Arctic sea ice (Provided by the National Institute of Polar Research)
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) will begin building a new massive icebreaker in fiscal 2021 to conduct research in the north polar region.
It comes as Arctic research increases in importance for scientific reasons amid the changing climate and for geopolitical reasons as well, as the melting sea ice reveals new resources and affects global trade routes.
The research vessel, which comes with a total price tag of 33.5 billion yen ($306 million), is expected to be as large as Shirase, the icebreaker Japan has used for research in Antarctica.