Sir David Attenborough research ship dubbed Boaty McBoatface to visit Portsmouth ahead of Antarctica voyage

The vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough will briefly be coming to port ahead of a voyage to Antarctica. It will depart on its second expedition from Harwich on Sunday, before coming to port in the city to collect final supplies.

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Crews will then sail to the Falkland Islands. Captain William Whatley said the ship is due to arrive by mid-December, stopping for a few days then travelling on to Rothera Research Station, ‘our largest research station, on the Antarctic peninsula, and we will be there by Christmas time’.

The £200m polar research ship is home to around 30 crew and up to 60 scientists and support staff. Scientists will be investigating issues such as including future sea-level rise and threats to marine biodiversity.

The director of British Antarctic Survey, Professor Dame Jane Francis, warned rising sea levels could hit capital cities around the world. She added that crews are analysing tipping points, ‘which is where the earth goes into irreversible change’.

One of these tipping points is the west Antarctic ice sheet. ‘If that ice sheet does melt, it holds about three to five metres of global sea level rise, so what happens in Antarctica won’t just stay in Antarctica, it will affect us all,’ said Professor Francis.

‘Somebody recently said global warming in Antarctica and all the water that melts from Antarctica is coming to a living room near us very soon.’

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She said there is ‘still a lot of work going on to try to tie down when these events will happen but what we do find is when scientists get new results, they are bringing them closer and closer to us rather than further and further away’.

Professor Francis added: ‘What we really need to do and what I hope comes out of this next voyage is to really understand more about how climate change is affecting Antarctica.’

The ship will use an artificial intelligence system to create the fastest and most fuel-efficient routes between locations, taking into account sea ice, ocean dynamics and weather.

An online poll had suggested the ship be called Boaty McBoatface, but one of its robotic submarines was given the title instead.