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The 2020-2021 season at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica has been progressing smoothly for the BELARE team, despite the challenges the team has faced due to the COVID-19 situation. After completing 24 days of quarantine near Cape Town before leaving for Antarctica and a weather delay, the BELARE team has overcome a few initial challenges they’ve encountered at the start of the season to have a quieter yet very productive season.

Aymar de Lichtervelde, a process engineer who is in charge of the water treatment system of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Research Station, spent 21 days in Antarctica with the BELARE team during the 2020 - 2021 season.

While only in Antarctica a short time, he was able to make a lot of progress in his continuing mission to improve the water production and treatment systems at the station.

Armin Sigmund is a PhD student conducting research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). During the 2020-2021 research season, Armin travelled to Antarctica to help maintain and upgrade several instruments for a long-term project EPFL is managing in the vicinity of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station. Upon his return to Europe, he recounted the highlights of his first journey to Antarctica.

With most parts of the world experiencing some sort of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, New Year’s celebrations have been, for the most part, relatively small and rather calm affairs. With only 15 people at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, New Year’s was small compared to previous years. Yet the crew still was able to have a festive evening.

Christmas 2020 has already come and gone at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

It’s amazing how time flies when you are in Antarctica, away from the pandemic crisis, and focusing on the mission. The BELARE team has been at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for three weeks now, and we’ve already seen the first team members and scientists leave.

Alexis Merlaud is an atmospheric scientist from the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB). He is currently part of the 2020-2021 BELARE expedition, installing instruments dedicated to observing the atmosphere above Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. Dr. Merlaud dedicated some of his time to talk about the ozone hole over Antarctica that forms every year during the austral spring, and why this year’s ozone hole is persisting longer than normal.

While the COVID-19 pandemic kept the symposium from taking place phsycially in Brussels, the 11th annual Arctic Futures Symposium managed to be a highly successful online event.

After an extended quarantine in Cape Town, due to poor weather conditions in Antarctica, the 2020-2021 Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE) was finally able to reach the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) station!

After 24 days of social isolation in the vicinity of Cape Town and three Covid-19 tests per team member (all came back negative!) the 2020-2021 BELgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE) is ready to begin!