The South African ship that found Antarctica’s Endurance wreck is vital for climate science

It was difficult to believe that the Endurance might ever be found. The icy Weddell Sea is inhospitable and the wreck lay in more than 3000 metres of water. But thanks to a South African vessel, the SA Agulhas II, Endurance was found in March 2022. It was the second time the polar icebreaker reached the coordinates that Endurance’s Captain Frank Worsley recorded as the ship went down. The first was in 2019; the ship was not located on that occasion.

The tale of the Endurance is fascinating. But so is the story of the SA Agulhas II. Because of this ship, South Africa is becoming a leader in aspects of Antarctic science. For example, it is highly unusual to make in situ measurements of the physics, chemistry, and biology of the open Southern Ocean and its sea ice in winter because of the darkness, inhospitable weather conditions and high concentrations of sea ice.

Yet, since 2012, the SA Agulhas II has undertaken at least five wintertime voyages between Cape Town and the Antarctic sea ice, a journey of nearly 3,000 kilometres. These expeditions have yielded data that are essential to understanding the changing Southern Ocean, and to validate numerical models developed to predict future climate. My research group, comprising mainly postgraduate students, has collected samples on numerous cruises aboard the SA Agulhas II that, following their measurement in the Marine Biogeochemistry Lab at the University of Cape Town, are improving our understanding of Southern Ocean nutrient and carbon cycling.

The SA Agulhas II has also served – and continues to serve – as a training ground for hundreds of students, most of them South African, in a range of disciplines: oceanography, marine biology, atmospheric science and more. It annually supports SEAmester, a ship-based educational programme dubbed “South Africa’s first class afloat”. During this government-funded capacity-building expedition, approximately 50 postgraduate students from across the country spend 10 days aboard the ship. They are introduced to interdisciplinary, applied, and hands-on marine science.

Shackleton’s so-called “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration” was fundamentally a show of European colonial might. It kicked off decades of Antarctic research that was open near-exclusively to white men.

So it is fitting that one of the world’s most impressive icebreaking research vessels is today owned and operated by the only African signatory of the 1961 Antarctic Treaty – which protects Antarctica and its surrounding ecosystems from exploitation and annexation – and is a platform to train African researchers undertaking globally-relevant research.

Fully equipped

Broader value