Two members of the International Polar Foundation team had prominent roles at the recent Arctic Circle Forum in Berlin on May 7th and 8th.

On the first day, from 9:00-10:00 am, IPF Board Member and Senior Fellow at the Egmont Institute Marie-Anne Coninsx participated in the panel discussion entitled, "International Research in the Arctic Amidst Global Tensions,"  which discussed the current state of cooperation between scientists working to monitor the Arctic following the start of the war in Ukraine.

Then on Wednesday May 8th, from 1:30 - 2:30 pm, IPF Education and Outreach Coordinator Mieke Sterken spoke on the panel "Voices for the Future - The Next Generation's Role in Shaping the Arctic", which focused on educating young people about the Arctic, and was organised by Karen van Loon and the Egmont Institute.

Marie-Anne then moderated the panel "Non-Arctic European Countries: an Asset for the Arctic?" as part of the IV plenary from 4:30 - 6:00 pm on Wednesday, May 8th, where the contributions of non-Arctic states to the work of the Arctic Council and beyond were discussed.

IPF was happy to be present and looks forward to taking part in the annual Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in October.

It was a successful day for education and outreach as teachers gathered to listen to IPF's Education Coordinator Mieke Sterken as she gave a presentation about the geopolitical situation in the polar regions.

Are the polar regions facing a geopolitical storm? Mieke Sterken addressed this question at the recent VLA Conference, organised by the Flemish Geography Teachers Association on Saturday, March 23rd in Antwerp.About 150 teachers, primarily specialised in teaching geography and history, attended the one-day event.

The day started with keynote speeches addressing the current situation in international relations. This was then followed by eight different topics the teachers could choose to explore further. The topics included the energy transition, lithium markets, China, and the war in Ukraine.

Mieke was given the task of giving two one-hour presentations on IPF’s behalf about the geopolitical situation in the polar regions. Both sessions saw a good turnout, and the second session was fully booked. In her talk she addressed the major climatic and ecological changes in the polar regions and how these are influencing international politics and political trends.

Mieke’s detailed lectures ensured that the teachers left the event with a wealth of information they can use when discussing the polar regions in their classrooms.

Mieke was very pleased with the interest the teachers showed in her lectures. “It’s important to address these themes comprehensively and keep teachers informed about the latest developments in climate change research and geopolitics,” she stated.”I think this kind of conference would even be of great value for people who aren’t geographers or teachers, especially journalists, policy makers and the public at large.”

The International Polar Foundation was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Stephen Cox CVO, former Executive Director of the Royal Society in London and Trustee of the International Polar Foundation’s UK arm (IPF UK).

Stephen came from Blackburn, England, where he was an outstanding student as a child. Following voluntary service overseas in Bolivia, he pursued an undergraduate degree in geography and a master’s degree in education. On completion of his studies, he joined the British Council, where he was stationed in Warsaw, Ghana, Washington DC, and London.

In 1984 he became Assistant Secretary at the Royal Society to lead the society’s international programmes, where he established links with scientists in Europe, the US and across the British Commonwealth. He later became the Society’s Executive Director. In the 1990s, he was elected Director-General of the Commonwealth Institute and worked as Chief Executive of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, helping support emerging democracies in eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. He was appointed a Commander in the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1997.

Stephen also found time in his busy schedule to volunteer for the British Science Association, the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (now the Council for At-Risk Academics) and the Royal Geographical Society, where he was elected a fellow.

It is in this spirit of giving back that Stephen also volunteered to become a trustee of the International Polar Foundation’s UK branch, thanks to an invitation by another IPF UK Trustee, the Australian historian, author, and Antarctic expert Meredith Hooper.

“I’m really sad to learn that Stephen has passed away,” stated Alain Hubert, IPF Founder and President. “We’ve been honoured to have someone so distinguished and with such commitment to service as one of our IPF UK trustees. He will be sorely missed.”

“IPF is very grateful to Stephen for his encouragement and support when we first launched IPF UK,” stated Nighat Amin, Head of Environmental and International Affairs at IPF. “I remember clearly the welcome that we unfailingly received at the Royal Society when we had our meetings there. His passionate belief in the importance of education always made me smile.”

Drawing on his vast experience in education, he provided helpful insight to IPF UK Executive Secretary Dr Liz Pasteur as she developed pedagogical content for Class Zero Emission UK, an educational initiative the International Polar Foundation created to teach young people about topics such as polar science, climate change, energy, biodiversity, and how to have a more sustainable livelihood.

“He was an excellent trustee, was witty and personable, and always offered good suggestions and encouragement,” recalled Dr Pasteur. “His perceptive comments helped significantly during the development of the Class Zero Emissions workshops in the UK. He had a broad depth of experience to draw on and was very generous with his time.”

“He remained a very charming, supportive and approachable person despite his achievements,” remarked photographer and author Dr Jean de Pomereu, a longtime collaborator with IPF who took part in IPF UK Trustees meetings from time to time. “I was very sad to hear of his passing.”

After retiring from the Royal Academy in 2011, he chaired the council of Royal Holloway University of London as well as the governing body of Atlantic College. He was also a trustee of the Frederick Soddy Trust.

Stephen remained a trustee of IPF UK until his passing.

Stephen was also an avid cricketer and published author. His works include The Commonwealth Institute: A Tale of Two Buildings, and The Royal Society in Cold War Europe.

He is survived by his wife Pauline, who was a respected educationist and Head Teacher at The Tiffin Girls’ School in Kingston upon Thames from 1994 to 2010, his daughter Rachel, and his son David.

Yet another successful research season has come to an end at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

This past week the final 12 members of the BELARE 2023-24 team wrapped up the last in-situ science projects of the season and performed the final maintenance and logistics tasks before closing up the station and heading to Cape Town on Wednesday, February 21st.

At the beginning of the week, the team enjoyed their last big Sunday dinner of the season, which included delicious homemade fries and raclette. The cosy yet hearty meal gave the team the energy they needed to finish out the season.

During the last few days before leaving, the remaining team removed a number of the scientific instruments on the roof of the station and in the scientific shelters that only collect data during the four months that the station is inhabited. The station's annexes were also adjusted before leaving to compensate for the movement of the ice underneath them during the season. A full inventory was done of equipment and spare parts in the garage as well as the food stocks in the pantry. And on Tuesday the new water treatment system was shut down and the final vehicles were parked either in the winter park or the station’s garages.

One always knows the end of the season coming. During the majority of the season, the team experiences 24 hour daylight. But starting in February each year, the sun starts to dip below the horizon for longer and longer periods of time each day. By the last week of the season, night had already grown to 7 hours a day.

On to CapeTown

Then on Wednesday morning around 9:00 am UTC +1, the final 12 members of the BELARE 2023-24 team closed up the station forteh austral winter. They hopped onto a skidoo train and headed to the air strip 2 km from the station to take the DC-3 to Ultima Air Base, where they transferred onto a cargo plane bound for Cape Town with scientists from other Antarctic programmes in the region.

The BELARE team landed in Cape Town at 10:35 pm SAST (UTC +2) and are now taking a few days to rest an relax after a job well done!

This Friday, the Consualte General of Belgium in Cape Town will host the BELARE team to congratulate them on the hard work they've done during the season.

Last week most of the scientists and several of the crew headed home from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, having accomplished their scientific objectives for this season. Only a core crew and one scientist will stay until the end of the season.

A successful season for science

From the ExPoSoils project, Valentina and Björn were able to take microbe samples from all the target sites the project had identified. They even had time to return to a few sites to take more samples after a few weeks had gone by. The HYPSTAR radiometer Quentin had installed at a number of sites also took solar radiation measurements for a few weeks before being repatriated. Quentin also managed to set up several time-lapse cameras that will take occasional regular photos of the sample sites until the scientific research team returns next year.

Paula and Sibylle also had a good season working for the PASPARTOUT project.  Paula’s automatic volatile organic compounds sampler on the roof of the station is running well. The IPF crew still at the station will keep an eye on it until the end of the season, but it will be left at PEA over the winter to collect samples during the eight months the station is uninhabited.

During her trip to the coast at the end of January, Paula successfully set up an active snow sampler to collect snow particles over the upcoming austral winter, while Sibylle managed to take several snow samples from the two 2-metre deep snow pits she dug at the coast. The deeper the snow sample, the further back in time the snow (and the atmospheric particles attached to the snow) originally fell.

The samples Paula and Sibylle took have been shipped to Belgium, where particles trapped in the snow will be analysed to determine atmospheric circulation patterns over Antarctica and from where these air masses that reach Antarctica originate.

Sibylle will be interviewed by Belgian TV station RTB in the coming weeks, so look out for her explaining her work in an upcoming report!

Although he had a few technical issues to overcome, Eric Rignot was able to complete his radar transects along the King Baudouin Ice Shelf, and Brandon helped him set up an automatic weather station to monitor weather conditions on the ground over time to help determine surface mass balance of the ice in the area for the RINGS project.

And even though it required a few return trips during their last week at the station, Simon and Nico completed their maintenance of the automtic weather stations in the PEACE project, making sure they will continue to collect weather data over the winter months to contribute to weather and climate modelling in the Queen Maud Land region or East Antarctica.

A quieter station

The station is nwo a lot quieter than it was just two weeks ago. Brandon is the only scientist still at the station along with about a dozen IPF crew. Brandon will continue to take wind speed measurements for his research project and help out aroudn the station until it’s time to leave.

Meanwhile, Expedition leader Alain Hubert and the remaining engineers, technicians, plumbers, and mechanics are slowly starting to prepare the station for overwintering.

Several tasks need to be completed before leaving, including making sure the software in the programmable logic circuit is up to date and able to respond to any changes in energy production during the austral winter, not to mention accept commands via satellite from Belgium, as the station is run remotely for eight months.

It also means slowly preparing the newly installed water treatment system for shutdown, which includes draining the pipes and tanks of the new system

And of course the mechanics are doing final maintenance on all the vehicles before storing them at the winter park.

It’s amazing how quickly the season has gone by! It will soon be time to say au revoir to the Princess for eight months.

Last week IPF staff, scientists, and engineers were very active in outreach activities from Antarctica.

A school visit

Last Monday, Education Outreach Manager Mike Sterken and IPF Logistics Manager Alain Thierry Barrera visited the British International School in Brussels to give lessons about the polar regions to two classes of elementary school children.

After learning about the basics of the Arctic and Antarctic from Mieke and Alain Thierry and what it takes to be a polar scientist, the children got to speak live with IPF engineer Oscar Pickerill directly from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica! Oscar was happy to answer the childrens' questions about daily life at the station and what life is like in Antarctica. Perhaps one day some of the children will want to become polar researchers themselves!

A live webinar with global reach

Then on Wednesday evening, Central European Time, engineers and scientists at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica gave a 90-minute webinar to more than 150 students, journalists, researchers, and members of the general public from around the world.

The webinar showcased the renewable energy production and water treatment system at the station, along with the diverse scientific projects taking place there this season from the fields of microbiology, atmospheric sciences, weather and climate data collection, and surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. There was also a special surprise presentation on the IPF’s future projects at the end of the webinar.

Organised in partnership with the Center for Social and Environmental Futures (C-SEF), the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), the Boulder Faculty Assembly Climate Science and Education Committee, the National University of Singapore, and CIRES Education and Outreach, the event’s aim was to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and learning among the polar research community and the general public.  Feedback on the event was very positive and it was agreed to host similar events in the future.

For those who missed the webinar, a recording of the entire webinar is available on the CIRES YouTube channel.

A few more webinars with schools in Belgium directly from Antarctica will take place during the last few weeks of the 2023-24 austral summer research season. Every year the IPF team in Antarctica holds live webinars with schools and universities in Belgium and around the world to discuss topics including polar science, the zero emission design of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, climate change, and biodiversity.

This past week saw a lot of movement and travel across the ice sheet, as many scientists headed out into the field to carry out their research. 

This past Monday, Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) working on the PASPARTOUT project left in the direction of the coast with IPF field guide Manu Poudelet in one of the station’s modified Toyota Hiluxes. They are spending about 10 days in the vicinity of the L0 ice rise. Here Sibylle will be digging a two-metre deep trench in the snow to take snow samples at various depths. Back in Brussels these snow samples will be analyzed to determine which kind of particles are present. This will help to determine atmospheric circulation patters that persist and are driven to the frozen continent of Antarctica. The analysis and the particles that are present will also help to determine from where these air masses originated before being driven south, for example do they come from Africa or another, more far off continent.

They will dig two pits, one to the west and one to the east of the summit of the L0 ice rise. The deeper depths of the snow pits will encapsulate the older particles, such as dust, with the top layer of the snow pit being the freshest and newest deposits, from the past year. Therefore a deep snow pit is required to be able to look back and have particles to analyze from multiple years, which would in turn allow the possibility to track any changes that have taken place to circulation patterns bringing air to the Antarctic continent, which would be another example of climate change.

After a few successful weeks of testing the snow auto sampler at the PEA, the instrument was taken down, loaded up and re-installed this past Friday at the same location that Sibylle had dug one of her snow pits. This instrument will stay at this location, roughly 20km from the end of the ice shelf and open water. This instrument is programmed to turn every 3 months, capturing and retaining snow from each season which will also be analyzed for the particles contained within the captured snow.

On Tuesday, Valentina, Björn and Quentin from the ExPoSoils project headed to the Dry Valleys with IPF engineer Nico to set up the HYPSTAR radiometer, which will measure solar radiance at the site over the next few weeks. At the same time, Valentina and Björn took microbial samples from the exposed soil and rock, after they had carefully removed the snow from the snow fence that had been installed during a previous campaign. The team plans on visiting more sites and will also be installing cameras at multiple locations to shoot time-lapses of the sites and track the changes/growth taking place on the exposed soil and rocks over the next year.

Wednesday and Thursday saw a mass exodus of scientists, IPF crew as well as the four-person film crew lead by Eric Goens from the station. This included a number of different research groups heading out into the deep field. The majority of people spent the first night at Perseus airfield before splitting off in various directions the next morning. The film crew was a part of the slow-crawling Prinoth traverse team. They plan to visit a number of the research sites to document the various projects taking place.

World-renowned glaciologist Eric Rignot from UC Irvine also left separately for the coast on Thursday with Christophe, another polar field guide.  He and Christophe will take several radar transects of the bedrock topography of the grounding line at the King Baudoin Ice Shelf by dragging a radar apparatus mounted on top of sledges that had been specially constructed for this task by IPF engineer Nico. Additionally, Brandon Von Schalk from the EPFL in Switzerland offered to lend a helping hand and accompanied Eric to run the radar, because his instruments at PEA were running well and having more people means more time on the snowmobile, which translates to more radar measurements!

On Wednesday Simon and Nico, accompanied by fellow IPF systech engineer Aymar departed in another specially outfitted Toyota Hilux to service two automatic weather stations in the PEACE project AWS transect. The project is switching over to using Iridium antennas to send raw data to servers in France, after which the data is turned into usable weather data products which are currently used for weather forecasting as well as inputs for regional climate models. However, more importantly these automatic weather stations allow for long term monitoring of the ice sheet and provide a benchmark going forward to track any changes that are taking place in this region of East Antarctica.

On Friday, January 26th, two members of the CHINARE expedition as well as three members of the Ken Boreck flight crew departed after spending five days at PEA, using the station as a base for taking measurements of the nearby ice shelves for the international RINGS project. They arrived and departed in their specially outfitted Snow Eagle DC-3 aircraft. This research aircraft has state-of-the-art instruments to measure all things related to ice thickness and mass, including a highly accurate and sensitive gravity-meter. This instrument allows them to track changes to ice mass along the ice edges by flying the same route on separate campaigns and being able to compare and contrast the data from different years and accurately see the changes taking place along the ice shelves.  Our Chinese visitors left behind several gifts, including special Chinese spirits and various Chinese foods and snacks for their Belgian hosts, which were very much appreciated!

Expedition leader Alain Hubert started his journey to the coast on Wednesday along with two members of the IPF crew, Yann and Tim, and the film crew. Alain split off from the group to take snow depth measurements along a transect to the coast that he does every year for the TIMBER project led by the University of Grenoble. When that was completed he rendezvoused with the rest of the team close to the coast to pick up the last of the cargo the ship had dropped off a few weeks ago. Tim and Yann then headed back to PEA while Alain took the film crew over to the King Baudouin Ice Shelf to get some footage of Eric Rignot running his radar measurements and talk all things polar science!

Enjoying the station’s upgraded facilities

It has now been more than a week since the new water treatment system has gone online and thanks to our engineers and plumbers, it is working perfectly. No hiccups or backups to report!
Every now and again, Aymar takes samples of the wastewater to see how well the new system is working. As no issues have been found, station residents can simply enjoy the station’s upgraded facilities.

Having an upgraded water treatment system has allowed additional toilets and facilities to be installed in the station’s annexes, where many of the station’s personal and guests are sleeping, especially when the station is close to maximum capacity. Having additional facilities makes everyone’s morning routine a lot easier, especially when the station has a lot of guests!
Stay tuned, as we will have more updates on the scientists and the research they are conducting out in the field this week.

Live from Antarctica!

Don’t forget that this coming Wednesday, January 31st, there will be a special virtual webinar hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder in coordination with a number of other partners. The talk will begin at 7pm Central European Time (UTC + 1) and is scheduled to be 1.5 hours long. We will present the renewable energy production at  the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station and the scientists will talk about the research they have been carrying out this year. Registration for the event is free and open to anyone that is interested and eager to learn!

Make sure to register for the live event to reserve your virtual seat in Antarctica! 

Here's your chance to meet and engage with scientists and engineers that are working in Antarctica via a live Zoom event!

The webinar will take place on Wednesday, January 31, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm CET (UTC + 1).

First, we will talk about the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, the world's first and to-date only zero-emission polar research station. Then, we will dive into various science projects taking place this year.

The scientists themselves will each give an overview and talk about their individual projects. We will then open the meeting for an interactive Q&A session where anyone is welcome to ask questions.

We are happy to make this an interdisciplinary event with people joining from various departments and/or universities. Let's all collaborate and learn from one another!

With presentations by:

Nicolas Herinckx - Engineer, International Polar Foundation

Aymar De Lichtervelde - Process Engineer, International Polar Foundation

Simon Steffen - Researcher and Field Assistant, International Polar Foundation

Dr. Paula Lamprea Pineda  Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University, Belgium

Quinten Vanhellemont - Researcher, Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences

Dr. Valentina Savaglia - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Sevilla

Brandon Van Schaik - Doctoral Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne

Dr. Eric Rignot - Donald Bren Professor of Earth System Science, UC Irvine

Nighat Amin - Head of Environmental and International Affairs, International Polar Foundation

Register here to attend online!

Please check your local time for those residing outside of the Central European Time Zone.

The International Polar Foundation is organizing this event in partnership with the Center for Social and Environmental Futures (C-SEF), the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), the Boulder Faculty Assembly Climate Science and Education Committee, the National University of Singapore, and CIRES Education and Outreach.

As the scientists who arrived last week completed their field training and started to head out into the field, additional scientists and a film crew led by Belgian journalist and filmmaker Eric Goens arrived on Friday.

Eric Goens and his film crew will be working with Belgian TV channel VRT to make an international film about the Princess Elisabeth station and research taking place in Antarctica.

This weekend all of the new arrivals will do their mandatory field training, highlighted by the crevasse training exercise that will take place on Sunday afternoon. This is done to ensure everyone who’s going to head out into the field next week is prepared and ready for action!

Ambitious fieldwork ahead

Now that Valentina Savaglia from University of Sevilla, ULiège and UGent, as well as Björn Tytgat from UGent have arrived to join Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, the ExPoSoils project is ready to head out into the field to begin their site surveys and analysis, some locations are quite far from the station.

If the weather cooperates, the team hopes to visit seven or eight sites at least once, and a few additional sites multiple times to take samples and install time-lapse cameras to monitor snowfall over the course of the year,

The project will also visit the dry valleys where previous projects had installed snow fences. They plan to remove the snow from control plots which are behind the fences to sample the microbial communities. This is to compare microbial communities under the snow cover with those in exposed soils. Quinten has been running the HYPSTAR hyperspectrometer near PEA and will now install it at the dry valleysat to measure solar irradance and reflected soil radiance. These measements will contribute to validation and calibration of imaging satellites. On Saturday January 20th, the team visited two Antarctic Special Protection Areas (ASPA), Perlebandet and Pingvinane , nunataks relatively close to the station where sampled soil in order to carry out detailed analysis when they are back in the Belgium.

Projects at the coast

Meanwhile the active snow sampler the PASPARTOUT project has been tested these past few weeks at PEA and is working quite nicely. Now it’s time to bring it to the Princess Ragnhild Coast to let it sample snow there. Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) will bring it to the L0 ice rise, close to the coast, guided by Manu Poudlet. They will spend about 10 days at the coast collecting snow samples and install the active snow sampler there to let it collect snow for the next year, from each season specifically, so they can examine what kind of aerosols make it to this  part of Antarctica. This will help determine which atmospheric circulation patterns are persistent for driving air masses to this region as well as better understand atmospheric circulation patterns.

Simon Steffen and Nicolas Herinckx will join them for part of their journey form Wednesday on as they head to the coast to repair and service an automatic weather station called PE_L0 which is the most northerly installation of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiment (PEACE) project transect – which spans roughly 250 km from the coast to the Antarctic plateau

Also heading to the coast are UC Irvine glaciologist Eric Rignot who will be guided by experienced polar field guide, Christophe Berclaz. Eric plans to run radar measurements along the grounding line of the King Baudouin Ice shelf over the course of a week, driving a grid across the grounding line over several hundred kilometers. They also plan to install an automatic weather station that had previously been installed at Vesthaugen Nunatak at the Baudouin Ice Shelf to monitor precipitation, wind speed, solar radiation and other parameters that can contribute to a better understanding of ice mass balance of the ice shelf – which is an integral part of the formula to better quantify Antarctica’s contribution to global sea level rise – and to this point in time

Alain Hubert will also lead the last traverse to the coast starting next week to pick up two containers that were left behind as JET A1 fuel that will be used for the international RINGS project campaign 2024-2025. The film crew lead by Eric Goens will be joining on the traverse and stopping off to film various science projects that will be peppered in the filed, culminating with a visit to Dr. Eric Rignot’s radar survey site on the King Bourdain Ice shelf

Meanwhile back at the station

Brandon Von Schalk from the EPFL in Switzerland installed a Vaisala Wind Cube, which is a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) instrument by the south science shelter of the station this past week and it’s already operational! The instrument sends out a safe, omnidirectional laser, in four directions. The laser looks to bounce off something, anything in the atmosphere and then returns to the instrument. The colour of the laser changes very slightly - too slightly for the human eye to detect, but enough for the computer in the LiDIAR to detect and compute the wind speed at the specific elevation. His initial results show that there are very few particles in the atmosphere close to PEA.

On Saturday morning at 12:30am two Chinese scientists from the RINGS project arrived aboard the Snow Eagle DC-3 Aircraft. This aircraft is equipped with state of the art sensors and is flying apart of the 62,000 km long Antarctic ice shelf, specifically along the grounding line. They will be using PEA as their home base for the next 4-5 days and will depart with the Snow Eagle on daily missions to the grounding line, for certain instruments on board, good weather is required so we keep our fingers crossed for them.

And finally we are proud to announce that the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica’s brand new water treatment system was inaugurated and went online this past Sunday! Our engineers Aymar and Nico, our plumbers Bernard and Simeon, and our programmer Wouter (who helped at a distance) deserve recognition for finishing this project, for it was all custom-made and two years in the making! Now the station can welcome and treat the wastewater for up to 50 people! As the station has become quite popular among the scientific community, it will surely be needed in the coming years!

Last weekend the cargo ship finally arrived and the first traverse to bring the containers filled with various equipment and materials to the station took place. There was also a changeover of some scientists and crew at the end of this week.

Ship unloading and team changeover

After finding an ideal location to moor on an ice shelf, the cargo ship was met by the traverse team led by Alain Hubert and assisted by 4 additional members of the IPF crew (Tim, Jann, Jacques, Simeon) on Saturday and Sunday. Unloading of cargo bound for PEA was the first step. When that was completed; the team loaded 31 containers filled with various waste that had accumulated over the past decade at PEA. This mass evacuation of waste is in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty. They will be unloaded in Cape Town, South Africa, where the majority of the waste will be recycled.

The team has completed the first of two traverses to bring the cargo to PEA, stopping at Perseus airstrip to drop off some material, particularly containers filled with insulation material that is needed to complete the building, insulating the living quarters of the hangar from the harsh Antarctic climate. The traverse team arrived back at PEA on Wednesday evening and was welcomed by many of the people at the station. Everyone helped unload the containers, especially those with perishable goods (including fresh fruits and vegetables!) and foods not made for sub-freezing temperatures.

The team had to leave one container at the coast because they didn’t have enough sledges to take it with them on the first trip. A smaller traverse team will go back towards the end of January to retrieve it, at the same time as the scientists from PASPARTOUT project will head towards the coast to carry out their snow sampling as well as install an automatic sampler that will collect snow over the course of the coming year.

On Friday morning at 1:30am the DC-3 arrived and brought with it 7 new scientists and crew, including Barbara Weiss, who is trading places with Mathieu Pasquier as the station’s doctor, an additional field guide Christophe Berclaz, who will guide scientists from the ExPoSoils project into the field. Dr. Eric Rignot, on a separate expedition, will arrive on the next scheduled flight scheduled for January 19th.

New scientists include Brandon Von Schalk from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) who will do maintenance on two automatic weather stations near PEA. Valentina Savaglia from the University of Liège and Björn Tytgat from UGent who are working on the ExPoSoils project and are specifically here to sample microbes living on the rocks and exposed soils found on the nunataks in the vicinity of the station.

While the flight brought in new scientists, it will also take a few home when it leaves on Saturday morning at 5am. We have thoroughly enjoyed the presence of Maarten Baes from University of Ghent and the two representatives from the Belgian Defence that were here from the 4SAT project. This initial stage of the project was very successful for the three members of the 4SAT team. With support from field guide Manu Poudelet, they were able to conduct several site surveys using a high-tech drone that produces high resolution 3-D maps of the local topography of potential sites where they would be like to install a satellite monitoring low earth orbiting objects (LEO) in a follow-up campaign. There were a number of suitable sites, including on the granite ridge to which the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica is anchored as well as on a neighbouring nunatak called Teltet, roughly 7 kilometres from the station.

The project will return next season to re-examine some locations and ideally install some cameras that they would like to leave year round that can make observations throughout the Antarctic winter months. The very calm weather the region has been experiencing doesn’t necessarily give the most accurate picture of how conditions might be during more unruly times. The aim of the project is to install the telescope in a location with minimal disturbance. Consistent laminar flow within the atmosphere is required to ensure the  view of the telescope isn’t distorted, allowing them to accurately track low earth orbiting objects, including satellites and space debris that could potentially become hazardous.

Coastward bound

Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Paula Lamprea Pineda from Ghent University, both of whom are working on the PASPARTOUT project will soon head to the coast and be guided by Manu Poudelet. On arrival they will dig a roughly 2 metre deep by 2 metre long trench in the snow with enough elbow room to comfortably manoeuvre and collect snow samples. In addition, they will also install an automatic snow sampler that will remain on-site for the next year. This snow sampler has been specifically designed for this project, and will make a quarter turn every three months to collect snow from a different direction each season. Sibylle is particularly interested in the particles contained within the snow such as the dust. By analysing these particles, she and her colleagues will be able to determine the atmospheric circulation patters that are persistent, and thus the origin of air masses that are driven down to East Antarctica and better understand global circulation patterns.

Although not yet set in stone, it’s possible that Simon Steffen and Nicolas Herinckx will accompany the team from PASPARTOUT for part of their trip because one of the five automatic weather stations (AWS) that make up the PEACE  (Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiment) project is in close proximity to the site where they will carry out their snow sampling. The weather stations need yearly maintenance and checks to ensure that they are running correctly and measuring accurately. Instruments at times need to be upgraded or replaced.

Next week we’ll have more updates on the new water treatment system and provide insight into the first adventures undertaken by the new scientists that have just arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica!