Kohnen
Kohnen, Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)
Location
Kohnen Station is located on the Antarctic plateau at an altitude of 2892 m. The bedrock is covered by 2782 m ice and snow.
History
The station was opened in 2001 as a logistics base for a deep ice core drilling program. The central building consists of a 32 m long and 8 m wide steel platform on 16 pillars with 11 20-feet container modules on top of it. The functions of these modules are radio room, mess room, kitchen, sanitary facilities, two sleeping rooms, snowmelter, store, workshop and power plant. Food store containers on sledges and additional sleeping modules can be parked beside the platform. Because of snow accumulation the platform has to be lifted up every second year. Four technicians are needed to open the station.
Research
As Kohnen was the logistics base for ice core drilling, several years the focus was on the drilling. Additionally to the deep ice core drilling, different science programs took place at or near Kohnen Station, including the measurement of the local topography and ice velocity, ground-based radio-echo sounding, meteorological measurements using an automatic weather station and aerosol sampling with high- and low-volume devices. Since 2012/13, the Coldest Firn (CoFi) project uses Kohnen as its logistic base. The primary objective of this project is to understand the densification and the air enclosure process of the coldest firn.
Biodiversity
Kohnen station is located in the interior of the Antarctica continent about 600 km away from the coast.
Human Presence
The station staff is performing the station operations, maintainance, upgrades etc.
Climate
Access
Kohnen Station can be reached by snow vehicles (sledge traverse from Neumayer 3 ca 750 km) or aircraft. The sldge traverse from Neumayer III Station needs about 10 days. The fastest way via aircraft to Kohnen Station are feeder flights from the Norwegian Troll Station or the Russian Novolazarevskaya Station.
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