Japan's famous icebreaker the Shirase has made a port call in Australia, carrying members of its Antarctic research expedition.



It moored at Fremantle Port on Sunday to reload supplies and replace personnel.
The ship left Japan in November last year and operated in waters near Antarctica and at Syowa Station, the country's Antarctic research base.



On Tuesday, local school students were invited onboard the vessel to learn about the expedition's findings.
They touched ice specimens brought back from Antarctica.
A female student said, "It was really cool touching the ice, because it's really old and I never thought I would touch something that old before."
The expedition team says the average temperature around Syowa Base in January--summer in Antarctica-- is minus 0.8 degrees Celsius.
But during this trip, the team says there were days when the temperature was close to 10 degrees Celsius with ice and snow around the base melting.



Shirase will again conduct surveys off the Totten Glacier, which is one of Antarctica's largest, but is increasingly melting.



Harada Naomi, the leader of 66th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition said, "If the glacier of Totten is melting, everything is melting, the sea level, the global sea level will rise about 4 meters. So, it's very big impact for the people in the world."
The ship departs on Wednesday.