Already several weeks into the new season, the old garage on the north side of the station is in the process of being torn down while the anchor points for its replacement are being installed.

The old garage has served the station team well during the first 10 years of the life of the station, housing equipment and serving as a workshop to perform maintenance on vehicles. This temporary technical facility was built during the construction of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station. Since then, the station has hosted more scientific activities and scientists than initially planned during the pre-study phase of the project. It was not foreseen that there would be such a high demand to use the station from the Belgian scientific community.

The additional infrastructure that became the old garage was set up on the ice (a small glacier moving slowly down towards the west). The IPF wanted to study the movement of the ice in order to determine how to design and build a more permanent structure that would take into account this movement while having a sustainable structure supported by sliding posts with a hydraulic system to lift it up the station once a year.

This work was started in 2012-13 and will be completed this season by the reconstruction of a new technical garage space.

Mathieu Chables, the building foreman who is responsible for overseeing the garage demolition and replacement project, explains why this change was necessary. He also gives some details about the new garage and the construction process.

Why was it necessary to replace the old garage after ten years?

Slowly flowing ice beneath the old garage was the main reason to tear down the old garage and construct a new one. The old one had been constructed on top of the glacier in front of the station and anchored directly into the ice.

But as any glaciologist can tell you, ice pretty much anywhere on an ice sheet like the one covering Antarctica moves very slowly but surely over time through a process known as plastic flow. All the ice in Antarctica, Greenland, and the world’s mountain glaciers slowly flow towards the coast like a very slow-moving river due to gravity. This means any structures built on top of ice will slowly be distorted over time as the ice moves.  The flow is imperceptible, but over time, in some locations in the world, ice can flow as fast as several meters per year!

At Princess Elisabeth, each year, the ice moved both horizontally and vertically by about 10-15 centimetres. As the ice flowed, so did the anchor points of the old garage in the ice, making the entire structure increasingly crooked with each passing year.  After 10 years, this movement adds up. By the start of the current season, one side of the garage had dropped almost a metre, and the walls of the structure had been distorted.

How will the new version of the garage solve the problem of having to build over slowly flowing ice?

The new garage will be anchored on its eastern side to the granite ridge that the main body of the Princess Elisabeth station is built upon. This new anchor point - which is essentially a hinge - will make it possible for the garage to be moved back into place as the ice below it slowly flows and recedes. The western side of the new garage will have pistons, allowing it to be raised each year as the ice on the glacier beneath it drops, making sure it stays level with the rest of the station over time.

It’s quite an ambitious project to undertake over the course of the 2019-2020 season. How far along in the process?

We started the demolition of the old garage in November not long after the first members of the BELARE team arrived in November. It took us about three weeks to tear down the old garage.

Will materials from the old garage be recycled?

In accordance with the philosophy behind the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica to leave as small an environmental footprint as possible, we’re going to re-use as much of the wood from the original garage as possible. We’re also going to re-use the glass wool insulation from the old garage in the new garage.

Wood that can’t be re-used in the new garage will be used for other construction projects around the station. We always need wood for something we’re building, so it will be put to good use one way or another. Any leftover waste that simply can’t be used again - which we hope will be very little - will be sent back to South Africa to be disposed of.

What’s the timeline for the construction of the new garage?

As the old garage was being torn down, we already started to install the main anchor point where the hinge for the new garage will be attached. Once this is installed, all we need to do is wait for materials that will arrive on the supply ship later in December to start the construction of the new garage.  Once these materials arrive in Antarctica, they are transported from the coast to the station on the annual mid-season traverses that the BELARE team does.

Once we have all the materials we need, I expect that we’ll need about six weeks to build the garage. It should go very quickly once we have everything we need because the specific design and architecture of the building will allow it to be assembled very quickly. We also work very well as a team and can get things done very quickly when we put the effort in.

How big will the new garage be?

It will be 430 square metres in area and about around 4.5 metres high.

How many people are working on the garage renovation project?

It varies from week to week, depending on who might be needed elsewhere to take care of another job. But on average, at any given time, we have about ten people working on the garage renovation project.

What are the challenges in the construction of the new garage

Cutting into the granite ridge to make anchor points for the hinge of the new garage has been challenging. The hinge of the new garage will be placed on this anchor point. We drilled deep holes in the rock, into which the hinge will be placed and then secured with resin, similar to how we secured the supports of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on the same ridge. We also have to be sure the hinge is perfectly level to ensure smooth movement of the garage as we need to adjust it over time.

Aside from the new hinge system, will there be any other significant differences with the new garage?

One major improvement that the mechanics and technicians of the station will appreciate is that the new garage will be heated.  The old one wasn’t, so it was often  -15°C or -20°C in the old garage. At these temperatures, it was often difficult to perform maintenance on vehicles and equipment.

The new garage will no longer serve to park vehicles and will only be used as a workshop. Now that the hangar at the Winter Park (which is 2 km from the station) has been built, most of the machines can find a sheltered space during the winter and when not used. This means more room to work and store equipment in the new building. The garage will also be equipped with a pit so that mechanics can comfortably work on the underside of vehicles.

On the morning of Saturday 7 December 2019, scientists from different parts of the world joined the operational team of the International Polar Foundation working at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station to express their support for Climate Express, the Climate Coalition, and many other NGOs for the "United for Climate - Human Chain" awareness-raising campaign by symbolically stretching the human chain they plan to make in Brussels on Sunday 8 December all the way to Antarctica.

Scientists are currently at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) station to study the importance of the ice, the climatic history of our planet, our environmental footprint, the local biodiversity and other important research topics. PEA is the first ever zero emission polar research station on the Antarctic continent - one of the most sensitive places on Earth to the warming of the oceans and the atmosphere caused by climate change, and also a place that plays a major role in regulating the planet's climate.

Right now, in the middle of the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) the ClimateCoalition and Climate-Express decided to join forces with many NGOs in Belgium to create a human chain in the center of Brussels on Sunday 8 December to urge our politicians to take meaningful measures to significantly reduce greenhouse gases emissions causing climate change. As climate change is a global problem that knows no borders, all who are currently at PEA wanted to symbolise this by being part of the chain as well.

For more photos of the extension of the human chain in Antarctica, please have a look at the photo gallery on the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station website. On this website, you may also find more information about the activities taking place at the world's first ever zero emission polar research station.

On Sunday 1st December, the International Polar Foundation, together with APECS Belgium, was present at the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences in Bruxelles to celebrate Antarctica Day - the anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty - with the visitors of the Museum’s temporary Antarctic exhibition.

Activities for families

During the day, different activities were organised to present to parents and children the scientific activities conducted by Belgian researchers in Antarctica. Models of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station were on display so everyone could get to know the world’s first zero-emission polar research station. Attendees played exciting games to better understand the differences between food webs in the Arctic and the Antarctic, while children were able to look through microscopes to observe microorganisms that inhabit the ice-covered continent.

In the early afternoon, adults and children had the opportunity to have a videoconference with Henri Robert, IPF’s Scientific Liaison Officer, who is currently at the Princess Elisabeth station for the 2019-2020 season. Adults and children were fascinated by the opportunity to see the ice-covered continent via live video stream.

After getting treated to the breathtaking views of the Antarctic landscape as seen from the station, Henri was asked several questions about the daily life at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. These questions raised awareness about the future environmental challenges caused by climate change and led to discussions about the need to preserve Antarctica.

The last question for Henri from one of the children, who asked if Antarctica worth all the trouble needed to get there, and if Santa Claus delivered gifts there, too. Henri replied that at the station they have always received a lot of chocolate for Christmas.

It looks like we’ve piqued the interest a future generation of young Antarctic scientists, whom we hope to see at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica in the not too distant future!

Why do we celebrate Antarctica Day?

On the 1st of December 1959, the Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington, DC by the twelve original signatories (including Belgium) that had significant scientific interest in Antarctica at the time, and had recently participated in the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958. Becoming a signatory to the Antarctic Treaty means accepting to preserve Antarctica as a place free of military activity to be used for peaceful scientific research purposes only. 

The treaty entered into force on 23 June 1961. Since then, dozens more countries have signed on to the treaty, and today 54 countries are signatories.

Many subsequent conventions have also seen signed and entered into force since the original treaty was signed, including Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora, and the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.

Ever since the first teams of scientists from the CHASE, MASS2ANT and POPE projects arrived on the first ever intercontinental flight to Perseus Airstrip on 22 November, all have been acclimating to life in Antarctica and getting started on their research.

After being welcomed to Antarctica with an evening ride to the Princess Elisabeth Station on modified Toyota Hiluxes, the scientists had a good meal and got a good nights’ sleep in the newly expanded station.  The following day, a logistics team that hauled the scientists’ equipment and supplies for the station from Perseus Airstrip the morning of 23 November arrived in the late afternoon. Everyone lent a hand to unload the tractors when they arrived.

Now that the scientists had their equipment, they could get started on their work for the season.

Field training

But before any field work can be carried out, all scientists and crew must partake in a two-day field training exercise so they can handle emergency situations in Antarctica.

First and foremost is the usual crevasse training, which involves being lowered into a crevasse and then pulled out by your colleagues. This training is essential to have in case you or a colleague fall into a crevasse.  As the ice sheet is slowly but surely moving, this creates cracks in the surface of the ice called crevasses, which can be several tens of metres deep and a few meters wide. They are often covered over by a thin layer of snow and can be undetectable to the unaided eyes and usually form where the bedrock underneath the ice imposes constraints on the moving ice. However, it remains vital to be prepared to know what to do in case a person or a vehicle falls into one.

All scientists are also given first aid training. While a certified field guide knowledgeable in first aid always accompanies every field team, it’s important for everyone in the field to know how to handle medical emergencies until help arrives.

And of course, scientists are trained on how to use skidoos and other equipment they might need to use in the field, such as a GPS device so they don’t get lost. Antarctica can be a vast, white, barren landscape in all directions in many places, so having a GPS at all times to get your bearings is essential.

Getting down to work

With the two-day mandatory field training taken care of, the three scientific teams began their work on their various scientific projects.

CHASE

Scientists from the CHASE project (Stefania Gilli from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Preben Van Overmeiren from Ghent University) start to work which consist on the replacement of the filters of the project’s air particle samplers around the station.
In the coming week, the two of them will also take a short field trip to the coast in order to change other filters and retrieve samples of air particles that have been collected since last season.

The purpose of the CHASE project (which is sponsored by the Belgian Federal Science Policy - BELSPO) is to collect samples of air particles in Antarctica to see to what extent organic and inorganic airborne particles from the rest of the world reach Antarctica. Every year researchers collect filters that have accumulated particles over the course of a year, and replace them with fresh filters.

How much of the pollution in the mid-latitudes from human activity ends up in Antarctica?  We’ll find out once the project releases its results.

MASS2ANT

Jean-Louis Tison and Frank Pattyn from the Université Libre de Bruxelles have already started their field research for the MASS2ANT project (also sponsored by the Belgian Federal Science Policy - BELSPO), which is studying surface mass balance variability in the Princess Ragnhild Coast, 200 km from the station.

Frank and PhD student Thore Kausch left for the coast on Saturday 30 November to visit the same regions of ice shelves that the team visited in previous seasons.  Along for the ride this time is another PhD student from the US named Eric Keenan, and of course, a field guide, Raphael Richard.

Their goal this year will be to collect the two meteorological stations that had been set up at Frank Kenny Ice Rise along with radar and GNSS measurements. They will also take teh temperature and optical televeiwer (OPTV) measurements at last year’s ice core borehole. The OPTV is a kind of camera that films and analyses the snow and ice layers inside of the borehole that was drilled at a record 260 metres at T-Ice Rise last season.

The MASS2ANT team will be at the coast for three weeks, and will return to the station on around the 19th of December, before heading home on the 22nd and arriving in time for Christmas a few days later.

This will be the last season for the MASS2ANT project.  Will their research be able to determine if human activity has influenced surface mass balance in the Princes Raghnild Coast Region? To what extent is surface mass balance in the area influenced due to variability in atmospheric and ocean circulation?  We’ll find out these questions and more when the results of their research are published.

POPE

Scientists from the Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, including Alexi Bern and Alfonso Ferrone, are continuing their study of snow accumulation in Antarctica under the Princess Elisabeth Station Orographic Precipitation Experiment (POPE).

The scientists from the POPE project are trying to determine where and how precipitation in Antarctica forms, and how much of this precipitation, once deposited on top of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, eventually gets transformed over time into ice.

This season the POPE team is installing additional equipment, including a large dish that detects the movement and quantity of snow fall. At the moment, they’re analyzing different options to determine the best locations in the vicinity of the station to install their sampling equipment.

Knowing this rate of accumulation and loss of ice will help glaciologists such as those working in the MASS2ANT project get a better idea of the mass balance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the region of the Princess Elisabeth Station.

JARE

For a few days earlier this week, the Princess Elisabeth Station also hosted five Japanese scientists from the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) as they prepared for a mission to in the northern part of the Sør Rondane Mountains. They will set up a camp close to Brattnipane nunatak to perform a geological study of the area.

They are expected to be in the field for one month, returning to the station around Christmas.

We’ll provide more updates on all of the scientific teams as they make progress with their research.

On 22 November, the new Perseus Airstrip, located just 60 km north of the Princess Elisabeth Station, welcomed its first intercontinental flight when an Ilyushin 76 plane carrying the first scientists of the 2019-2020 season from Cape Town touched down just after 18:00 UTC.

The Perseus Airstrip is now part of DROMLAN (Dronning Maud Land Air Network), which is responsible for all logistics in the Dronning Maud Land region of East Antarctica. Under ALCI (Antarctic Logistics Center International), the logistics service provider in DROMLAN based in South Africa, the new airstrip is partly maintained by the BELARE (Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition) team members and will allow savings of both time and money for scientists doing research at the Princess Elisabeth Station and its vicinity.

An ideal location

Situated at 71°25’42” South and 23°33’57” East, the 3 km-long Perseus Airstrip sits atop a blue ice field close to rounded nunatak called Romnoes. The climate at this location is quite dry, with very little snow accumulation. This is due in part to the fact that the airstrip sits on the leeward side of Romnoes, allowing it to be partially protected from katabatic winds from Antarctica’s interior, and snow accumulation. This makes bulldozing maintenance to smooth out the airstrip easier than it would be at other locations.

Sitting on solid blue ice in a cold environment that never goes above freezing also means that the airstrip won’t be at risk of melting during the austral summer, which can sometimes happen at stations at the coast when temperatures get warmer.

Great benefits to science

The new airstrip is within a couple of hours’ driving distance from the PEA station.

“Before the Perseus airstrip was operational, scientists always had to fly to the Russian Novo (Novolazarevskaya) Station 450 km further to the west and take a feeder flight to get to the Princess Elisabeth Station,” explained Henri Robert, the International Polar Foundation’s Science Liaison Officer and one of the passengers on this flight. “Sometimes bad weather could hold up scientists at Novo for days or even a week, and that’s a big loss of time if you only have four weeks to do your research project. Since a feeder flight is in this case no longer needed between Novo and PEA, the cost of the overall bill to transport people and cargo to the station can be reduced. This also offers more opportunities to bring heavy scientific equipment directly to the vicinity of the station.

When Henri arrived, he and the other scientists were driven to the Princess Elisabeth Station by members of the BELARE team in customised Toyota Hiluxes. The journey took less than four hours. The following day, a separate BELARE crew used Prinoth tractors to haul to the station the scientists’ equipment along with supplies for the station, including fresh food from South Africa.

“In terms of convenience and savings, participating in the development of this runway has been well worth the investment of time and effort,” Henri stated.

Contribution to infrastructure

The Perseus Airstrip project has been in the works by ALCI over the past two seasons, during which time the Princess Elisabeth Station team has participated in its maintenance.

This activity is part of the contribution BELARE makes to DROMLAN. Each station in the DROMLAN region in East Antarctica agrees to take part in the maintenance of common logistical infrastructure every research team in the region uses. 

During the 2019-2020 season, ALCI is building a hangar at Perseus to house maintenance vehicles such as a firefighting truck and bulldozers that will be used to maintain the airstrip.

In close partnership with the Mission of Canada to the EU, BOZAR, and its many Arctic Futures Symposium partners, the International Polar Foundation co-organised a highly successful second edition of the Arctic Shorts film evening at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels on Monday 18 November.

More than 350 members of the general public filled up Salle M auditorium at BOZAR, making the second edition a repeat of last year’s very successful first edition.

The Arctic's diversity on display

An official side event of the annual Arctic Futures Symposium, and part of the BOZAR Nordic Fall programme, the Arctic Shorts film evening included seven short films by film makers from all across the Arctic.

Following introductory keynotes from Chris Cooter, Chargé d’Affaires at the Mission of Canada to the EU, and a brief opening statement from Martha Otte, the Director of the Tromsø International Film Festival, the audience was treated to works made by filmmakers from Arctic Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faore Islands, Norway, Sweden, and Sápmi / Finland.

After the films were shown, two of the filmmakers who were able to make it to Brussels to show their films took part in a panel discussion led by Martha Otte.

Executive Director of Wapikoni Mobile Odile Joannette whose film Katatjatuuk Kangirsumi was shown, and Inuk Jørgensen, the Director of the Greenlandic Film Home, responded to questions about their respective films. In addition to discussing their sources of inspiration, the two of them discussed topics such as the significant number of young indigenous peoples working in the arts to promote indigenous culture, and to address the problems their regions face due to climate change.

A big thank you

The International Polar Foundation would like to thank the Mission of Canada to the EU for the lead role it played in making the second edition of the Arctic Shorts film evening happen, BOZAR for hosting the event and making it part of its Nordic Fall programme, and all the Arctic Futures Symposium partners who helped provide the films selected for the event.

And special thanks is also owed to the general public, which again proved that there is a strong interest in Arctic culture in Brussels!

This week, at a ceremony in Fleurus, Belgium, Komatsu Europe International presented the International Polar Foundation with a state of the art HB215LC-1 hybrid excavator, which will go into use support polar science at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

The excavator was handed over to Vice President of the International Polar Foundation Nighat Amin, and Executive Director Andreas Wagner by Komatsu Europe CEO and Managing Director, Keiko Fujiwara at the headquarters of BIA, Belgium’s official distributor for Komatsu.

The Komatsu HB215LC-1 is a second generation hybrid machine, boasting an average of 25% less fuel consumption and CO2 emissions than a traditional excavator. The HB215LC-1 channels kinetic energy from the braking created bythe turning motion of the exavator's body directly into energy that is used for operating the machine, instead of storing it in batteries.  This means that that HB215LC-1 consumes much less energy than an convention excavator - 25% less, in fact.  For such large machines this is a considerable saving, and the HB215LC-1 delivers best performance of any hybrid excavator on the market. At Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, which is a zero emission, wind and solar-powered polar research station; it’s only natural that we should make the move towards vehicles that leave a light environmental footprint on the environment. We're proud that Komatsu recognises the importance of our work in Antarctica, and the value of maintaining strong and professional public private partnerships. 

On Monday December, 2nd, the HB215LC-1 was loaded on board the Mary Arctica in the port of Zeebrugge for the long voyage south to Antarctica. It’s due to arrive around January 15th - then the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica team will take over responsibility for bringing the excavator on the long 240km trek from the coast to the station, where it will be used for clearing ice and snow and for construction work.

The summer of 2019 passed so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that the BELARE team packed up their gear and prepared the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station for overwintering.

But now it’s time to turn our attention once again to Earth’s southernmost continent as we follow the adventures of the 2019-2020 Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE).

We’ll be posting more news stories, videos, and photo galleries during the Antarcdtic season this year. In order to be able to give the general public greater access to what happens at the station, we’ve decided to put all of this on the website dedicated to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

There will be regular updates about the goings on at the station and about the important scientific research projects that take place there. Make sure to check it out!

On the evening of 5 November, the first 12 members of the station team (including team leader Alain Hubert, field guides, engineers, mechanics, a doctor, and a cook) arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station to officially start the 2019-2020 Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE)season. They wasted no time in getting the station up and running!

Fully charged

The BELARE team was happy to find the battery packs that collect renewable wind and solar energy were fully charged and ready to power the station.  The team was able to get to work getting everything ready for the austral summer research season.

The first tasks consisted of getting the station’s water treatment system started up, checking the scientific instruments that have been collecting data over the winter, and getting the vehicles and equipment ready for use in the field.

Amazingly, within three hours, all of the vehicles at the Winter Park were started up and taken out of the hangar that was built to protect them over the winter. It was certainly worth the time spent building the wooden structure! Before the protective hangar was built, it could take them up to a week to dig all the snow away from the equipment and get them all started up.

The lead team won’t be alone for long, as they will soon be joined by 8 more on 13 November to help them prepare for the arrival of the first sicentists about a week later!

We’ll keep you updated on the latest actives of the BELARE team as they come in!