As the world continues to grapple with an evolving climate,science across the atmospheres,oceans and ice sheets of our polar regions remains increasingly important.However,the conduct of polar science relies upon polar infrastructure and whilst some facets of polar science receive significant funding,research into polar infrastructure is lacking.?The International Polar Year 2007–2008 provided the impetus for numerous nations,particularly some of those that are members of the Asian Forum for Polar Sciences(AFoPS),to increase their polar science capability and development of new infrastructure(Krupnik et al.,2011;Allison et al.,2008).There are numerous examples of recent innovative design of new Antarctic stations:Belgian’s Princess Elisabeth Station,South Korea’s Jang Bogo Station in Terra Nova Bay and China’s 5th Antarctic research station,currently being constructed on Inexpressible Island.Further,many nations including Australia,China,Korea,France,Japan and South Africa have recently built,or are building,new Antarctic research and support vessels.
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