Before the closure of Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Station for overwintering, it was crucial for the BELARE team to complete the construction of the station’s new garage, located in the station’s north annex.

After many interesting editions over the last decade, it is with extreme pleasure that the International Polar Foundation and its many partners from the Arctic community wish to invite Arctic stakeholders and members of the general public to the 11th edition of the Arctic Futures Symposium.

The symposium will bring together a wide variety of stakeholders from local, national, and EU policymakers, Arctic indigenous peoples, entrepreneurs and representatives form the business sector, natural and social scientists, and other academics with interests in the Arctic.

Due to Covid-19, this year's symposium will be held as a series of webinars over three successive days starting at 2 pm Central European Time (GMT+1) or 8:00 am Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) during week 49 (Monday 30 November - Wednesday 2 December).

Programme Outline

The symposium will feature panel discussions that cover a number of key topics chosen by Arctic stakeholder partners including:

• Arctic Challenges
• Arctic Policies of the EU, Arctic states, and Arctic Stakeholders
• Arctic Community Needs and Preparedness
• Pollution, Climate Change and Biodiversity: Challenges and Solutions
• Community Resilience through Empowerment
• A Unique Arctic Entrepreneurship and Investment Culture
• The EU's Engagement in the Arctic and Implementing the EU Green Deal

All are welcome

All those who are interested in what is happening in the Arctic region - be they politicians, diplomats, civil servants, academics, indigenous peoples, representatives from industries operating in the Arctic, representatives of civil society, teachers, students, or members of the general public, - are welcome to register to the event.

For more details about the symposium programme, speakers, and information on how to register for the event, please consult the Arctic Futures Symposium website.

If you have any additional questions about the symposium, you are welcome to contact us at events@polarfoundation.org or at +32 (0)2 520 34 40, and we will be happy to get back to you as soon as possible.

We look forward to seeing many of you online at the end of November!

Hendrik Huwald is a scientist at the Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (CRYOS) and a lecturer at the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Section at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He developed a numerical model for sea ice and studied energy transfer processes in the Arctic at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), and in the Alps at the former Environmental Fluid Mechanics laboratory of EPFL. In 2013, he joined the newly founded CRYOS laboratory, where he conducted research in the domains of snow science, hydrology, boundary layer meteorology, and environmental sensing. He has spent several seasons conducting research at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station, studying snow deposition and surface mass balance.

Which projects have Swiss scientists been involved with at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station?

Teams of Swiss scientists have been at the PEA Station every year since the 2016-2017 season. The projects we have been working on evolve in scope every year a little bit based on previous results and findings. We hope to establish a continuous long-term time series of observations related to snow transport and surface mass balance in Antarctica.

So far, we have conducted research at PEA in the context of two projects: "From Clouds to Ground: Snow Deposition in Extreme Environment" and the “Local Surface Mass and Energy budget in Antarctica” (LOSUMEA). Both projects are trying to clarify the relationship between precipitation, snow transport (in the form of drifting and blowing snow), snow deposition and ultimately firn and ice formation. 

Last year, we also saw the start of the “Princess Elisabeth Orographic Precipitation Experiment” (POPE) project, run by our colleagues from the Environmental Remote Sensing laboratory at EPFL. This project aims to collect reference observations on the dynamics of precipitation formation, snowfall and interactions with complex terrain in Antarctica using a suite of terrestrial in-situ remote sensing instrumentation.

What are the objectives of the “From Clouds to Ground” project?

The goal of this project is to understand the evolution of the surface mass balance in this region of Antarctica within the context of climate change. However, to reach this objective, several years of observations are required to detect trends and signals in the inter-annual variability. Going to Antarctica once to collect data is interesting, but such measurements are only a snapshot; it is not possible to see an increase in accumulation or sublimation over time with just one visit.

We know there has been a lot of melt and ice loss at the periphery of the Antarctic ice sheet, and a number of ice shelves have collapsed. Therefore, it is important to measure what happens in the interior of the continent, including the study of atmospheric circulation processes, precipitation and accumulation or erosion of snow (ice mass); this will give us a more holistic picture.

Warming of the atmosphere over Antarctica could lead to increased moisture transport from the coast towards the interior of the continent, resulting in a possible increase in precipitation. The challenge is to understand and quantify the continental scale mass balance of current and future precipitation and ablation processes in Antarctica. The scientific community will need decades of observations to b able to answer this question.

Data from our projects will also be used in larger-scale atmospheric circulation models. We use local measurements around the PEA Station and upscale these observations to larger areas representative of this part of the continent. This may contribute to climate projections produced by global atmospheric climate models.

In what ways does the project “From Clouds to Ground” differ from previous studies looking at surface mass balance in Antarctica?

It is the unique suite of instruments in place and the combination of measurement techniques that makes this project different. This includes snow particle counters, turbulent sensible and latent heat flux measurements, radiometers, standard meteorological sensors, automatic cameras, terrestrial laser scanning and snow property measurements using a snow micro-penetrometer. During the 2019-2020 season, we started using a drone for aerial photogrammetry (3-D scans of the surface). This data will help us understand processes related to snow transport and characterise the surface roughness. For example, we used the drone to survey the surface topography of specific areas near PEA before and after a storm to determine how surface characteristics of the snow change during a storm.

During future visits, we would like to repeat the drone flights over the exact same areas to determine the evolution from year to year. We are interested in detecting overall snow accumulation or erosion in the area. Images are geo-referenced using differential GPS measurements.

The novelty of this project is the combination of local-scale processes, heat fluxes, surface topography, the latter impacting turbulent heat fluxes (i.e. convection of heat and moisture),  sublimation and snow erosion and deposition. While this project aims at quantifying the local mass balance it is also geared for at understanding the physical process and involved dynamics in detail.

During the 2019-2020 season, you added radiometers to your arsenal of instruments, and you moved several of them. What was the purpose of doing this?

Radiometers allow us to determine additional components of the surface energy balance, namely solar radiation. The combination of the energy and mass balance provides a more coherent view of the involved physical processes. We already measured other components of the energy balance such as sensible and latent heat fluxes. Currently, we have no infrared radiation sensors installed, but this is something we plan to do in the future.

Additionally, as a result of continued snow accumulation, we have to lift the sensors every year or even rebuild the entire setup of our measurement stations. Otherwise, the sensors will eventually get buried.

How are the LOSUMEA and POPE projects complementary to one another?

While the POPE project focuses on clouds, atmosphere and precipitation in Antarctica, our measurements in the LOSUMEA project concentrate on near-surface transport processes such as snow drift and snow accumulation

Our principal goal in the LOSUMEA project is to understand the local mass balance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the vicinity of the PEA station. For this purpose, we need the data of POPE as an important input.

Surface mass balance of an ice sheet is calculated by looking at the inputs, i.e. precipitation in the form of snow and deposition of drifting snow, minus the output, e.g. sublimation, advection in the form of snowdrift, and eventually ice flow to the coast where mass is lost by iceberg calving and/or melting.

It is not easy to quantify the surface mass balance for several reasons: precipitation in Antarctica is very limited (climatologically, Antarctica is a desert) and most mass balance components (e.g. snow drift, sublimation) are generally difficult to measure, especially in these extreme conditions.

It is also difficult for instruments on the ground to distinguish between blowing snow and actual precipitation. This is one reason why we closely collaborate with the POPE project. Thanks to their measurements (Radar and Lidar), we have estimates of the amount of actual precipitation.

As there is no ice melting in this part of East Antarctica, sublimation (phase transition from solid to gas/vapour) and snow transport are the principal components of the surface mass balance in this region. Drifting snow and a very dry atmosphere create the perfect conditions for sublimation to happen. To quantify these two components, we measure them using snow particle counters and gas analysers to obtain vapour fluxes, which can be converted into sublimation.

What was missing in previous years were accurate measurements of precipitation. We only had local and unreliable data from the ground. This is where the POPE data turns out to be extremely useful for better understanding surface mass balance in the region.

Why did you choose Princess Elisabeth Antarctica as an observation site of the research project?

Our research at PEA is part of research efforts happening at several places across Antarctica: the Japanese Showa station, the Australian Davis station and the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. We hope that measurements from these sites will allow us to obtain a larger picture related to surface mass balance and snow deposition in Antarctica.

PEA is located about 200 km from the coast at a unique location. To the north of the station is a plateau, with a rather homogenous surface gradually descending towards the coast. To the south, there are the Sør Rondane Mountains, which interact with the katabatic winds originating from the continent’s interior and the typical easterly wind influencing snow deposition in this region. This geographical diversity of conditions is ideal to study a variety of processes that can otherwise not be observed at many other sites in more homogeneous terrain. In this respect, it is a unique location.

Additionally, our laboratory has had a very good relationship with Alain Hubert and IPF for a long time, and the logistical support at PEA is excellent.

Why do you believe it is important to study extreme environments in the quest to better understand the effects of climate change?

A lot of our extreme environments include the cryosphere, which comprises not only ice-covered areas in the Arctic and Antarctic but also mountain glaciers around the world. These environments are very sensitive to climate change, and the changes happening there are very pronounced. They play a major role in regulating the planet’s climate.

However, it is often very difficult to access many parts of the cryosphere to collect in-situ data. As a consequence, the data we do have today is rather sparse and insufficient considering the importance that these regions play in regulating the global climate. This is particularly true for high altitude and high latitude regions. This is why studying extreme environments and especially the cryosphere is so important.

Have you personally observed any significant changes in the parts of the cryosphere that you have visited?

In the Alps, the changes have been very pronounced. I spent a lot of time in the Alps as a child, so I have a few decades of personal observations for comparison. Looking at my personal photographs, I see that the glaciers have retreated drastically, the snow line is higher, and the quantity of the snow in the Alps has decreased and the snow season is shorter. Many ski resorts at low altitudes are at the limit and even higher altitude resorts only survive thanks to artificial snow production.

As for Antarctica, I’ve spent two seasons at PEA myself while our team has spent four seasons there, so we have not been there long enough to observe a significant trend. However, I was surprised of how warm the 2019-2020 season was. But again, one season is not long enough to infer a trend.

What are your plans for the future? Is your team planning on returning to Antarctica?

We actually plan to return to PEA a few more times over the next seasons to collect more data and extend the time series. Fortunately, one of my colleagues at EPFL received a grant from the Swiss Polar Institute that allows him to go to PEA during the 2020-2021 season. While I am very happy for him, I am sad at the same time I cannot go myself.

I had a great time at PEA during the seasons I spent there. The team is amazing, and the work environment is very productive. My scientific colleagues and the IPF staff became friends from the very first day. It was an exceptional experience to be there and I am very grateful for these opportunities. 

What will your colleague focus on during the 2020-2021 season?

As usual, the first task is maintenance after the unattended winter period. There is always a lot to do. We plan to install a more robust power supply system that will allow the instruments to function throughout the austral winter without data gaps, which happened in previous years. He will also replace some of the sensors on the stations to improve measurement precision and of course, he will repeat drone flights over our survey areas.

Stefania Gili is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratoire G-Time (Geochemistry: Isotope, Mineral and Element Tracing) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium). Stefania was selected in 2018 for a postdoctoral fellowship to take part in the CHASE (Chemical Characterization of the airborne particles in the Dronning Maud Land area: from the atmosphere to the surface snow) research project funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO), as part of the BRAIN-be (Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks) program.

The CHASE project has been based at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station. The work Stefania has been doing within the CHASE project is dedicated to the study of the geochemical and isotopic composition of inorganic particles and aerosols in the atmosphere in Antarctica. During the 2019-2020 season, Stefania has been in Antarctica with Preben Overmeiren from Ghent University.

What are the objectives of the CHASE project?

The acronym CHASE stands for Unravelling particle CHemistry in Dronning Maud Land: from Atmosphere to SurfacE snow. CHASE is a project that has been financed by BELSPO, and it has four main partners who are the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium), the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium), Ghent University, Belgium and the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) of Belgium. Each of them has a crucial role because they all have different expertise.

CHASE has two goals. One of them is to provide details about the physical and chemical characteristics of atmospheric and surface snow particles. Ghent University is in charge of studying the organic particle composition (meaning they contain carbon) with the help of its organic chemical group. Then there are the inorganic particles, which are primarily mineral dust. This is what I am in charge of studying at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). The second goal of CHASE is to investigate the atmospheric transport pathways. This is what the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) is in charge of.

Why study atmospheric particles in East Antarctica?

This part of Antarctica is interesting to study because atmospheric particle composition and particle transport through the atmosphere had never been studied there before, especially where the Princess Elisabeth Station is located. Up to now, there is no database on the trace element or isotopic composition of atmospheric particles in this part of Antarctica. So we decided to carry out this research project to fill this gap in knowledge.

Why is the CHASE project intriguing for you as a scientist?

Because Antarctica is supposed to be the most pristine place on Earth, with very little influence from human activity. However, our research shows that influence is larger than expected.

When we study the chemical composition of the natural and extreme environment of Antarctica, we can evaluate and quantify the quality of the air. In addition, by studying the geochemical and isotopic signatures of these atmospheric particles, we can identify their origin: certain regions in the Southern Hemisphere. Consequently, we can extrapolate information about atmospheric particle composition and transport of those particles in other parts of the world. This allows us to see how contaminated or not the atmosphere is in Antarctica compared to other parts of the world. At the same time, Antarctica is one of the places that has the most pristine and undisturbed climate records in ice cores. We can compare the atmospheric particles we’ve found with those found in ice cores, which unfortunately are not so plentiful. 

The CHASE project will provide a new dataset that will help to improve the knowledge that we have about how the air masses transport organic and inorganic particles to Antarctica. These particles contain micronutrients that nourish phytoplankton in the ocean. We can also trace the different sources of both natural and anthropogenic particles in Antarctica, how abundant pollutants are, and how they reach Antarctica.

Why use active and passive sampling of both organic and inorganic atmospheric particles?

Active sampling by high-volume pumps is only done during the austral summer research season, which is from mid-November to February, when the Princess Elisabeth Station is open. Because the overall particle amount in Antarctica is very low, we still need one whole week of continuous high-volume air flow for the collection of one single filter sample. 

For the passive sampling (i.e. no pump is used), different passive sample methods and sample devices are used respectively, for organic and inorganic atmospheric compounds.

The passive sampling technique for ambient-air particle collection for inorganic compounds was based on the use of Sigma-2 passive-samplers, which are placed at 2.5 m above ice/snow level on aluminium poles. The Sigma-2 samplers are cylinders with slits at the top part, which guarantee a wind-sheltered and low turbulence air volume inside the Sigma-2 sampler. Inside a specific filter support is placed for collecting the particles. These passive samplers are placed along a transect at several sampling sites from the vicinity of the Princess Elisabeth Station to the coast. The filters passively collect atmospheric particles over the course of an entire year. The filters are replaced once a year, when our team goes into the field during a BELARE expedition season.

The 2019-2020 season was the third time for the CHASE team at the Princess Elisabeth Station. How did the research program move forward during the past season?

We were able to do everything we needed to do for our project. The weather was more favourable compared to previous seasons. It was warmer with fewer storms. At the same time, during the last season, we performed a pre-test of some shallow ice-cores for future projects.

You re-visited seven passive sampling sites during the last season that had been set up during the previous season (2018-2019). Why were these sites chosen?

The seven sampling sites cover a transect of approximately 203 km from the Antarctic Plateau to the coast. For us, it is very important because the high plateaus do not record the same winds than the air masses at the coastline. We can compare the influence of the atmospheric circulation inland versus the coastal atmospheric circulation over time. Inland atmospheric circulation transports particles produced by the denudation (erosion or weathering) of the mountains inside the Antarctic continent, while coastal atmospheric circulation brings in particles from different landmasses surrounding Antarctica like South America, Africa and Australia. Sampling along this transect allows us to see all the distinctions between local versus coastal (distal) influence. 

How did you find the logistical support you received during your time in Antarctica? 

It was awesome. I have already done two seasons at the Princess Elisabeth Station, and the IPF BELARE team is excellent from the beginning to the end. Whatever we might need or miss, they solve it. 

What have you done with the atmospheric samples since returning to Europe? Has the pandemic interfered with your research in any way?

We’ve already been able to analyse both organic and inorganic samples taken during the 2018-2019 research season. The results are going to be published soon in an international scientific journal. All I can tell you at the moment is that they are very promising. 

I’ve been analysing the inorganic samples at the ULB while my colleague Preben Van Overmeiren from Ghent University has been analysing the organic compounds.

During the first season, the samples arrived in March, but the pandemic this year delayed the transport of the samples, which meant they only arrived in mid-June this year. At least they were safe and frozen, which is the most important and crucial point, as it is a long way from Antarctica to Belgium. We will analyse these samples to write and interpret data from the last seasons. 

What will the next steps be for the CHASE project? Do you plan to return to Antarctica in the coming years?

If the Covid-19 pandemic allow, there will be fourth and last Chase season at Princess Elisabeth during austral summer 2020-2021. Further, it is my understanding that the PIs of the project would like to continue with another project in line with CHASE, but for that, a new proposal needs to be submitted to get more funding. Mainly they would like to do long-term monitoring of organic and inorganic samples in this part of Antarctica.

Concerning myself, I soon plan to head to Princeton University in the United States. But I hope to return to the Princess Elisabeth Station in the future. Living there is totally different from anything else in the world!

Are there links between the CHASE project and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) review, or the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP)?

Yes, there are links to both. For the IPCC review, the CHASE project is looking at atmospheric transport of mineral dust, which can be used to trace pathways of atmospheric circulation. You can link past atmospheric circulation that we know about with atmospheric circulations of today's climate and see if and how it will change in the future. For that, what scientists do is, to drill very deep ice cores, because in these ice cores you have some layers of particles, and you can analyse these particles to determine where on the planet they originally came from. The further you drill into the ice, the further back in time you go.

Concerning the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), the analyses of the organic compounds and metal concentrations in aerosols within the CHASE project are relevant, as organic or metal-bearing particles are potentially more often pollutants. If the organic compounds originate from Antarctica itself, then it means that we are polluting Antarctica as well. This is an interesting point to consider.

As an early career female scientist, do you believe it is important to encourage young women who are starting their higher studies to pursue careers in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)?

I believe it is very important. Encouraging girls and young women to pursue a career in STEM subjects can really make a difference. While exposing them to STEM subjects is important it is also essential to support them. This support means building self-confidence, which must come from every environment: home, work and school. We have a long way to go in order to obtain full equity between men and women in STEM fields. But we need to get there. 

Over the weeks I was at the station during the two previous seasons when I was in Antarctica, I was one of only three women present, and I was the only scientist (the other two women were the cook and the doctor). We also took a picture at the airport in Cape Town of the team leaving for Antarctica, and I was the only woman surrounded by more than 20 men. When I saw the picture afterwards, I was not shocked, but I realised that this is how things currently are. There are not many women who go to Antarctica right now, and we must change that.

The International Polar Foundation was deeply saddened to hear of the fatal accident in Greenland that befell Prof. Konrad “Koni” Steffen. Prof. Steffen had been in the north of Greenland conducting field research at Swiss Camp (a meteorological research station he established in the ‘90s) when he passed away on Saturday, August 8th.

The 68 year-old Swiss-American glaciologist was a giant in the world of polar research. One of the world's leading experts on the Greenland Ice Sheet and climate change, his career spanned 40 years and was marked with several major accomplishments. His work as a researcher contributed significantly to the understanding of glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice, and also contributed to the regular Assessment Reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

From 1986 until 2012, Prof. Steffen worked at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he became a visiting fellow in 1986, a professor in 1991, and Director of CIRES in 2005.

At CIRES, Prof. Steffen mentored many of today’s prominent polar scientists, including current CIRES Director Waleed Abdalati, Julianne Stroeve of University College London and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and Jason Box of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

In 2012, Prof. Steffen returned to his native Switzerland to become Director of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. He was Scientific Director of the Swiss Polar Institute and Switzerland’s delegate to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). He was also an active and dedicated member of the International Glaciological Society (IGS) for the duration of his career.

Koni was a close friend and an enthusiastic supporter of the International Polar Foundation, always ready with advice and good counsel.  Not only was he an Honorary Member of the IPF, but he also participated in the Foundation’s activities.  He was on the Fellowship Committee of the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, spoke regularly at the Arctic Futures Symposium, and was to become the first Vice Chancellor of the Andromeda Antarctic University, the current project of the IPF.

He was an admirer of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Station and its Zero Emissions philosophy, and regularly advised on the scientific direction of the station.  He was very interested in the data that could be collected at the Princess Elisabeth Station, as it was in the middle of a vast, hitherto little-monitored area of East Antarctica, and the data would be valuable for mathematical models on climate.  He donated three Automatic Weather Stations that he had designed to the station. He event travelled to Antarctica to install them: one on an ice field, one on the Antarctic Plateau, and one at the station’s airfield.

Koni had a profound grasp of the bigger picture and wanted to help to integrate the valuable data from PEA into regional mathematical models to improve the resolution of the surface mass balance (SMB) models.  He provided the equipment to start off the meteorological balloon launches from the Princess Elisabeth Station, (under the ACME Project) with the IPF and the Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI/IRM) of Belgium.

For several years, Alain Hubert and Nighat Amin from the IPF used to travel to Greenland to help out at Swiss Camp. The building campaigns were one of the highlights of the year for Alain Hubert, who is an accomplished carpenter.

Koni’s openness and warmth meant that scientists of all ages gravitated towards him, and some of the most interesting conversations were to be had, eating sushi hand-made by a NASA researcher on the ice at Swiss Camp. Whether at Swiss Camp, Boulder, Zurich, or Davos, Koni was always encouraging exchange and debate on the importance of science in society.

Koni enhanced life. He will be deeply missed by all. Our thoughts are with his children, for whom he always found time to create the most wonderful experiences.

Frank Pattyn in a Belgian glaciologist and ice sheet modeller. He is the director of the Laboratoire de Glaciologie at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Professor Pattyn has developed many ice sheet models, such as the Blatter-Pattyn model (a three-dimensional thermomechanical ice sheet model including higher-order stress gradients) and more recently the fast Elementary Thermomechanical Ice Sheet model (f.ETISh). These models simulate the behaviour of ice sheets and ice shelves, and allow for projecting future mass changes of ice sheets.

Professor Pattyn is currently Chairman of the Belgian National Committee on Antarctic Research, the Belgian branch of SCAR, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. He is also vice-president of the International Glaciological Society and Associate Chief Editor of the Journal of Glaciology. He has also taken part in nineteen expeditions to study Arctic and Antarctic glaciers.

During the 2019-2020 BELARE season he travelled to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station with the Mass2Ant project team for the final season of that project, an experience he has recounted. While not being a project PI, he was involved with the research during the 2019-2020 season.

What has the MASS2ANT project been studying in the Princess Ragnhild Coast region of East Antarctica?

The Mass2Ant project focused on temperature increases that we have observed over the last few centuries and associated changes in surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Most of the mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is influenced by precipitation brought from across the Southern Ocean. 

During previous seasons at PEA, the Mass2Ant team conducted two drillings in ice rises to complement the one which had already been carried out in the past for another project. Now, in three of these ice rises we have a record of how mass balance and snow accumulation changed over a period of more than one hundred years.

What were your objectives this past season?

My main objective was to close the project this year by carrying out repeat measurements, and we did so very efficiently. We had only one day of bad weather, which was very lucky.

What is behind the differences in surface mass balance across the Antarctica? Why is it important to study surface mass balance?

There are many places where surface mass balance is directly measured. The most obvious way to do so is by drilling a core and then analysing the thickness of the different layers. That gives you a year-to-year variability of snow accumulation. We further analyse isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in the water molecules. The isotopes give you the yearly cycle in temperature so you can precisely date each of these layers to determine how much has been deposited every year.

We had done that with the first ice cores we drilled, and we saw that over the last couple of decades, there has been an increasing in mass balance along the Princes Ragnhild Coast in East Antarctica. This is a surprising trend, as it was not seen in other ice cores in other parts of Antarctica. One of the hypotheses we put forward was that this was due to the fact that the area where we extracted the ice cores was much closer to the ocean, where you can see higher rates of snowfall. The amount of snowfall on a given area depends on how far a weather system can penetrate inland. Therefore, variability in weather patterns is probably related to the variability that we can detect in the ice cores we extracted.

Besides extracting ice cores and taking surface mass balance measurements of snow and ice, the Mass2Ant team also placed automatic weather stations on ice rises near the coast. How do the data these weather stations collect complement the project?

When you drill ice cores, this helps you to travel back into the past. But in order to get the whole picture, you also need to understand the different processes that are responsible for the distribution of ice and snow in the region.

In Belgium, for instance, whenever it rains or snows, the precipitation usually stays more or less in one place. This isn’t the case in Antarctica, where wind plays a major role in redistributing fallen snow. So, if you drill an ice core in a certain place, it does not necessarily mean that you’ll be able to measure precipitation in that spot. The snow could also have been deposited there by the wind. There is a risk of underestimating or overestimating snowfall in a particular place. So, in order to understand those processes, we installed two weather stations to understand how much snow arrives in that spot due to the wind and how local meteorological parameters influence this deposition.

Why is it important to study small-scale climate processes occurring in the Southern Hemisphere? What impacts could they have on large-scale events?

Upscaling is quite important. This is also a big part of the work of the Mass2Ant project. The idea is to see whether local variabilities are also detectable in larger atmospheric models. They translate local information to a larger scale, which allows us to understand how the surface mass balance of the whole Antarctic Ice Sheet functions.

During the 2018-2019 season in Antarctica, MASS2ANT extracted ice cores at the coast drilled to a depth of 260 metres. Have you been able to analyse these cores and learn anything from them?

Two ice cores were drilled. One during the 2017-2018 season, and one during the 2018-2019 setons, which was led by Professor Jean-Louis Tison and included Sarah Wauthy, who is in the process of analysing the ice cores at the ULB.

There are different types of analyses that Sarah will conduct. I already mentioned looking at the hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in the ice molecules, which allow you to determine the local temperature variations. It furthermore helps you to date the ice layers in the ice core.

But there is also the analysis of the density of the ice, the thickness of the layers, and eventually the analysis of other elements and gas, which allows you to identify and link these two variations in the sea-ice extension.

But the fact is that if you want to accurately interpret the ice cores, then you must also take into account ice-dynamical aspects. When ice accumulates every year, it also stretches. The reason why it happens is because the ice sheet on which the snow falls every year is moving. It moves not towards the centre, but sideways, out towards the coasts of the continent. And it means that the deeper you go, the more you find that the layers of ice have been stretched.

The ice layers in the ice sheet are like a rubber band: they get thinner when they’re stretched. So if you measure the thickness of the rubber band when it’s stretched, you actually underestimate its initial thickness. In the same way, there’s a risk of underestimating the amount of precipitation and snow accumulation with regard to the ice sheet’s mass balance. So what we need to do is to understand how this thinning process works.

How can one avoid underestimating mass balance?

A way to do so is by taking repeat measurements, preferably a year apart. This means that you need to do a measurement one year and then the following year you need to do exactly the same measurement in the same place. This allows you to measure how layers are stretched over time. There are several methods one can use.

One method is the optical televiewer. You lower a camera in the ice core borehole, and it takes 360° images as we lower it into the borehole. By processing the data, you are able to have a complete cylindrical 3D view of the ice core, which allows you to detect several layers in the hole corresponding to each year of snow accumulation.

You can distinguish individual years due to melting and refreezing at the surface that occurs with the seasons. Melting that occurs in summer makes the ice layers become denser and darker, while in winter, there is more accumulation and so the ice layers are less dense but whiter. If we compare these layers year-to-year, we can quantify how much stretching and thinning of each ice layer occurs over a year.

It’s also possible to use radar to quantify how ice layers are stretched and thinned. The radar emits electro-magnetic signals that penetrate the ice but bounce off of impurity layers in the ice. These impurities can be volcanic ashes but also icy layers or variations in ice density. The bottom of the ice, where it meets the bedrock, is the brightest reflector. Therefore, ice radar is often used to determine the thickness of the ice. However, if you have impurities in the ice, they show up as little wiggles in your radar image. You can then compare the wiggles of one year with the ones you obtained the following year-end this helps you determine how the ice layers change over time. 

And then there is a new method I have tried this past season. I employed the same radar but with varying antenna orientations. This method is interesting because ice crystals are not aligned in the same direction and the radar signal bounces off differently depending on the orientation of each crystal. This crystal orientation is a function of how ice deforms, or to put it differently how the rubber band stretches. So we can determine changes in ice crystals orientation by changing the angles of our antennas.

Other members of the Mass2Ant team (from the Delft University of Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder) employed a snow micropen, which is kind of a needle that goes through the surface. If you constantly force the needle, then the way it penetrates the ice is a function of how dense the layer is. They used this method to get information about how ice layer density changes over time. The results still need to be analysed, but we can already tell that there is a huge amount of surface variability.

How will the findings of the MASS2ANT project contribute to future climate change projections? How will they contribute to future IPCC reports?

The major contribution of this project lies in improving the predicted behaviour of climate models and more precisely, the surface mass balance and the distribution of snow accumulation. This is possible in many ways. First of all, now we have direct measurements thanks to the ice core analysis and weather stations, and we can understand the processes that can link and compare the different models. We can see how well models are able to resolve small-scale variability, whether it is regional variability, temporal variability, etc.

The work of the project also helps to understand current and recent past surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last couple of decades. Most of this analysis is done by regional climate models to determine the surface mass balance, which can be validated against our ice core evidence. Finally, we also have a better understanding of the processes that are involved in surface mass balance, especially with respect how it is re-distributed across the surface of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

What kind of logistical support did you receive during your three seasons in Antarctica? How did it help the project?

This was the third expedition of the Mass2ant and the main difference with the previous ones is that it was logistically much lighter. There was no drilling involved. In terms of equipment, this year we only brought radars, GPS instruments the optical televiewer and a snow micropen. So our team only consisted of a field guide from PEA and three scientists, which allowed us to travel swiftly.

We first went to the Western Ice Rise, put up small tents next to the borehole that had been done there last season to do all the measurements, and then headed to the second ice-rise to analyse that one. We only needed just over two intense and efficient weeks in the field to complete the work on the two sites. The organisation of and support for the field-campaign was excellent.

What are the next steps for your team of glaciologists at the ULB? Will there be future expeditions to Antarctica?

This was the last expedition of the Mass2Ant project and the remainder of the project will be dedicated to analysis of the different measurements and ice cores. For the moment there are no additional projects planned. There are calls for new projects coming up and wd are in the process of submitting a new proposal, but I cannot say much more about it now.

Let’s say that my interest is about the interaction between the ice and the ocean and this is something I am keen to discover more. 

Thanks to a recent decision by the Greenland Place Names Committee, a previously unnamed glacier in Greenland now bears the name of world-renowned Swiss glaciologist Professor Konrad “Koni” Steffen.  Koni was also an Honorary Member of IPF, and served on the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship Committee. Professor Steffen passed away in August 2020 while on a research mission to Swiss Camp, which is situated upstream from the Jakobshaven Glacier in Greenland.

Now known officially as Sermeq Konrad Steffen, the ocean-terminating glacier flows into the Arctic Ocean in the far northwest corner of Greenland.

Honouring a legend

William Colgan from  the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), proposed naming glaciers after two of his former colleagues at GEUS Niels Reeh and Anker Weidick, along with Professor Steffen, who as one of the world’s top experts on the Greenland Ice Sheet, spedning decades studying the ice sheet’s dynamics and the dramatic changes it has been undergoing as a result of climate change.

Before his passing, Professor Steffen was the Director of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)  and the Scientific Director of the Swiss Polar Institute (SPI). Prior to that, he was the Director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

During his career, Professor Steffen also found the time to teach and mentor some of the world’s top glaciologists. He loved taking them on memorable research expeditions to the Greenland Ice Sheet.

He was a close friend of IPF Chair and Founder Alain Hubert and Nighat Amin, both of who helped re-construct Swiss Camp research station in 2012. Professor Steffen used Swiss Camp as a base to conduct the bulk of his research on the Greenland Ice Sheet over the last 30 years.

He also visited the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station in 2012, when he installed two automatic weather stations, at PEA and on the Antarctic Plateau, off the Gunnestadtbreen. His legacy is the establishment of five automatic weather stations across a 220km transect to collect high resolution data that will contribute to improving climate models in East Antarctica in what is called the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiment (PEACE) project.

His extensive contributions to our knowledge about the Greenland Ice Sheet, climate change, and the cryosphere makes it fitting that Greenland has decided to name a glacier in his honour.

The naming of the glacier after Professor Steffen was publicly announced at The Cryosphere in a changing climate - A scientific symposium in memory of Koni Steffen in Davos, Switzerland June 23-24. 

At the same event, Dr. Derek Houtz from the WSL spoke extensively about the legacy of his former mentor.

A friend to Greenland

This is the first time in many years that a geographical feature in Greenland has received a name not of Greenlandic origin. However the extensive contributions Professor Steffen and his colleagues made to knowledge about Greenland also helped to elevate Greenlandic society.

Before naming the new glaciers, the Greenland Place Name Committee carried out extensive research to see if the newly named glaciers had any previous unregistered names that the Greenlandic population had used for these particular glaciers. They found no record of these glaciers bearing a name given by the local population. The families of the deceased researchers were also consulted prior to the naming of the glaciers.

In recent, times it is unusual for a geographical feature in Greenland to receive a name not of Greenlandic origin. However, the extensive contributions Professor Steffen and his colleagues made to knowledge about Greenland also helped to bring Greenland to wider attention internationally. Many politicians and journalists were invited to Swiss Camp, including former US Vice-President Al Gore and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

Dr Alexander Mangold is a researcher who has been working with the Observations Department at the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (KMI-IRM) since 2005. He manages the institute’s research on aerosols, UV and ozone at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Research Station. He has participated in numerous scientific expeditions to the station in Antarctica.

The last projects he has been involved with include AEROCLOUD (a collaboration between KU Leuven, the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-IRM0 and the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), CHASE (in partnership with Ghent University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles ULB)) and ACME (a collaboration between the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-IRM), the International Polar Foundation, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)).

You are involved in a number of research projects in Antarctica. Why so many?

I’m involved in several and they mutually benefit each other. I think last season I was involved with three. One is the AEROCLOUD project, which officially ended one year ago, but we left instruments at the station, which are still operational, even during the austral winter. I’m also involved with the CHASE project, which is about atmospheric chemistry and the chemistry of surface snow. This was the third season for CHASE, and there is still another season to do.

The third project I’m involved with is ACME. It was started as a cooperation between the Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-IRM), the International Polar Foundation (IPF) and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). It’s a great project because in order to investigate the atmosphere above the enormous Antarctic continent and obtain data to contribute to weather forecasts, you need to collect vertical meteorological information by launching weather balloons. It’s quite an effort (with respect to work, logistics and budget) to continue the measurements, so the involvement of IPF and staff like Benoît Verdin, who has launched the weather balloons during two seasons now, is essential. Several international scientists have already asked for the data collected from these balloon launches, and the data contributes to the work being done for the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP 2018-2019).

Why is East Antarctica particularly interesting for conducting atmospheric research?

It is an area where not much atmospheric research has been carried out yet. Another point is that PEA is located inland, but not too far from the coast. For our research, which involves studying precipitation, atmospheric chemistry and the transport of fine particles, the location of PEA is very good because it’s influenced by both oceanic air masses brought in by cyclones, but also by katabatic air masses from the interior of the continent. If you go to a coastal station, the meteorological situation is mainly influenced by cyclonic regimes. For this reason, conducting research at PEA is very interesting.

In 2014 the ACME project launched the first weather balloon from PEA. Have you continued the project throughout the years? What data have you collected?

We’ve conducted the ACME project almost all seasons since 2014. Indeed, the first balloon was launched in January 2014. It was quite exciting because it was new for everybody, but it worked well. Then, we continued it for each austral summer season that a research team was at the station. I have been at PEA for two additional seasons since then, and when I left the station, the IPF staff continued to launch weather balloons to collect data to contribute to the project.

Now we have six seasons of data, with data from the months of December, January and February. For some seasons, we also have data from a few days in November, but it depends each year on when the team and equipment arrived. If the weather conditions are good, then staff and instruments arrive earlier. Still, as it is Antarctica, we must be satisfied with the data that we are able to collect during favorable conditions.

Which other scientific teams have used the data that has been collected through ACME?

Scientists from the German Neumayer III Station have used the data to make weather forecasts for the region of Dronning Maud Land in East Antarctica. The radio soundings have even been used from time to time for the local airbases at PEA or Novolazarevskaya. Furthermore, the data has been used by several research groups, including:

1. KU Leuven in Belgium for the interpretation of clouds and precipitation data
2. The Royal Observatory of Belgium for interpretation of their GNSS water vapour data
3. The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences for improving radiative transfer modelling within the MICROBIAN project
4. The team from the Federal Polytechnic Institute of Lausanne (EPFL) who was at PEA during the last two seasons used the data to interpret precipitation measurements and the vertical dynamic structure of the troposphere
5. The Sorbonne University in Paris (CNRS, LMD/IPSL) for the interpretation of snowfall rates in East Antarctica
6. The British Antarctic Survey for studying gravity waves in the lower stratosphere.

We are happy that the data we collected have been shared so widely, and that we could do this additional project together with IPF.

How do ACME measurements contribute to the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) of the Worled Meterological Organization (WMO)?

I know the data have been included in the database of YOPP, so, the data is generally available. I know scientists from BAS also used data taken during this period. I am not aware of who else may have used them as they have been shared widely, and they are readily available to anyone who is interested in having them. There is a YOPP overview article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorologcial Society (doi.org:10.1175/BAMS-D_19-0255.1), in which the radio soundings at PEA are mentioned.

While the AEROCLOUD project ended in 2019 and in order to collect data, you installed many different instruments at PEA. What was the aim of combining so many instruments?

The AEROCLOUD project aimed to have a look at how clouds and aerosols influence the climate. On the one hand, you can look at how clouds impact climate. It is more direct because clouds reduce incoming radiation from the sun, but they can also trap radiation reflected from Earth’s surface. On the other hand, the project looked at the fact that the clouds can also bring precipitation, which plays an important role in surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet because precipitation is the only way the ice sheet gains mass, so understanding it is critical.

While measurements happened only at one location, when the data are fed into a regional climate model for this part of East Antarctica, the measured data will help the models to become more precise.

When it comes to the aerosols, they are essential because you need particles to form cloud droplets and ice crystals. If we can characterise more precisely the kinds of aerosols that help promote precipitation or to form ice clouds, liquid clouds, or mixed-phase clouds, then this will help the models to be much more precise. One of the most important aerosol parameters is obtained through the Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) instrument, measuring the number of particles able to form cloud droplets. It helped to improve a regional climate model for East Antarctica. The aim of our project is to continue with such measurements and  modeling studies.

How will the findings of your research help to delineate future climate change projections? Will they contribute to future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports?

This sort of regional climate modelling is part of a larger regional climate modeling initiative, bringing together different projects. To be sure, I would need to ask our KU Leuven partners, but I think some results they obtained will contribute to the next IPCC Assessment Report.

Our findings can be seen as a small piece of a very large puzzle. But even small contributions are needed to see the big picture. Other scientists use our data for simulations, and then other scientific groups use these simulations for their projects. From my experience in the atmospheric science community, scientists work really well together. They are always willing to help each other.

You and your colleague Quentin were not always on-site during every season. How did the BELARE team assist you with the many instruments you had installed?

The BELARE team really helped. However, first and foremost, they had to be trained to know what to do once Quentin and I left. Some instruments just need to be checked and maintained occasionally to continue to collect data, while others need more considerable attention (e.g., calibrations, minor repairs, refilling of working liquid).

This situation improved considerably once the remote communication connection was stably established. Since then, we’ve been able to manipulate or supervise our instruments from Belgium and notify the PEA team about actions that need to be taken.

An important task for the IPF team has been the launching of the weather balloons. They prepare the balloon before launching it, take the time to collect data, stop the measurements, and check the data afterwards. It required major commitment as well as some working hours, but I had the impression that the crew liked doing it. Launching a balloon is something more engaging than just switching on an instrument.

Since you come back to Belgium, have you had any difficulties in working on your research projects due to the limitations caused by coronavirus?

I didn’t experience direct limitations. Everything is still going on as a lot of science work is at the computer so I could still work online. The reason why I hope we can go back to a normal situation quite soon is that it is challenging to plan the next year’s Antarctic campaign, especially if you cannot talk directly with your teammates. If you do the whole organisation online, it gets a bit difficult. If you can all sit around the same table, you can easily exchange and discuss ideas.

Also, if you are required to work at home all the time it can be difficult to concentrate, especially if your children need help with, e.g., their math homework or some IT issues!

What are your plans for the next seasons? Are you planning to return to Antarctica soon?

We plan to send two people to PEA for the CHASE, ACME and CLIMB projects next season. I don’t think I will be part of the team going to Antarctica, but I hope to get the opportunity to go back to PEA one day as the time I spend there is always unique and fascinating.

Valentina Savaglia is a PhD student supported by a FRIA/FNRS grant specialising in cyanobacterial diversity, genetics and biogeography in Antarctic regions at the Centre d’Ingénierie des Protéines (CIP, Centre for Protein Engineering), Université of Liège and the Laboratory of Protistology and Aquatic Ecology (PAE), Ghent University.

Valentina is part of the MICROBIAN project, a collaboration between Ghent University, the University of Liège, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the Meise Botanic Gardens, which aims to study the effects of climate change on the diversity and genetic-functional attributes of soil microbiomes in Continental Antarctica

The MICROBIAN team, returned to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station for the third consecutive season. This year, the team was composed of Valentina Savaglia, Quinten Vanhellemont, Beatriz Roncero Ramos, and Juri Klusak. They spent four weeks around the station mapping soil habitats using drones and taking samples of microbial communities that were brought back to Belgium at the end of the season.

MICROBIAN is a research project financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), in the BRAIN-BE program.

The MICROBIAN project returned to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for a third consecutive season. What were the objectives of the mission this past season?  How do they fit into the overall objectives of the project?

During the 2019-2020 season, the MICROBIAN team concluded fieldwork as it was the last field campaign to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for the project. The main goals were to finish taking samples from open-top chambers and snow fences that were installed during the first year of field campaigns and during earlier projects and to map the different nunataks around the station.

On the first and second field campaigns (2017-2018 and 2018-2019), much time was devoted to exploring the area and taking samples of microbial communities from the nunataks around the station in order to document their biodiversity and functional characteristics. This year, we used a drone to map the nunataks. The data we collected will help us understand the physical characteristics of these terrestrial habitats. The very high-resolution mapping of the nunataks we did was crucial for our project as the microorganisms we are studying form inconspicuous biocrusts and biofilms, and the topography of their habitat needs to be surveyed in the most detailed way possible in order to understand and predict the conditions favouring their development. We also monitor local temperature through miniature recorders that are replaced each year.

As for the open-top chambers and the snow-fences, these are more long-term in-situ experiments mimicking altered climate conditions and the duration of snow cover. Samples of microorganisms will be taken from them again in the future in follow-up projects as we would like to monitor the trajectory of the communities for many years. The MICROBIAN project initiated these long-term monitoring studies, but there will be other follow-up projects in the future hopefully. 

What were some of the highlights of your fieldwork this season?

This year was exceptional because of the weather. It was very sunny most of the time and there were almost no storms at all. In previous years, we often experienced intense storms, which forced us to stay inside the station and lose precious time. But this season we could accomplish a lot.

The field guide from the BELARE team was very helpful to us for our field work. Thanks to him, we could work every day and almost every Sunday. It was exhausting, but we were grateful for what we could get done with his help.

This last season was very special for me because we also had the opportunity to climb several nunataks to place GPS markers on their summits, so that when the drone flew, it could recognize the exact position of the markers. It was not easy to transport the markers to the top of the nunataks, but the wonderful view was worth the effort!

Did you encounter any difficulties while doing your fieldwork?

Unfortunately, we had problems with the primary drone and weren’t able to use it all the time during the whole campaign. Fortunately, we had a smaller ‘back-up’ drone. While it wasn’t as ideal as the primary drone because it takes more time to do the mapping, it still took very high-resolution images, and produced excellent data for the purposes of the project.

Did you get to learn more about other research projects at PEA during the 2019-2020 season? Do any of them complement MICROBIAN?

It was enriching to work with several groups of researchers at the station this past season. We got to know the BELAM research project, which is hunting for micrometeorites. The two research projects don’t complement each other scientifically speaking, but we found it very interesting to think about ways in which the two projects could create synergies in the future. Unfortunately, the scientists working on an aerosol project, with whom we might cooperate in the future, were present at the station before Christmas and so we never met in person at PEA.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all of the world experienced some type of lockdown. How do you think it compares with working at an isolated research station in Antarctica?

In a way, the two experiences are comparable, but in other ways, they are different.

In Antarctica, we could still go outside, even for a short walk around the station. Also, we as scientists had to go into the field every day, so we never felt locked up. We also didn’t communicate with the outside world that much while in Antarctica. But as soon as we returned home to lockdown in Europe, the amount of online communication we were doing was almost overwhelming.

On the other hand, it was similar to lockdowns many people experienced due to COVID-19 as you are forced to share close quarters with the same people over a long period of time. You are not always able to have your own privacy in these kinds of situations.

However, people adapted their behavior to the unique situation. As you know that you need to be in close quarters with others for an extended period of time, you have to learn to be more patient with each other to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

Part of the MICROBIAN team got the opportunity to participate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) outreach sessions for students on Skype while at PEA. How was this experience for you?

The students prepared a lot of questions before every Skype session, so it was exciting to see such enthusiasm coming both from young children and secondary school students. 

While I was at the Princess Elisabeth, I took part in a session with high school students together with Henri Robert, IPF’s Science Liaison Officer. I had never spoken to high-school students before about my research. I was a little nervous because I didn’t know if I’d be able to answer all of their questions. But it went smoothly. They were very curious about things such as daily life in Antarctica for researchers and the kind of research we were doing there. They also asked about our thoughts on climate change.

It was very important for us as scientists to be able to pursue outreach activities with young citizens of the future.

As an early career female scientist, do you often motivate young women to pursue careers in  STEM disciplines?

As I usually speak with very young children about my research, I don’t often talk about the gender imbalance in many scientific fields. But during one Skype session I had with high school students while at PEA, I raised the issue.

Last season 2018-19 during the MICROBIAN field campaign, I was the only woman at the station for several weeks. I try to encourage young women and tell them they are just as capable as their male peers. They just need to believe in themselves and keep doing good work.

A good solution would be to raise awareness about the issue not only to young women but also to young men. They too need to be aware of the noticeable underrepresentation of women in STEM disciplines.

What do you think about young people demonstrating about taking action on climate change?

I think young people are very conscious about climate change and are very motivated to create a better future for themselves and the planet. Their voice should be more listened from older generations.

Some months ago, I went to a conference where I exchanged with some high school teachers. They told me that when the students go to visit museums with the school, they often refuse to take gift bags prepared for them (even if they include reusable water bottles) because it encourages the creation of more waste. Most conference attendees throw away things they receive in a gift bagbut young students prefer to bring their own water bottle everywhere even if it means an heavier backpack. It was touching to see how the young generation is thinking more sustainably and it should really be taken as an example for older generation students & scientist peers.

On Thursday 7 May, Dr. Kate Winter from Northumbria University, presented the work she has been doing for the last two seasons at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2020, Europe’s largest annual conference for geoscientists, which was forced to move online this year due to the COVID-19 crisis.

As the 2018-2020 laureate of the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, Dr. Winter has spent the 2018-2019 an 2019-2020 seasons in Antarctica conducting research for her BioFe project. Her research is examining how bioavailable iron (iron compounds that nourish organisms) is being transported by sediment in glacial ice as it flows from Antarctica’s interior to the coast and ultimately the Southern Ocean. Once in the ocean, this iron nourishes primary producers like phytoplankton, which take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.

Dr. Winter recounted her experience talking about her research at such an import scientific conference.

How did you come to present your research at the 2020 EGU General Assembly?

I submitted an abstract in January, just before I left Cape Town for my second field season at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. The EGU General Assembly has lots of different sessions that you can apply to be a part of, so I chose a session about biogeochemical cycling because I wanted to discuss my research with experts in this field.

How did you go about presenting your research at a conference using an online format?

A convener was assigned to manage each of the hundreds of sessions that had been scheduled. Due to the online format of the assembly, my session convener asked those of us presenting to put together a graphical abstract describing the research each of us has been doing, so people taking part in the session could get an idea of what our research was about before the session started.

During the session, which focused on biogeochemical cycling in the cryosphere, each presenter had five minutes to briefly introduce their research before the floor was open to questions.

What did you focus on in your presentation?

I used the session to introduce my research project, focusing on the multi-disciplinary research techniques I use to assess how continental sediments can add to the global carbon feedback loop.

During the session I learnt lots about biogeochemical cycling in the ocean, but I realised that very few people are looking at the source of bioavailable iron, so I am glad that my research will be able to start filling this gap.

Most of the presenters conduct their research in the Northern Hemisphere, in Svalbard and Greenland so it’s great that we are starting to see what is happening in Antarctica. One other researcher was looking at biogeochemical cycling along the coast of an island off the Antarctic peninsula, but it looks like I am one of the first researchers to be searching for nutrients in Antarctica in the interior of the continent. I think that might be due to logistical and cost constraints.

Research projects that go deep into Antarctica require a lot of funding to complete, so I was very lucky to have had the funding from the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship to be able to travel to more remote and logistically challenging parts of Antarctica. My research will allow the scientific community to fill in some of the scientific and geographical gaps of our knowledge of biogeochemical processes.

How was the presentation of your work received?

Very well. A lot of the participants asked about the methodologies that I used in my research, and how I knew that the iron-rich nutrients were coming from the sediment that was previously at the bottom of the ice sheet. I knew this thanks to the radar imaging that I was able to do during the two seasons I was in Antarctica.

The audience really appreciated how interdisciplinary my field research was. I wasn’t just taking sediment samples. I was also using radar to look at the topography of the bedrock beneath the ice, and using drone mapping and seismometers to track how sediment falls off of rocky outcrops and slip below the ice, before the sediment is transported to the coast via glacial flow.

Are you satisfied with how the session turned out?

One of my goals was to interact with researchers studying bioavailable iron that’s already in the ocean (on the other end of the nutrient cycle process) to exchange ideas and network. I was surprised at how well the online conference format worked – I was able to get in touch with a number of researchers who I’ve never met. I now have their contact details, so we can discuss our research further.

I was able to get the contact information of some of them, so we can discuss our research further.

The other session participants were also very helpful. Some of them gave me pointers on how I could begin to look at other nutrients in the sediment samples I collected in Antarctica, whilst others talked about the potential for future research collaborations.  This shows how the work I’ve conducted in Antarctica, thanks to the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, is a great proof of concept, so we could upscale this work in the future, to other areas of Antarctica and Greenland. The more I connect with those in the scientific community who work in this area, the more I get excited about the future – there is still so much to explore!

How many people attended your presentation online?

About 160 participated. This is a lot more than would have been able to fit into the room where we would have presented at the assembly in Vienna.

How did you find the online format of the conference?

I was so pleased that the organisers were able to run the conference online, at such short notice. One positive aspect is that all communication was done via text messages, which helped bring more people into the conversation than you could normally include in person (because of time constraints). There were no video presentations. This format allowed young academics who may sometimes be a bit shy to ask questions. It’s usually the more senior and more confident people who ask questions to presenters at conferences. In this format, everyone got to ask questions, which made it a more enriching experience. No question is silly. An idea you bring up can help move a project forward, so I really hope we can include text message chats and discussions in future conferences (whether they are held online, or in person)

A downside is that if you give a presentation online, sensitive information such as data and preliminary findings that haven’t been peer-reviewed can’t be shared easily (as is often the case at scientific conferences). In a closed-room setting, you’re only presenting to your peers, so you know who you’re talking to. You’ve all been in the same situation at some point so you know your audience will be discreet. But if you present online, you don’t know who might be able to have access to this information, so it’s a bit more restrictive.

I will say that not travelling to and from the conference made for a much smaller carbon footprint for the assembly. The current situation made it possible to test how to hold a conference as large as the EGU General Assembly (which usually draws more than 6,000 people) entirely online, without the massive carbon footprint involved in flying people in from all over the world. Many scientists don’t want to go to conferences all the time because of the environmental impacts of doing so. This was an occasion to test alternatives.

While one downside to online meetings is that you can’t meet people in person and build professional relationships with them, perhaps we don’t need to have in-person conferences as often as we do. Or perhaps we could do more hybrid conferences that are partly online and partly in-person to reduce the amount of travel required. In any case, the EGU General Assembly 2020 paved the way for how we might be able to have more environmentally-friendly conferences in the future.