Last week most of the scientists and several of the crew headed home from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, having accomplished their scientific objectives for this season. Only a core crew and one scientist will stay until the end of the season.
A successful season for science
From the ExPoSoils project, Valentina and Björn were able to take microbe samples from all the target sites the project had identified. They even had time to return to a few sites to take more samples after a few weeks had gone by. The HYPSTAR radiometer Quentin had installed at a number of sites also took solar radiation measurements for a few weeks before being repatriated. Quentin also managed to set up several time-lapse cameras that will take occasional regular photos of the sample sites until the scientific research team returns next year.
Paula and Sibylle also had a good season working for the PASPARTOUT project. Paula’s automatic volatile organic compounds sampler on the roof of the station is running well. The IPF crew still at the station will keep an eye on it until the end of the season, but it will be left at PEA over the winter to collect samples during the eight months the station is uninhabited.
During her trip to the coast at the end of January, Paula successfully set up an active snow sampler to collect snow particles over the upcoming austral winter, while Sibylle managed to take several snow samples from the two 2-metre deep snow pits she dug at the coast. The deeper the snow sample, the further back in time the snow (and the atmospheric particles attached to the snow) originally fell.
The samples Paula and Sibylle took have been shipped to Belgium, where particles trapped in the snow will be analysed to determine atmospheric circulation patterns over Antarctica and from where these air masses that reach Antarctica originate.
Sibylle will be interviewed by Belgian TV station RTB in the coming weeks, so look out for her explaining her work in an upcoming report!
Although he had a few technical issues to overcome, Eric Rignot was able to complete his radar transects along the King Baudouin Ice Shelf, and Brandon helped him set up an automatic weather station to monitor weather conditions on the ground over time to help determine surface mass balance of the ice in the area for the RINGS project.
And even though it required a few return trips during their last week at the station, Simon and Nico completed their maintenance of the automtic weather stations in the PEACE project, making sure they will continue to collect weather data over the winter months to contribute to weather and climate modelling in the Queen Maud Land region or East Antarctica.
A quieter station
The station is nwo a lot quieter than it was just two weeks ago. Brandon is the only scientist still at the station along with about a dozen IPF crew. Brandon will continue to take wind speed measurements for his research project and help out aroudn the station until it’s time to leave.
Meanwhile, Expedition leader Alain Hubert and the remaining engineers, technicians, plumbers, and mechanics are slowly starting to prepare the station for overwintering.
Several tasks need to be completed before leaving, including making sure the software in the programmable logic circuit is up to date and able to respond to any changes in energy production during the austral winter, not to mention accept commands via satellite from Belgium, as the station is run remotely for eight months.
It also means slowly preparing the newly installed water treatment system for shutdown, which includes draining the pipes and tanks of the new system
And of course the mechanics are doing final maintenance on all the vehicles before storing them at the winter park.
It’s amazing how quickly the season has gone by! It will soon be time to say au revoir to the Princess for eight months.
Last week IPF staff, scientists, and engineers were very active in outreach activities from Antarctica.
A school visit
Last Monday, Education Outreach Manager Mike Sterken and IPF Logistics Manager Alain Thierry Barrera visited the British International School in Brussels to give lessons about the polar regions to two classes of elementary school children.
After learning about the basics of the Arctic and Antarctic from Mieke and Alain Thierry and what it takes to be a polar scientist, the children got to speak live with IPF engineer Oscar Pickerill directly from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica! Oscar was happy to answer the childrens' questions about daily life at the station and what life is like in Antarctica. Perhaps one day some of the children will want to become polar researchers themselves!
A live webinar with global reach
Then on Wednesday evening, Central European Time, engineers and scientists at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica gave a 90-minute webinar to more than 150 students, journalists, researchers, and members of the general public from around the world.
The webinar showcased the renewable energy production and water treatment system at the station, along with the diverse scientific projects taking place there this season from the fields of microbiology, atmospheric sciences, weather and climate data collection, and surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. There was also a special surprise presentation on the IPF’s future projects at the end of the webinar.
Organised in partnership with the Center for Social and Environmental Futures (C-SEF), the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), the Boulder Faculty Assembly Climate Science and Education Committee, the National University of Singapore, and CIRES Education and Outreach, the event’s aim was to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and learning among the polar research community and the general public. Feedback on the event was very positive and it was agreed to host similar events in the future.
For those who missed the webinar, a recording of the entire webinar is available on the CIRES YouTube channel.
A few more webinars with schools in Belgium directly from Antarctica will take place during the last few weeks of the 2023-24 austral summer research season. Every year the IPF team in Antarctica holds live webinars with schools and universities in Belgium and around the world to discuss topics including polar science, the zero emission design of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, climate change, and biodiversity.
This past week saw a lot of movement and travel across the ice sheet, as many scientists headed out into the field to carry out their research.
This past Monday, Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) working on the PASPARTOUT project left in the direction of the coast with IPF field guide Manu Poudelet in one of the station’s modified Toyota Hiluxes. They are spending about 10 days in the vicinity of the L0 ice rise. Here Sibylle will be digging a two-metre deep trench in the snow to take snow samples at various depths. Back in Brussels these snow samples will be analyzed to determine which kind of particles are present. This will help to determine atmospheric circulation patters that persist and are driven to the frozen continent of Antarctica. The analysis and the particles that are present will also help to determine from where these air masses originated before being driven south, for example do they come from Africa or another, more far off continent.
They will dig two pits, one to the west and one to the east of the summit of the L0 ice rise. The deeper depths of the snow pits will encapsulate the older particles, such as dust, with the top layer of the snow pit being the freshest and newest deposits, from the past year. Therefore a deep snow pit is required to be able to look back and have particles to analyze from multiple years, which would in turn allow the possibility to track any changes that have taken place to circulation patterns bringing air to the Antarctic continent, which would be another example of climate change.
After a few successful weeks of testing the snow auto sampler at the PEA, the instrument was taken down, loaded up and re-installed this past Friday at the same location that Sibylle had dug one of her snow pits. This instrument will stay at this location, roughly 20km from the end of the ice shelf and open water. This instrument is programmed to turn every 3 months, capturing and retaining snow from each season which will also be analyzed for the particles contained within the captured snow.
On Tuesday, Valentina, Björn and Quentin from the ExPoSoils project headed to the Dry Valleys with IPF engineer Nico to set up the HYPSTAR radiometer, which will measure solar radiance at the site over the next few weeks. At the same time, Valentina and Björn took microbial samples from the exposed soil and rock, after they had carefully removed the snow from the snow fence that had been installed during a previous campaign. The team plans on visiting more sites and will also be installing cameras at multiple locations to shoot time-lapses of the sites and track the changes/growth taking place on the exposed soil and rocks over the next year.
Wednesday and Thursday saw a mass exodus of scientists, IPF crew as well as the four-person film crew lead by Eric Goens from the station. This included a number of different research groups heading out into the deep field. The majority of people spent the first night at Perseus airfield before splitting off in various directions the next morning. The film crew was a part of the slow-crawling Prinoth traverse team. They plan to visit a number of the research sites to document the various projects taking place.
World-renowned glaciologist Eric Rignot from UC Irvine also left separately for the coast on Thursday with Christophe, another polar field guide. He and Christophe will take several radar transects of the bedrock topography of the grounding line at the King Baudoin Ice Shelf by dragging a radar apparatus mounted on top of sledges that had been specially constructed for this task by IPF engineer Nico. Additionally, Brandon Von Schalk from the EPFL in Switzerland offered to lend a helping hand and accompanied Eric to run the radar, because his instruments at PEA were running well and having more people means more time on the snowmobile, which translates to more radar measurements!
On Wednesday Simon and Nico, accompanied by fellow IPF systech engineer Aymar departed in another specially outfitted Toyota Hilux to service two automatic weather stations in the PEACE project AWS transect. The project is switching over to using Iridium antennas to send raw data to servers in France, after which the data is turned into usable weather data products which are currently used for weather forecasting as well as inputs for regional climate models. However, more importantly these automatic weather stations allow for long term monitoring of the ice sheet and provide a benchmark going forward to track any changes that are taking place in this region of East Antarctica.
On Friday, January 26th, two members of the CHINARE expedition as well as three members of the Ken Boreck flight crew departed after spending five days at PEA, using the station as a base for taking measurements of the nearby ice shelves for the international RINGS project. They arrived and departed in their specially outfitted Snow Eagle DC-3 aircraft. This research aircraft has state-of-the-art instruments to measure all things related to ice thickness and mass, including a highly accurate and sensitive gravity-meter. This instrument allows them to track changes to ice mass along the ice edges by flying the same route on separate campaigns and being able to compare and contrast the data from different years and accurately see the changes taking place along the ice shelves. Our Chinese visitors left behind several gifts, including special Chinese spirits and various Chinese foods and snacks for their Belgian hosts, which were very much appreciated!
Expedition leader Alain Hubert started his journey to the coast on Wednesday along with two members of the IPF crew, Yann and Tim, and the film crew. Alain split off from the group to take snow depth measurements along a transect to the coast that he does every year for the TIMBER project led by the University of Grenoble. When that was completed he rendezvoused with the rest of the team close to the coast to pick up the last of the cargo the ship had dropped off a few weeks ago. Tim and Yann then headed back to PEA while Alain took the film crew over to the King Baudouin Ice Shelf to get some footage of Eric Rignot running his radar measurements and talk all things polar science!
Enjoying the station’s upgraded facilities
It has now been more than a week since the new water treatment system has gone online and thanks to our engineers and plumbers, it is working perfectly. No hiccups or backups to report!
Every now and again, Aymar takes samples of the wastewater to see how well the new system is working. As no issues have been found, station residents can simply enjoy the station’s upgraded facilities.
Having an upgraded water treatment system has allowed additional toilets and facilities to be installed in the station’s annexes, where many of the station’s personal and guests are sleeping, especially when the station is close to maximum capacity. Having additional facilities makes everyone’s morning routine a lot easier, especially when the station has a lot of guests!
Stay tuned, as we will have more updates on the scientists and the research they are conducting out in the field this week.
Live from Antarctica!
Don’t forget that this coming Wednesday, January 31st, there will be a special virtual webinar hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder in coordination with a number of other partners. The talk will begin at 7pm Central European Time (UTC + 1) and is scheduled to be 1.5 hours long. We will present the renewable energy production at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station and the scientists will talk about the research they have been carrying out this year. Registration for the event is free and open to anyone that is interested and eager to learn!
Make sure to register for the live event to reserve your virtual seat in Antarctica!
Here's your chance to meet and engage with scientists and engineers that are working in Antarctica via a live Zoom event!
The webinar will take place on Wednesday, January 31, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm CET (UTC + 1).
First, we will talk about the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, the world's first and to-date only zero-emission polar research station. Then, we will dive into various science projects taking place this year.
The scientists themselves will each give an overview and talk about their individual projects. We will then open the meeting for an interactive Q&A session where anyone is welcome to ask questions.
We are happy to make this an interdisciplinary event with people joining from various departments and/or universities. Let's all collaborate and learn from one another!
With presentations by:
Nicolas Herinckx - Engineer, International Polar Foundation
Aymar De Lichtervelde - Process Engineer, International Polar Foundation
Simon Steffen - Researcher and Field Assistant, International Polar Foundation
Dr. Paula Lamprea Pineda Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University, Belgium
Quinten Vanhellemont - Researcher, Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences
Dr. Valentina Savaglia - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Sevilla
Brandon Van Schaik - Doctoral Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
Dr. Eric Rignot - Donald Bren Professor of Earth System Science, UC Irvine
Nighat Amin - Head of Environmental and International Affairs, International Polar Foundation
Register here to attend online!
Please check your local time for those residing outside of the Central European Time Zone.
The International Polar Foundation is organizing this event in partnership with the Center for Social and Environmental Futures (C-SEF), the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), the Boulder Faculty Assembly Climate Science and Education Committee, the National University of Singapore, and CIRES Education and Outreach.
As the scientists who arrived last week completed their field training and started to head out into the field, additional scientists and a film crew led by Belgian journalist and filmmaker Eric Goens arrived on Friday.
Eric Goens and his film crew will be working with Belgian TV channel VRT to make an international film about the Princess Elisabeth station and research taking place in Antarctica.
This weekend all of the new arrivals will do their mandatory field training, highlighted by the crevasse training exercise that will take place on Sunday afternoon. This is done to ensure everyone who’s going to head out into the field next week is prepared and ready for action!
Ambitious fieldwork ahead
Now that Valentina Savaglia from University of Sevilla, ULiège and UGent, as well as Björn Tytgat from UGent have arrived to join Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, the ExPoSoils project is ready to head out into the field to begin their site surveys and analysis, some locations are quite far from the station.
If the weather cooperates, the team hopes to visit seven or eight sites at least once, and a few additional sites multiple times to take samples and install time-lapse cameras to monitor snowfall over the course of the year,
The project will also visit the dry valleys where previous projects had installed snow fences. They plan to remove the snow from control plots which are behind the fences to sample the microbial communities. This is to compare microbial communities under the snow cover with those in exposed soils. Quinten has been running the HYPSTAR hyperspectrometer near PEA and will now install it at the dry valleysat to measure solar irradance and reflected soil radiance. These measements will contribute to validation and calibration of imaging satellites. On Saturday January 20th, the team visited two Antarctic Special Protection Areas (ASPA), Perlebandet and Pingvinane , nunataks relatively close to the station where sampled soil in order to carry out detailed analysis when they are back in the Belgium.
Projects at the coast
Meanwhile the active snow sampler the PASPARTOUT project has been tested these past few weeks at PEA and is working quite nicely. Now it’s time to bring it to the Princess Ragnhild Coast to let it sample snow there. Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) will bring it to the L0 ice rise, close to the coast, guided by Manu Poudlet. They will spend about 10 days at the coast collecting snow samples and install the active snow sampler there to let it collect snow for the next year, from each season specifically, so they can examine what kind of aerosols make it to this part of Antarctica. This will help determine which atmospheric circulation patterns are persistent for driving air masses to this region as well as better understand atmospheric circulation patterns.
Simon Steffen and Nicolas Herinckx will join them for part of their journey form Wednesday on as they head to the coast to repair and service an automatic weather station called PE_L0 which is the most northerly installation of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiment (PEACE) project transect – which spans roughly 250 km from the coast to the Antarctic plateau
Also heading to the coast are UC Irvine glaciologist Eric Rignot who will be guided by experienced polar field guide, Christophe Berclaz. Eric plans to run radar measurements along the grounding line of the King Baudouin Ice shelf over the course of a week, driving a grid across the grounding line over several hundred kilometers. They also plan to install an automatic weather station that had previously been installed at Vesthaugen Nunatak at the Baudouin Ice Shelf to monitor precipitation, wind speed, solar radiation and other parameters that can contribute to a better understanding of ice mass balance of the ice shelf – which is an integral part of the formula to better quantify Antarctica’s contribution to global sea level rise – and to this point in time
Alain Hubert will also lead the last traverse to the coast starting next week to pick up two containers that were left behind as JET A1 fuel that will be used for the international RINGS project campaign 2024-2025. The film crew lead by Eric Goens will be joining on the traverse and stopping off to film various science projects that will be peppered in the filed, culminating with a visit to Dr. Eric Rignot’s radar survey site on the King Bourdain Ice shelf
Meanwhile back at the station
Brandon Von Schalk from the EPFL in Switzerland installed a Vaisala Wind Cube, which is a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) instrument by the south science shelter of the station this past week and it’s already operational! The instrument sends out a safe, omnidirectional laser, in four directions. The laser looks to bounce off something, anything in the atmosphere and then returns to the instrument. The colour of the laser changes very slightly - too slightly for the human eye to detect, but enough for the computer in the LiDIAR to detect and compute the wind speed at the specific elevation. His initial results show that there are very few particles in the atmosphere close to PEA.
On Saturday morning at 12:30am two Chinese scientists from the RINGS project arrived aboard the Snow Eagle DC-3 Aircraft. This aircraft is equipped with state of the art sensors and is flying apart of the 62,000 km long Antarctic ice shelf, specifically along the grounding line. They will be using PEA as their home base for the next 4-5 days and will depart with the Snow Eagle on daily missions to the grounding line, for certain instruments on board, good weather is required so we keep our fingers crossed for them.
And finally we are proud to announce that the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica’s brand new water treatment system was inaugurated and went online this past Sunday! Our engineers Aymar and Nico, our plumbers Bernard and Simeon, and our programmer Wouter (who helped at a distance) deserve recognition for finishing this project, for it was all custom-made and two years in the making! Now the station can welcome and treat the wastewater for up to 50 people! As the station has become quite popular among the scientific community, it will surely be needed in the coming years!
Last weekend the cargo ship finally arrived and the first traverse to bring the containers filled with various equipment and materials to the station took place. There was also a changeover of some scientists and crew at the end of this week.
Ship unloading and team changeover
After finding an ideal location to moor on an ice shelf, the cargo ship was met by the traverse team led by Alain Hubert and assisted by 4 additional members of the IPF crew (Tim, Jann, Jacques, Simeon) on Saturday and Sunday. Unloading of cargo bound for PEA was the first step. When that was completed; the team loaded 31 containers filled with various waste that had accumulated over the past decade at PEA. This mass evacuation of waste is in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty. They will be unloaded in Cape Town, South Africa, where the majority of the waste will be recycled.
The team has completed the first of two traverses to bring the cargo to PEA, stopping at Perseus airstrip to drop off some material, particularly containers filled with insulation material that is needed to complete the building, insulating the living quarters of the hangar from the harsh Antarctic climate. The traverse team arrived back at PEA on Wednesday evening and was welcomed by many of the people at the station. Everyone helped unload the containers, especially those with perishable goods (including fresh fruits and vegetables!) and foods not made for sub-freezing temperatures.
The team had to leave one container at the coast because they didn’t have enough sledges to take it with them on the first trip. A smaller traverse team will go back towards the end of January to retrieve it, at the same time as the scientists from PASPARTOUT project will head towards the coast to carry out their snow sampling as well as install an automatic sampler that will collect snow over the course of the coming year.
On Friday morning at 1:30am the DC-3 arrived and brought with it 7 new scientists and crew, including Barbara Weiss, who is trading places with Mathieu Pasquier as the station’s doctor, an additional field guide Christophe Berclaz, who will guide scientists from the ExPoSoils project into the field. Dr. Eric Rignot, on a separate expedition, will arrive on the next scheduled flight scheduled for January 19th.
New scientists include Brandon Von Schalk from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) who will do maintenance on two automatic weather stations near PEA. Valentina Savaglia from the University of Liège and Björn Tytgat from UGent who are working on the ExPoSoils project and are specifically here to sample microbes living on the rocks and exposed soils found on the nunataks in the vicinity of the station.
While the flight brought in new scientists, it will also take a few home when it leaves on Saturday morning at 5am. We have thoroughly enjoyed the presence of Maarten Baes from University of Ghent and the two representatives from the Belgian Defence that were here from the 4SAT project. This initial stage of the project was very successful for the three members of the 4SAT team. With support from field guide Manu Poudelet, they were able to conduct several site surveys using a high-tech drone that produces high resolution 3-D maps of the local topography of potential sites where they would be like to install a satellite monitoring low earth orbiting objects (LEO) in a follow-up campaign. There were a number of suitable sites, including on the granite ridge to which the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica is anchored as well as on a neighbouring nunatak called Teltet, roughly 7 kilometres from the station.
The project will return next season to re-examine some locations and ideally install some cameras that they would like to leave year round that can make observations throughout the Antarctic winter months. The very calm weather the region has been experiencing doesn’t necessarily give the most accurate picture of how conditions might be during more unruly times. The aim of the project is to install the telescope in a location with minimal disturbance. Consistent laminar flow within the atmosphere is required to ensure the view of the telescope isn’t distorted, allowing them to accurately track low earth orbiting objects, including satellites and space debris that could potentially become hazardous.
Coastward bound
Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Paula Lamprea Pineda from Ghent University, both of whom are working on the PASPARTOUT project will soon head to the coast and be guided by Manu Poudelet. On arrival they will dig a roughly 2 metre deep by 2 metre long trench in the snow with enough elbow room to comfortably manoeuvre and collect snow samples. In addition, they will also install an automatic snow sampler that will remain on-site for the next year. This snow sampler has been specifically designed for this project, and will make a quarter turn every three months to collect snow from a different direction each season. Sibylle is particularly interested in the particles contained within the snow such as the dust. By analysing these particles, she and her colleagues will be able to determine the atmospheric circulation patters that are persistent, and thus the origin of air masses that are driven down to East Antarctica and better understand global circulation patterns.
Although not yet set in stone, it’s possible that Simon Steffen and Nicolas Herinckx will accompany the team from PASPARTOUT for part of their trip because one of the five automatic weather stations (AWS) that make up the PEACE (Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiment) project is in close proximity to the site where they will carry out their snow sampling. The weather stations need yearly maintenance and checks to ensure that they are running correctly and measuring accurately. Instruments at times need to be upgraded or replaced.
Next week we’ll have more updates on the new water treatment system and provide insight into the first adventures undertaken by the new scientists that have just arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica!
Aside from a small New Year’s celebration for those who were at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA), the scientists and crew have been working hard supporting science projects, managing logistics in prevision of the ship arriving next week, as well as maintaining and improving the station’s infrastructure.
Scientific work ramps up
The team from the PASPARTOUT project has installed an active sampler for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on top of the southern shelter as well as a passive particle sampler. These samplers installed by Paula Lamprea Pineda from Ghent University (UGent) will run at the Princess Elisabeth station for a year and then be installed at the coast during BELARE 24-25 campaign. Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) installed a snow sampler in the vicinity of PEA to ensure everything is running correctly before the instrument is relocated to the Princess Ragnhild Coast later this month with the assistance from IPF field guide Manu Poudelet and engineer Nicolas Herinckx who has built a mobile power unit for that purpose.
After installing and testing the HYPSTAR radiometer by the PEA airfield as well as two SKYCAMS on top of the scientific shelters, Quentin Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) is now testing the energy consumption of the HYPSTAR to better monitor its energy needs. This is necessary because the instrument will be temporarily installed at two different remote sites (Yuboku valley and on the Ketlersbreen Glacier’s dry valley) this season to measure solar reflectance from the surface of rocky terrain.
After their scheduled arrival on January 11th, Quentin’s ExPoSoils colleagues Valentina Savaglia from the University of Liege and Björn Tytgat from UGent will begin sampling microorganisms in areas where previous Belgian projects MICROBIAN had installed open-top chambers and snow fences in Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs). Open-top chambers and snow fences mimic the possible effects that climate change (warming temperatures, increased precipitation) might have on microbial communities, including genetic adaptation of these microbes over time.
The team from the 4SAT project, which includes Maarten Baes from UGent and two members of Belgian Defence, have been spending the last week travelling to various locations to carry out site surveys. These locations are being analyzed as potential sites to install a telescope, which would observe and monitor low orbiting objects (LEO) such as space debris in the coming years. They have been using a high definition drone to 3-D map the topography of these different locations to determine which site would be most suitable for a telescope.
Some of the sites that have been surveyed seem promising and well sheltered from the wind, however many of the places they have visited so far have been too windy. Their project requires a location that is protected from the wind and has little atmospheric disturbance to ensure minimal vibration so the telescope can adequately see and track low orbiting objects.
Making the best of unexpected down time
The cargo ship which was scheduled to arrive at the coast in early January has been slightly delayed. Schedule changes are nothing new to Antarctic logistics however, and the traverse team has taken this opportunity to prepare the Perseus runway in anticipation of a flight scheduled to arrive on February 6th. The runway needs to be well groomed and then roughed up to enhance friction in order for planes to land safely; it takes time to do this properly.
At the moment the traverse team is on its way to the coast to meet the ship for the unloading of the cargo, which includes more scientific equipment, many batteries, fresh food supplies and more. Once the unloading is complete, there will be 31 containers of waste which had been prepped for removal, in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty. Another traverse will be necessary later on this season to bring all the new containers back to PEA.
Meanwhile engineers Aymar de Lichtervelde and Nicolas Herinckx along with plumbers Bernard and Simeon Polet have been putting the finishing touches on the station’s new Water Treatment System (WTS). The pipes, pumps and tanks are all in place. The only thing left to finish before the system is operational is the testing of the software that will run the WTS. The team in Antarctica has been in regular contact with Wouter Paesen in Belgium, who wrote the code and designed the program for the new WTS.
As a preventative measure, carpenters have been busy building a roof over the gap between PEA’s north annex and the exposed part of the ridge on which the station is built. This gap has a tendency to become filled in with snow, which impedes the annex’s movement each time the building needs to be raised at the start and end of each season. The station is built and anchored into a granite rock ridge, however glacial dynamics ensures that the surrounding ice is in a constant, slow creep towards the coast which is why the annexes need to be levelled each season.
Changes on the horizon
The flight scheduled for January 11th will not only bring Valentina and Bjorn for the ExPoSoils project, but will also bring a new station Doctor, a familiar face in Barbara Weith, who will replace Mathieu Pasquier for the rest of the season. A small Belgian TV crew lead by Eric Goens is also scheduled to arrive and will spend a few weeks at PEA to film for an upcoming documentary.
Time has been flying, for we are already past the halfway mark of the BELARE 2023-2024 campaign. This also means that some IPF staff and scientists will head back home soon while new faces will arrive to finish out the season at PEA. The next flight between Antarctica and South Africa (Cape Town) is scheduled to take place on the 11th or 12th of January. We thank everyone for their hard work for what has been a smooth and successful season! That being said stay tuned for many projects are in full swing and there is still much to be done before this expedition comes to an end in late February.
The season got into full swing this past week following the arrival of the scientists and new crew.
Welcome to Antarctica!
Two days of mandatory orientation and training welcomed the newcomers before work began in earnest.
One of the first things newcomers must do is receive extensive training on how to administer first aid, protect themselves against the dangers of polar regions, how to drive a snowmobile, and other necessary skills for daily life in Antarctica. An important part of this general training is and exercise on how to rescue someone from a crevasse should someone ever have the misfortune of ever falling into one. Extra Information about the new Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPA; location and rules) avian flu HPAI H5N1 and the code of conduct that visitors of PEA are required to follow are also provided.
The newcomers spent the majority of two days learning these important skills from expert field guides and the station doctor, Mathieu Pasquier. Now everyone is fully prepared to face the elements in Antarctica.
The newcomers also spent Christmas in Antarctica. For many of them, it was the first time they spent the holiday here, away from their loved ones. At least they were guaranteed a white Christmas! A Christmas Eve storm left mounds of snow at the station and on Christmas Day many people pitched in with shovels to remove the excess snow that had accumulated overnight. This year there has been more snow accumulation at the station than usual.
Station cook Thomas Duconseille served up a memorable Christmas Dinner on December 24th, which included a wonderful three-course meal. This was accompanied by ample cheer and time for scientists and state crew to socialise.
Science and logistics
Work began on scientific projects in earnest this week. Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) has been installing the HYPSTAR radiometer to monitor solar radiation and ground reflectivity in the vicinity of the station for the ExpoSoils project. He has also installed two upward looking cameras for the SKYCAM project, a University of Maryland and NASA Goddard-led research project looking to better understand how clouds influence remote sensing data and help enhance current cloud detection and characterization methods above Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station.
On Tuesday the three members of the 4SAT project (Site Survey for possible Space Situational Awarness Telescope), which is looking to track satellites and space junk, headed to Vesthaugen Nunatak about 30 km north of the station to survey this area as a potential location for a possible future telescope the project would like to build. In the coming weeks, they also plan to check four or five additional locations as potential places to install the permanent telescope.
With help from IPF crew, two researchers from the PASPARTOUT project, Sibylle Boxho from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Dr. Paula Lamprea Pineda from UGent have been installing monitoring equipment on the roof of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, such as an auto-sampler which will collect air throughout the year to determine pollutants present in the atmosphere. This will allow scientists to better understand meteorological conditions influencing the local environment and from where these pollutants originate.
In the coming weeks Sibylle and Paula will head in the direction of the coast with one of our experienced polar field guides, Manu, there they will dig a trench in the snow, some 2 meters deep, 1.5 meters wide and 3-4 meters in length to take snow samples. They will also install another atmospheric particle sampler. They plan to be in the field for two straight weeks as they dig, sample, and collect snow and particles required to carry out their analysis.
The cargo ship is scheduled to arrive and begin unloading on the ice shelf on January 1st. Alain and four additional members of the IPF team (Tim, Jacques, Yann, and Simeon) are leaving on Saturday for their third traverse of the season, taking additional waste from the station that has accumulated over the years.
This year, with record-low sea ice cover around Antarctica, navigating the sea ice surrounding the continent is expected to be rather easy for the cargo ship. While this is good for logistics, it’s not necessarily good for the climate, nor the wildlife that populates the Southern Ocean, as certain animals are dependent on specific ice conditions to feed, breed and grow.
A group of Chinese researchers working on the RINGS project will arrive in the coming days and spend one night at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica before taking off to do the radar transects from the Chinese Zhongshan station (in Prydz Bay) to PEA on a round trip. The goal of their project is to map coastal bedrock topography and investigate the thickness of the ice, which is made possible by the advanced radar system attached to the underbelly of the airplane. Two additional transect flights from PEA to Prydz Bay are planned later in January.
All the while at the station, work continues on installing the new water treatment system, regular maintenance on the wind turbines has been done, and the solar panel platform has been cleared ofo snow and ice.
More guests
On the evening of December 25th, an additional flight filled with the remaining cargo that was left at Ultima Airfield last week was transported to the station by the Ken Boreck air crew. In addition they brought with them seven passengers that were headed to Bharati research station, a permanent Indian base. The seven passengers and four flight crew members spent the night. The following evening at 9:30pm local time they departed. It’s roughly an 8 hour flight in the DC-3 from Princess Elisabeth to the Indian station – nearly 2,200 kilometres away.
Station engineers Aymar de Lichtervelde and Nicolas Herinckx gave a special tour of the station’s energy production and water treatment facilities to the guests, who were eager to learn about the sustainable nature of our station and the possibility of incorporating similar technologies at their own base.
The New Year is approaching and we’re approaching the midpoint of the season. Stay tuned as the science projects begin to pick up steam and work around the station begins to be finalised. There’s still lots more to accomplish in 2024!
Sunny skies have returned to vicinity of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica just in time for new arrivals at the station!
Early on Thursday morning, December 21st, six scientists arrived at the station along with new members of the station crew, including a new doctor and field guide.
After undergoing the requisite two days of field and safety training, scientists from three Belgian research projects will get to work.
PASPARTOUT
Sibylle Boxho from the Universié Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Paula Lamprea Pineda from UGent will be working on the PASPARTOUT project. This project seeks to establish an in-depth understanding of the links between atmospheric circulation patterns, weather regimes, particles, volatile organic compounds, and moisture, as well as determine the origins of these particles (natural or anthropogenic) of organic and inorganic compounds, and investigate the implications of these particles within the context of a changing global climate.
During this season, with the help of IPF station crew, they will install several instruments on the roof of the station and in the vicinity of the station. They will also head out to the coast to install particle samplers and take snow samples at different depth of a trench that they will dig in the surface snow.
ExPoSoils
Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) is returning to Antarctica to work on the ExPoSoils project. The project is studying the effects of increased temperature and snow cover on the biodiversity and genetic functional potential of microbial communities.
During this season he will take samples from existing open-top chambers and snow fences in the vicinity of the station, collect data from data loggers, install time-lapse cameras, and re-install the HYPSTAR radiometer (which had previously been developed for and used by the EU-financed HYPERNETS project) to monitor solar radiation reflectance.
4SAT
Two members of the Belgian military along with Maarten Baes from UGent will be looking for suitable locations for a possible Space Situational Awareness telescope, which would observe objects in space to ensure the safety of space for all users. The team will look at weather and astronomical conditions at different possible sites.
RINGS
A team of Chinese researchers (four scientists and three pilots) are also planned to arrive towards the end of the year separately to conduct radar surveys of the ice between the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica and Prydz Bay at the coast to study the ice discharge from the Antarctic Ice Sheet as part of the RINGS project. The purpose behind this international working group established by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is to get a clearer idea of ice discharge bedrock topography around the coast of Antarctica, which is important in understanding the mass balance of the ice sheet.
The Chinese team will conduct two round trip flights from Zhongshan station to PEA in the coming weeks, taking measurements of ice thickness and topography all along the grounding lanes between the two stations.
The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station is getting crowded! It's going to be a crowded holiday season
After some pleasant weather during the first few weeks of the season, stormy weather has arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, forcing a few changes of plan and even unexpected visitors.
Adapting to the weather conditions
Anyone who works in Antarctica as a scientist or a member of the station crew knows that bad weather is always something you have to be prepared for. Towards the middle of last week, strong winds, heavy snowfall and whiteout conditions arrived in the Queen Maud Land where the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica is located, which led to several changes of plan.
Unfortunately, the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polar 6 plane was not able to complete all of the ice monitoring transects it had planned along the Princess Ragnhild coast during its stay at PEA. Issue on one of the fuel pump grounded the plane for several days until a replacement part could be flown in. However, once the plan had been repaired, bad weather grounded the plane for several more days. As the plane is on a tight schedule, it had to continue on to the next stops on its itinerary for this season when the weather was again good enough to allow travel.
The bad weather also resulted in a group of unexpected guests: 13 Indian scientists and technicians (and 4 flight crew members) who were on their way home from overwintering at Bharati Station on the Prydz Bay area. They were passengers on the plane that had brought the replacement fuel pump part for the Polar 6 and ended up getting stuck at Princess Elisabeth Antarctica until December 14th.
While weather conditions had improved in the area of Antarctica where the Polar 6 was headed to allow the plane and the crew from AWI to depart, the weather is still bad at Ultima Air Field 450 km away from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, where the Indian team is scheduled to take their other station (Maitri) and flight home. While it was a bit more crowded at PEA than expected, the station has always been a very welcoming place, our unexpected guests have adapted easily to life at the station, even helping our cook to prepare some delicious authentic Indian meals! Overall it was a great opportunity to meet other station crew members and share cultural differences in a very friendly atmosphere.
A changing climate
The weather conditions in recent seasons have noticeably changed compared to the years during which the station was constructed (2007-09) with events of warmer temperatures and sustained winds for sporadic long periods of time.
Although extreme weather events may happen anytime within the course of history, their increasing frequency and reduction of the predictability of the weather can be considered as a symptom of climate change that is slowly reaching the Antarctic continent.
Some of the veterans who took part in building the station recall that temperatures would easily hover between -25°C and -20°C during the day in the austral summer when they were working outside. In November this year, temperatures got close to 0°C for a few days. The BELARE 2021-2022 expedition is remembered as the windiest and harshest due to several weeks of strong winds and snowfall in the middle of the austral summer
Traverse in whiteout conditions
Meanwhile at the coast, BELARE expedition leader Alain Hubert and three team members have been busy doing a traverse to the coast to continue preparing containers of waste from the station to be evacuated by ship and conduct reconnaissance at the coast to find an ideal spot for the supply ship to moor when it is scheduled to arrive early January 2024.
The bad weather created whiteout conditions during the traverse, which meant zero visibility. Luckily, the BELARE team knows the route well and make extensive use of their GPS to navigate even when visibility is zero. Expedition leader Alain Hubert has successfully handled whiteout conditions dozens of times at both poles, so everything has been going smoothly.
New water treatment system almost ready!
Thanks to the hard work of our plumbers Bernard and Simeon and engineers Aymar and Nicolas, the new water treatment system is almost ready to go online. The engineers are still fine-tuning the numeric programming of the system while the plumbers have been testing the bioreactor and putting the last pipes and electric connexions of the system in place.
The station plans to switch to the new system before the end of the year.
