ScienceAlert: When the icebreaker Aurora Australis left Hobart in March this year, the voyage heralded a step-change in science’s ability to explore the Southern Ocean — a vast area of the roughest and wildest waters on the planet. The sailing was part of the Climate of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean project (CASO), the lead in an international cluster of similar projects in the Antarctic Ocean Circulation program of the International Polar Year (IPY). The science of IPY has been driven …