headquarters will transport a batch of supplies here. You should be ready to receive them then."
"No problem." Andre made note of it.
Although the Enderby base can be self-sufficient, Penguin Station still needs to maintain a certain amount of external material input to reduce the outside world's attention here.
Andre and others are not fake scientific researchers, but real ones, and they are indeed carrying out various scientific research tasks.
This includes launching small airships to scout the status of the repair of the ozone hole over Antarctica; drilling ice samples from surrounding ice sheets; and investigating marine life in surrounding waters.
Since it is a scientific research station, it should look like a scientific research station.
When the Japanese scientific expedition team came over for "academic exchanges" before, Andre and others handled it with ease and did not reveal any flaws in their academic abilities.
Wu Yongxing asked curiously, "Have you figured out anything?"
"The ozone layer over Antarctica has been repaired. As long as we don't continue to use CFCs, there shouldn't be any major problems with the ozone layer."
Andre then continued: "We also found traces of king crabs at the junction of the nearby trench and the continental shelf."
"King crab? Alaskan king crab?" Wu Yongxing was stunned.
"According to genetic testing, the king crabs in Antarctica and Alaska are the same species. These king crabs should have arrived in the Southern Ocean through ocean currents."
Wu Yongxing touched his chin and asked, "What impact will the appearance of king crabs have?"
"It will destroy the seabed ecology of the Southern Ocean. King crabs have no natural enemies here, and humans rarely fish in the Southern Ocean. The population of king crabs here is growing very fast and is almost out of control."
Wu Yongxing thought for a while and said, "It seems that I need to propose to the headquarters that the nuclear-powered icebreakers that come to supply Penguin Station and Blue Whale Station in the future can also work part-time to catch king crabs."
Hearing Wu Yongxing's idea, Andre also laughed: "That's a good idea. The supply ship will be empty when it returns anyway. We can get some economic benefits by catching some king crabs."
"Please organize the king crab habitat in the Southern Ocean and send it back when I write the report."
"no problem."
The king crabs that are running rampant in the Southern Ocean are unaware that a terrorist force is targeting them.
The two chatted for a while, and Andre took him to visit the vegetable planting cabin of the scientific research station.
There are a total of 16 vegetable growing cabins at the research station, arranged in four rows and buried in the ice. They can produce a variety of vegetables, as well as watermelons, cantaloupes and strawberries.
Andre cut open a jade cantaloupe and said , "This planting cabin is really good. As long as there is enough energy, vegetables and fruits can be grown."
Wu Yongxing took a bite and said: "The sugar content of 18.6 is quite high, but it's a little soft."
“It’s a characteristic of the breed.”
"I still like the ones that are a little crispier." Although he didn't like this type of cantaloupe very much, Wu Yongxing still ate the whole piece. "Is there enough electricity in the nuclear power cabin of the research station?"
"It's enough. We are only 150 people and the equipment doesn't use much electricity."
The Penguin Research Station is equipped with two nuclear power modules.
This small nuclear power equipment is larger than an ordinary container and has a power generation capacity of 2 megawatts. It is also a thorium-based molten salt power generation system and is specially designed for use in small bases.
Moreover, the waste heat from this nuclear power cabin can provide heating for scientific research stations.
For extremely cold and uninhabited areas like Antarctica, nuclear power is more convenient than other energy sources and has lower .
If a fuel or natural gas generator is used, the back and forth transportation will cause the operating cost of the power generation system to soar.
As for the fact that international conventions do not allow the construction of nuclear facilities in Antarctica, Sapiens does not care because Sapiens has never signed it.
After eating the melon, the two went to the sample room of the scientific research station.
There are many frozen ice samples on display inside, and more than a dozen researchers are concentrating on studying the ice samples.
Wu Yongxing did not disturb them, but silently browsed through the experimental reports one by one.
Until he picked up one of them marked: [Research Report on Drill Core Sample No. 375 at Enderby Site].
Opening the report, it lists the ice deposits from various periods on Earth that researchers obtained by analyzing drill cores.
Then, through these ice deposits, we can study what happened on the Earth in different periods.
"The particularity of the Younger Dryas event..."
Andre glanced at the report and explained in a low voice: "This was a geological event 10,000 years ago, which was mainly manifested by a sudden global cooling."
"A sudden and widespread drop in temperature?"
"Well, this sudden drop in temperature will cause serious damage, especially to living things, even to humans now. Apart from the company, other forces will definitely suffer heavy casualties if they encounter this sudden large-scale drop in temperature."
Wu Yongxing narrowed his eyes slightly: "What is the cause of the New Dryas incident? It can't happen for no reason, right?"
Andre replied helplessly : "There is no accurate answer in the academic community at present. There are several hypotheses. I personally agree with the hypothesis of abnormal movement of the North Atlantic warm current."
"Is it the North Atlantic Current that passes through North America and brings warmth to Western Europe?"
Andre said with some concern: "Exactly. In fact, in the past decade or so, the intensity of the North Atlantic warm current has been decreasing and becoming more and more irregular."
Wu Yongxing fell into deep thought, although the ability of the Homo Sapiens Company to resist natural disasters was an order of magnitude higher than other forces on Earth.
But it does not mean that you can act recklessly.
In the face of nature, human beings are still fragile and tiny ants.
He thought for a while , then asked, "If the North Atlantic Current stops flowing, will the whole world enter an ice age?"
Andre shook his head. "It shouldn't happen. After all, humans are emitting a lot of carbon dioxide during the industrialization process. Greenhouse gases can reduce the impact of the interruption of the North Atlantic warm current, but the global temperature will definitely drop by one or two degrees."
After weighing the pros and cons, Wu Yongxing instructed: "Andre, you write a professional assessment report on the North Atlantic Warm Current interruption as the topic, and then submit it to the Science Department."
"Okay." Andre nodded.
