Nuyina Our ship of the future
With a dazzling array of highly sophisticated instruments, the $1.9 billion Antarctic research vessel RSV Nuyina will provide Australian scientists with unprecedented access to the Earth’s last great wilderness – the frozen continent where global warming is fast eroding ancient glaciers and unleashing sea-level rises with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire planet. Bruce Stannard reports on the extraordinary capabilities of Australia’s three-in-one super-ship.
HISTORIC HOBART has seen a great many ships come and go over the years, but it’s safe to say that none has been as profoundly important to the future of the planet as the 160-metre icebreaker Nuyina. With a price tag of $1.9 billion, the newly built Nuyina represents Australia’s biggest-ever investment in science. This is in itself a clear indication of just how seriously we now take the search for answers to what must surely be the most pressing questions of this over-reach age. Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface and although they bear many different names, each is connected to the others in a vast network of global currents that govern our climate and directly influence life on Earth. With human-induced climate change and global warming already responsible for melting billions of tonnes of ice from the hitherto frozen waters of the Arctic, urgent attention is now focused on the impact of unprecedented warming in Antarctic waters. In Antarctica, where Australia has long maintained three important scientific bases, ancient glaciers are now melting and calving enormous icebergs at an alarming rate. Should that disastrous trend continue – and all the indications are that it will – global sea-levels are expected to rise to heights unprecedented in the modern era. As a result, major coastal cities and low-lying island populations throughout the world will very likely face catastrophic inundation and disruption on a scale that will dwarf any other event in recent human history. 10
Signals 135 Winter 2021
The name Nuyina was chosen by school children. Pronounced ‘noy-yee-nah’, it is a Tasmanian Aboriginal term for the Aurora Australis. Image Damen/ Australian Antarctic Division
