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During a ceremony at the Princess Elisabeth Station, Sven Kerremans (Laborelec) and Jean Chalon (Schneider Electric) symbolically handed over the keys of the station's technical core to Alain Hubert, President of the International Polar Foundation. The event celebrated the completion of the final systems tests. The Princess Elisabeth Station is now officially the first research station ever to solely operate on renewable energies!

This world première was made possible by an innovative energy management system designed and implemented by Laborelec (GDF Suez), which rests on a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), the "brain" of the station developed by Schneider Electric.

Princess Elisabeth Antarctica thus proves that an alternative approach to energy consumption is possible by distributing available resources according to priorities, instead of endlessly supplying energy to meet an uncontrolled demand. By the end of this Antarctic summer season, a new satellite link will allow all the energy-related systems to be managed and adjusted remotely throughout the winter season.

Polar Quest is the new educational project from the International Polar Foundation, supported by the "Actieplan Wetenschapscommunicatie" of the Flemish Government.

The project was submitted within the framework of a call for submissions by the Departement Economie, Wetenschap en Innovatie (EWI) for educational projects popularizing science.

The aim of Polar Quest is to inform students of the challenges and importance of scientific research in the Polar Regions, with particular focus on the brand new Belgian Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica. This will be achieved through participation in a contest in which the teacher of the winning class will have the unique opportunity to conduct scientific research at the PEA Station in Antarctica! As for the students, they will take home some wonderful prizes as well.

The contest will start during the 2010-2011 school year and will be open to all Flemish classes of the 5th grade of secondary school (16-17 years old). For more information, please visit EducaPolesn (Project in Ducth only).

The International Polar Foundation was invited to be part of the Belgian pavilion to showcase Belgium’s involvement in sciences related to better understanding our climate. Working with Atelier Brückner (Stuttgart), the IPF has devised an LED-lit giant ice cube to draw visitors into the world of Polar Regions, polar science and climate change, with the Princess Elisabeth Station as the main feature.

Passive buildings and energy efficiency are at the heart of the Princess Elisabeth Station and central to the World Expo 2010 main theme: “Better City, Better Life”. Belgium’s involvement in polar science and better climate knowledge is a gateway to the broader context of current Climate Change.

This Ice Cube is divided in two spaces, separated by a “crevasse” through which visitors can walk. Movies and sounds recreating the atmosphere of Polar Regions will be displayed on one wall of this crevasse, while the other wall will be made of real ice slowly melting.

Windows open on the sides of this Ice Block will reveal both spaces inside.

First Space

• Princess Elisabeth Station: situation model
• Climate Change: where are we at?
• Aiming for Zero Emission: changes are mandatory and technologies are available

Second Space

• Climate Change and its impact on you (the visitor)
• Bridging the Science-Society divide
• Existing solutions

More news, along with a fully detailed project sheet will be published shortly, but we wanted to share this project with you as soon as we could.

Dr. Elie Verleyen (Laboratory of Protistology and Marine Ecology at the University of Ghent), laureate of the InBev-Baillet Latour Antarctica Prize 2008 organised by the  InBev-Baillet Latour Fund and the International Polar Foundation, will be flying to Usteinen and the Princess Elisabeth Station on the 3^rd of January 2010. He will be staying in Antarctica for a period of five weeks to carry out field work.

His research project “Deglaciation, Ice-Sheet Thickness and Climate Change in Sør Rondane during the late Quartenary” (DELAQUA) aims to unravel the climate and environmental history of the Sør Rondane Mountains since the Last Glacial Maximum, some 18.000 years ago, when ice sheets reached their maximum extent.

This research project is deployed in collaboration with other international initiatives such as the British Antarctic Survey's CACHE PEP project (Natural climate variability -extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the Pole) and the EBA (Evolution of Biology in the Antarctic) program of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

During this season, Dr. Elie Verleyen will conduct an extensive survey and exploration of various landforms and natural climate archives of the area (lakes, moraines, lacustrine paleoshorelines, etc.).

This project is expected to provide important background information that can then be used to test ice-sheet models. To be validated, such models need to rely on accurate and reliable data from the field. The coastal regions of Dronning Maud Land have not been studied very much yet in terms of deglaciation history, past climate variability and variation in sea ice thickness. The DELAQUA project will participate in filling that gap.

On 9 December 2009 at the University of Liège, Belgium, the IPF participated in the annual meeting of three Belgian Antarctic research projects: AMBIO, ANTAR-IMPACT & BELDIVA.

• BELDIVA: A research project looking at the microbial diversity within a 200 km radius of the new Princess Elisabeth Station;
• ANTAR-IMPACT: An expert platform for the inventory of microbial diversity and evaluation of the environmental impact of the Princess Elisabeth Station;
• AMBIO (Antarctic Microbial BIOdiversity): A project looking at the influence of geographical and ecological factors on microbial biodiversity in the Antarctic

The meeting included researchers and their respective user committees from the Cyanobacteria Group at the Centre for Protein Engineering at the University of Liège, the Protistology and Aquatic Ecology Laboratory at the University of Gent, the Microbiology Laboratory at the University of Gent and the National Botanical Garden of Belgium.

Consisting of a morning and afternoon session, the meeting served not only to provide an overview of the research partners’ recent activities, but also an occasion to have an internal discussion about future steps to take in each of the research projects.

During the morning session, the partners presented the ongoing research and results currently being conducted on microbial diversity in Antarctica. In the last session of the morning, Dr. Bruno Danis (from the users committee) presented the SCAR-MarBIN database of Antarctic marine species he’s developed as well as the future AntaBIF (Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility) database of all known species living in Antarctica he is in the process of developing. AntaBIF will be an essential tool for managing and sharing the terrestrial biodiversity data in Antarctica.

In the afternoon session, a workshop entitled "Antarctic Climate, Biodiversity and Invasion" was held for a wider general public audience. Dr. Pete Convey from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Dr. Ad Huiskes from the Dutch Institute for Ecology (NIOO KNAW) gave talks about the invasion of non-native species in Antarctica.  Following this, Dr. Elie Verleyen, who won last year’s InBevBaillet Latour Fellowship, gave an overview of the now finalized BELSPO HOLANT (Holocene climate variability and ecosystem change in coastal East and Maritime Antarctica) project.  The afternoon session was topped off with Dr. Hendrick Segers from the Belgian Biodiversity Platform, who presented his organization and highlighted the important activities it undertakes in promoting research on biodiversity in Belgium and the rest of Europe.

The IPF has been regularly participating in these annual meetings for a number of years to stay abreast of Belgian research activities being conducted in Antarctica and be able to communicate to the general public about these activities and their findings through outreach and education initiatives.

From the 10^th to the 12^th of November, the IPF attended the DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modeling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies) symposium held in Brussels, Belgium. The symposium convened researchers from all across Europe as well some from the United States, Canada, Russia, China and Japan to discuss and debate preliminary results they have obtained under the European-funded Arctic research project.

As the Arctic Ocean has been the least observed body of water in the world, DAMOCLES has been working to create an integrated ice-atmosphere-ocean monitoring and forecasting system for observing, understanding and quantifying climate change in the Arctic.  Since 2005, researchers have been deploying instruments for observation in the Arctic including buoys, moorings and gliders, as well sending the sea-ice resistant vessel TARA to drift freely in the pack ice over several months in order to collect data on the ocean, the sea ice, atmosphere and clouds in the Arctic.

During the symposium researchers also agreed upon a joint declaration on the Arctic Climate system, its present status, future evolution and potential impacts (PDF), which was released to the media and the wider public at a press conference held by by DAMOCLES Scientific Coordinator Jean-Claude Gascard on November 12th.

The symposium included special events, including a public showing of the film "TARA Journey to the Heart of the Climate Machine", which documented the first six months of the TARA's journey.  The IPF also hosted an open door evening for symposium attendees to have a look at the IPF's mobile educational exhibition on DAMOCLES, which is currently at the IPF's Class Zero Emission (CZE) workshop. In 2005, the IPF was charged with designing and managing the exhibition, which is aimed at the general public. Over the past four years the mobile exhibition has been featured seven different scientific and educational events in five different European countries.

At a briefing on Friday October 16th at the headquarters of the IPF, the new season for the Princess Elisabeth Station officially started! Fourty-four people will take part in BELARE this season, staying between one and five months at Utsteinen. The objective for this year is to finalize the tests of all the technical systems of the station. Moreover, a new satellite antenna will be installed next to the station.

The first team will be leaving on November 1st, 2009. In total, six teams will be relayed throughout the season: electromechanicians, cable installers, carpenters, and engineers from Laborelec, Consolar and Menerga, as well as technical assistants, doctors and cooks will all take part in this new adventure.

Seven scientists from Belgian universities will also be working on the site this year, one of which will be working alongside a team of Japanese researchers from this year's Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE 51). Steven Goderis, a researcher from the VUB and the University of Ghent (UGent) will work with them on the “Meteoritics and Planetary Science” project for which they will be collecting meteorites. Besides conducting a geological survey to clarify the East-West Gondwana collision and dispersion, they will try to recover the Cenozoic glacial history and global environmental changes through a geomorphological survey. The Japanese team will also conduct geological and geomorphological studies.

The ice-breaker “Mary Arctica” will set off from Bremerhaven in Germany on November 12th and should arrive in Antarctica by December 22nd. It will contain 15 containers transporting between 90 to 100 tons of material. The remaining material will be flown to Antarctica.

In order for all the participants to be well-prepared for the dangers of Antarctica, the Belgian Ministry of Defense, a partner in this project, will organize a special training for all members of the team from October 27th to 29th.

As usual, you can follow this season on the Princess Elisabeth Station website.

On October 5th, 2009, a delegation of Swiss members of parliament and representatives from the Swiss Embassy in Brussels visited the International Polar Foundation (IPF) headquarters in Brussels. The delegation's visit took place in the general framework of "aiming at zero emissions" and enabled the Swiss delegation to gain more insight into the offerings of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica as a research station.

The visit followed up on a presentation about Princess Elisabeth Antarctica given by the IPF during a workshop at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2008. The scientific research opportunities in the area had then triggered the interest of scientists from EPFL, the universities of Bern and Geneva, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, and the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanches in Davos.

All participants in the visit were led through Class Zero Emission after being given a presentation of the IPF and its missions and discussing research possibilities at the Princess Elisabeth Station.

The Swiss National Parliament was represented by:

• Mrs Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi (TI), President of the Swiss National Council
• Mrs Liliane Maury Pasquier (GE), Swiss Counselor of States and former President of the Swiss National Council (2001-2002)
• Mr Sep Cathomas (GR), Member of the Swiss National Council
• Mrs Christa Markwalder Bär (BE), Member of the Swiss National Council
• Mr Ulrich Schlüer (ZH), Member of the Swiss National Council
• Mr Christoph Lanz, Secretary General of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland
• Mrs Suzanne Stritt, Chief of Protocol at the Service of International Relations

The Swiss Embassy in Brussels was represented by:

• His Excellency Ambassador Jean-Jacques de Dardel
• Mr Florian Koch
• Mr Alain-Denis Henchoz, Counselor

The International Polar Foundation will partake in the Shanghai World Expo 2010 as part of the Belgian and European pavilion. With this year's theme being "Better Cities, Better Lives", the space allocated to the IPF will exhibit Belgium's and Europe's involvement in finding solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The IPF will put forward Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, first "zero emission" polar research station, and educational elements from Class Zero Emission within its more general mission of bridging the science-society divide.

The "aiming for zero emission" motto will be translated in a scenography where Expo 2010 visitors become both receivers and providers of information, with a shared responsibility for action at individual and collective levels.

The InBev-Baillet Latour Fund celebrated its 30th anniversary on June 17th, in the presence of many of its friends and partners, including the International Polar Foundation.

The InBev-Baillet Latour Fund is a sponsor of the Princess Elisabeth Station in many respects. It provides scientific equipment and support to the Station and finances the InBev-Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship Award. This grant is awarded each year to a doctoral or post-doctoral researcher, regardless of nationality, who is enrolled at a Belgian University or a Federal research institute and whose research requires conducting field activities at the Princess Elisabeth Station or in its vicinity.

The InBev-Baillet Latour Fund has also financed a scientific movie about the Princess Elisabeth station which is entitled "Building the Future".