China’s 16th Arctic Expedition Returns with Rich Results

The two flagship vessels of China’s 16th Arctic Ocean scientific expedition, the icebreakers Xuelong and Xuelong 2, returned to Shanghai on September 29 after nearly three months at sea, capping a voyage that officials say set new records for scale and produced a series of scientific and technological breakthroughs, according to Xinhua.

The expedition, organized by the Ministry of Natural Resources, was carried out jointly by four vessels — Xuelong, Xuelong 2, Jidi and Tansuo-3 — with the latter two still conducting research missions and expected back in mid-October. As Global Times reported, both the scale of the expedition and the total volume of tasks reached new highs, with results spanning new scientific discoveries, theoretical breakthroughs, technology testing and equipment application.

A Voyage of Firsts in the Central Arctic

The expedition departed from Dalian in Liaoning province on July 3, 2026, and was the first Chinese Arctic expedition launched in the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan. Xuelong completed 12 ice station operations — the most ever conducted by a single ship on a Chinese Arctic expedition, up from the usual norm of about six — while Xuelong 2 worked at seven ice stations, covering more than 20 work items including buoy deployment, ice core sampling and sea-ice remote sensing. Together, the two ships carried out 19 multi-disciplinary ice station surveys in the high-latitude Central Arctic.

The scale of the effort did not come without difficulty. According to China National Radio via China News, the vessels departed nearly a week earlier than usual to allow more working time, but encountered heavier ice cover. “Because we came much earlier than in past years, the sea-ice coverage was too high — very unsuitable for open-ocean operations,” said ocean team leader Qin Chuan. Sea-ice team leader Qu Meng noted that Xuelong’s 12 ice stations were the most of any single ship across Arctic expeditions, while Xuelong laboratory director Xie Haixiang described sudden fog banks with visibility of only a few kilometers as routine and high-risk conditions for Arctic work.

Scientific Discoveries Reshape Understanding

The expedition returned with findings that officials say advance international understanding of the rapidly changing Arctic. According to CCTV via China News, researchers detected an intensification of Pacific-origin subsurface warm water injection in the Canada Basin, discovered a new and large hydrothermal plume field in the abyssal depths of the Gakkel Ridge, and found numerous polar cod juveniles in the high-latitude ice regions of the Arctic Ocean — a finding described as refreshing the international community’s understanding of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem.

At the Gakkel Ridge, the geophysics team obtained a complete record of the lithospheric electrical structure spanning a roughly 25-million-year timescale, finding that the lithosphere bottom interface extends nearly horizontally at a depth of about 60 kilometers. This breaks with traditional plate-cooling model predictions about plate thickening, according to the same report.

Domestic Technology Takes Center Stage

A major focus of the mission was the testing of domestically developed observation equipment. As Science and Technology Daily via Xinhua reported, all expendable ice-based observation buoys deployed during the ice stations were domestically produced. The domestically developed unmanned ice station system was demonstrated in the Arctic for the first time, simultaneously collecting meteorological, sea ice, ocean and ecological parameters, and capturing imagery of polar cod activity beneath the ice.

“Our system has captured imagery of under-ice polar cod activity,” said He Jianfeng, the expedition’s deputy leader and chief scientist. “We have achieved long-duration, intelligent monitoring of under-ice shallow fish and other ecological elements in the Central Arctic, which will provide important equipment support for research on polar marine ecosystem evolution.”

Domestic ice-based ocean profile buoys were used at scale in polar regions for the first time, obtaining continuous high-precision under-ice temperature and salinity profile data. Xuelong team member Peng Jingping said the domestic application of these buoys “fills the gap in China’s under-ice ocean profile observation technology — an important breakthrough in our polar observation equipment technology.” He Jianfeng added that for the most-deployed buoys, domestic content exceeded 90 percent.

The team also used drones to deploy long-distance sea-ice drift observation buoys for the first time, reaching deployment distances of several kilometers. “This device weighs about 5 kilograms,” said team member An Baobao. “Previously it needed a helicopter or people to deploy; now the drone charges in 9 minutes and can fly 30 to 40 minutes, very safe and timesaving.”

International Cooperation with France

The mission also featured a significant act of international scientific cooperation. North of 80°N in the Central Arctic, Xuelong 2 escorted the French Tara Polar Station by breaking ice for 110 nautical miles, helping it reach and anchor to its target ice floe to begin its first overwintering drift expedition, according to People’s Daily Overseas.

The two vessels rendezvoused on the evening of September 8 in the Makarov Basin, maintaining a safe distance of about 300 meters and traveling at 4 to 7 knots; after roughly 20 hours, they reached the target floe on September 9. The cooperation was first agreed between China and France in 2025, and in 2026, with approval from the Ministry of Natural Resources, it was incorporated into the 16th expedition’s tasks. Afterward, Xuelong 2 deployed ice-based buoys near the station to form a coordinated array for long-term sea-ice observation.

“This operation vividly practiced the China Arctic policy concept of ‘respect, cooperation, mutual benefit, and sustainability,’” expedition leader Wang Jinhui said, adding that it demonstrated China’s role as “an active participant, builder, and contributor to Arctic affairs.”

What’s Next

With Jidi and Tansuo-3 still at sea and expected to return in mid-October, the final tally of the expedition’s results may grow further. Wang Jinhui framed the mission’s broader significance around a changing climate: driven by global warming, he said, the Arctic’s natural and ecological environment is undergoing rapid and profound change, with sea-ice melt intensifying — a process that concerns humanity’s shared future and carries global significance.

For China, the expedition reinforces its stated position as a major contributor to Arctic science and international polar cooperation. The coming weeks will determine whether the pending vessels add to an already substantial haul of discoveries, equipment milestones and diplomatic goodwill — and how quickly those findings feed into the global understanding of a warming polar region.