Vize Island

Vize Island or Wiese Island (Russian: Остров Визе, "Ostrov Vize" or Земля Визе, "Zemlya Vize") is an isolated island located in the Arctic Ocean at the northern end of the Kara Sea, roughly midway between Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya, its latitude is 79° 30' N and its longitude 76° 54' E. It belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai, administrative division of Russia.

This island is desolate and subject to severe Arctic storms, but it has no glaciers. In the summer, large areas of the island are free of ice and snow. Its total area is 289 km². Compared to other Arctic islands it is relatively large and flat, its highest point being only 30 m. The closest land is lonely Ushakov Island 140 km further north.

Owing to its extreme northerly location, the surrounding sea is covered with pack ice in the winter, and it is quite full of ice floes even in the summer.

History

In 1924, oceanographer V. Yu. Vize studied the drift of Georgy Brusilov's ill-fated Russian ship "Svyataya Anna" when she was trapped on the pack ice of the Kara Sea. Professor Vize detected an odd deviation of the path of the ship's drift caused by certain variations of the patterns of sea and ice currents. He deemed that the deviation was caused by the presence of an undiscovered island whose coordinates he was able to calculate with precision thanks to the availability of the successive positions of the "St. Anna" during its drift. The data of the drift had been supplied by navigator Valerian Albanov, one of the only two survivors of the "St. Anna".

Finally, the island was discovered on 13 August 1930 by a Soviet expedition led by Otto Schmidt aboard the Icebreaker Sedov under Captain Vladimir Voronin. The island was named after Professor Vize of the Soviet Arctic Institute who was at the time aboard the "Sedov" and who was able to set foot on the island whose existence he had predicted.

The first wintering in Vize Island took place in 1945-46. A hydrometeorological polar station was established on the 1st November 1945. Vize Island's polar station is one of the northernmost in the world.

References

*"Summary of the Arctic archipelagos and islands." Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.

External links

*Picture of a radiogram from airplane H425 to the polar base at Vize Island: [http://www.south-pole.com/aspp025.htm ]