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In February 2019, IPF Founder and BELARE Expedition Leader Alain Hubert assisted American artist Jessica Houston with the unique Letter to the Future project in which Alain placed a time capusule in the ice in Antarctica to be found by future generations a thousand years from now. The project is curently being exhibited at the Estonian Pavillion at the Venice Bienniale.
Jessica wanted to address future generations by sending them cultural testimony through ice and time. She devised Letter to the Future , which includes a variety of contributors from around the world who contributed letters to be read by future generations. Noteworthy letter writers include poet Anne Michaels, former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Okalik Eegeesiak, and Polar Explorer Bernard Voyer.
Jessica collected all of the unopened letters and put them into a 40 cm x 6.4 cm time capsule, which consists of a Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) instrument, an oceanographic tool typically used to measure the paramenters its name suggests. She then sent the time capsule to Alain Hubert to deploy it while in Antarctica during the 2018-2019 resaerch season.
While taking annual snow depth measurments for the GLACIOCLIM project in February 2019, Alain Hubert deployed the time capsule by placing it in a shallow hole he drilled in the ice sheet. The idea is that over the next thousand years or so, as the ice on the surface of the ice sheet slowly flows towards the coast of Antarctica, the time capsule will eventually arrive at the coast and be released from the ice. They hope it will then wash up on a shore somewhere and be found by people in the future.
When asked why he wanted to contribute to the project, Alain said, "I like contributing to projects related to future generations. The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was built to make the world better for futre generations."
“Letter to the Future is a 1,000-year collaboration with ice to provoke consideration of our present and the possibilities for our future,” according to the project website.
This work of Jessica Houston will be exposed in Venice as part of the exhibition Terra Nova: looking at the present and the future presented by Art Mûr Gallery, from April 21st - July 2nd, 2022 at the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Lego e Legno Art Space, Guidecca 211.
On Tuesday, April 5th the International Polar Foundation and the Network of European Blue Schools offered a special workshop for teachers and educators to present an overview of existing Arctic Ocean-related education materials and practices in schools.
The workshop was part of the "Let's Listen to the Arctic Ocean" series, a group of of virtual ocean literacy events the EU4Ocean Coalition organised that took place between April 5th and 8th, with the support of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE).
After Evy Copejans from the Network of European Blue Schools introduced the workshop, Mieke Sterken, IPF's Education and Outreach Coordinator, opened the workshop with an interactive icebreaker that allowed participants from all over Europe to get to know one another by sharing their location, the kind of students and courses they taught, how they perceived the Arctic, and what they would consider to be good educational resources.
Following this, guest speaker Dr. Lars Demant-Poort from the Greenland Institute for Natural Sciences offered valuable insights to participants about why educators and European Youth should be aware about what's happening in the Arctic, and why processes of climate warming on land cannot be ignored when studying changes in the Arctic Ocean.
To round out the workshop, Mieke presented a number of educational tools teachers can make use of to plan their lessons about the Arctic, including materials from the INTAROS, MOSAIC, and EDU-ARCTIC2 projects, as well as IPF's own EducaPoles website, which contains several ready-made educational packages, and DIY-resources to compliment their lessons with contemporary GIS-based data or citizen science initiatives. The participants in the workshop were very appreciative to learn about the large number of tools available to support their lessons in the classroom.
On Friday, April 9th, Mieke summarized the outcomes of the education workshop during an online EU4Oceans closing session, where all workshop conveners came together to share their experiences and insights and answer questions from the public.
A commitment to educating the next generation
This workshop is just part of IPF’s extensive education and outreach work.
During the 2021-22 season, Henri Robert, IPF Science Liaison Officer and the Deputy Station Manager at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station, and Johnny Gaelens, the PEA Station's Chief Engineer, held regular interactive online lessons with schools from Belgium and around the world. The IPF has offered online lessons with classrooms from the world's first zero-emission polar research station since it became operational during the 2008-09 season.
Since January, IPF Education and Outreach Coordinator Mieke Sterken has been visiting schools (primary, secondary, and college) throughout Belgium to give in-person lessons about the Polar Regions within the framework of a new education and outreach policy which included developing new educational resources. She will visit more schools in the coming months in order to test different educational ideas and formats.
If you're interested to collaborate with IPF or book an in-person or online lesson, you may contact us at education@polarfoundation.org
The final days of the 2021-22 season are upon us and they have been busy ones as we prepare to leave the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on her own until the next team arrives in November.
With the water treatment system closed down, the last few days at the station are a bit like camping as we wait for the plane to take them to Novo Station and then on to Cape Town. We hope to be in Cape Town within the coming days.
Scientific equipment at the station relies heavily on the station's systems to continue functioning properly. They have to continue collecting data for scientists autonomously and sending it to Europe throughout the austral winter. So the station needs to be able to keep running on its own.
Over the last few days of the season, Station Engineer Johnny Gaelens and the rest of the IPF technical team have been checking and double-checking to make sure that every single system at the station is working properly, and that it has a redundant system to back it up just in case there’s an issue with the main systems. Checking that all these backup systems are properly functioning is a painstaking but extremely important process.
For example, the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), which is the brain of the station that prioritises energy use in the building, has a backup PLC. And the satellite communications system is backed up with iridium and Inmarsat systems.
Any data collected during the season that can’t be sent via satellite is put on a hard drive and is taken back to Europe with the final team to leave the station for the season. Along wiht many other things, we're repatriating a whopping 1.5 Terabytes of data for scientists this season!
The same is true for any scientific instruments that aren’t stored at the station during the winter. These instruments also head back to Europe with the team, where scientists can recalibrate them or preform any other necessary maintenance on them.
The Princess Elisabeth will continue to produce energy for all these systems to run on throughout the winter. However, as the days become shorter and shorter and there is less and less sunlight to power the solar panels (many of which have been boarded up anyway to protect them against damage during the winter), the station will rely increasingly on its wind turbines to produce energy. Between May 15th and July 28th the sun won’t rise above the horizon at all at PEA. The station will experience polar night for more than two months, with only about two hours of twilight around midday on the winter solstice.
In the event that the wind turbines don’t produce enough energy to keep the batteries charged and the systems running, there is an emergency genset that can start up to charge the batteries. However the station’s energy needs during the winter are so low and there are usually enough katabatic winds coming form the interior of the continent that this raerley, if ever, happens.
As we close out the 2021-22 season, we are proud to say that the station again ran entirely on renewable energy over the course of the nearly four months it was occupied. At no time was it necessary to start the genset to recharge the batteries.
What’s more, back in December, the Princess got an electric vehicle to accompany it. The pioneering Venturi Antarctica will remain at the station during the winter to welcome us back when we return in November.
Together with the zero-emission target reached and despite several difficulties during this particular expedition, the IPF team will soon leave the station with the satisfaction of having executed a successful mission. Only one team of scientists was obliged to postpone their participation due to unprecedented bad weather conditions in the vicinity of the Sør Rondane Mountains this past season.
All other scientific teams who were scheduled to condouct reeaserch at the Pricness Elisabeth Antarctica completed their missions and head home knowing that they accomplished world-class research in Antarctica. Datasets are already being processed and samples will be shipped to research institutions and universities for study.
Throughout the winter, PEA will continue to collect data for scientists until it's time for BELARE 2022-23 to start. We're looking forward to that moment with great enthusiasm!
Marie Minary, an artist working in several different media currently based in Besançon, France, has been working with a team of artists to produce an artistic project inspired by the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica and the majestic landscapes surrounding it. Known as the Penelope Project, the multi-media art installation draws inspiration from the relationship between Penelope and Ulysses in the Odyssey and encourages the viewer to reflect on themes such as climate change and their everyday lives.
Initially planned to open in April 2020, the Penelope Project exhibition was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However the City of Besançon has decided to show part of the Penelope Project in an exhibition entitled "Le Bureau des expositions potentielles - Fonds de diffusion d'art contemporain de la ville de Besançon" at the city’s Museum of Fine Art and Archaeology starting on February 24th.
In this interview, Marie discusses the inspiration behind the art installation, which she hopes will encourage people to think about climate change and the actions they can take to combat climate change.
What does the Penelope Project consist of?
rm:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> The Penelope Project consists of a multi-media art installation that draws inspiration from the relationship between Penelope and Ulysses in the Odyssey and seeks to foster reflection on key themes such as climate change and current political issues. The project took place over a period of two years and was done through the realisation of time lapse footage of ice dolls that were made with latex and plaster moulds produced in France.
What was your source of inspiration for the Penelope project?
When I was doing a residence in France in 2017, my partner Benoît Verdin, who is now a technician at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, told me he was offered a job there and had to leave on a months-long mission.
At first, I had trouble accepting my partner’s impending departure. It would mean delaying the projects we had planned at that time. I quickly realized that Benoît’s trip to Antarctica was a unique opportunity for both of us, for him to grow professionally, and for me to find inspiration as an artist.
The relationship between Penelope and her husband Ulysses in the Odyssey was my primary source of inspiration for the project, which is where the project got its name. The project is the metaphor of Penelope waiting for her husband Ulysses to return from his expedition in the Odyssey. Like Penelope, I waited for Benoît to return from his mission in Antarctica.
Benoît’s experiences in Antarctica were also a source of inspiration. As I couldn’t travel with him to Antarctica physically, he agreed to be my eyes and ears while he was there. The continent’s icy, inaccessible desert expanses stimulate one’s imagination.
Could you expand on the symbolism the Penelope project uses?
For both Penelope and me, waiting for our significant other is sublimated by an act of creation that transforms nostalgia into promise, daydreams into action, powerlessness into control, and absence in presence. For example, the immobile ice sculptures we made in the project are a physical representation of frozen expectations.
The Penelope Project is inspired not only by Greek mythology, but also by current political issues and climate change, making the project both pluralistic and evolutionary. The project isn’t one work of art, but rather a set of works that address central themes such as adventure - adventure that is clearly anchored in Antarctica's grandiose landscapes.
While he was in Antarctica, I asked Benoît to make some ice sculptures using the latex and plaster moulds produced in France before he left and to shoot time-lapse videos for my artistic project in his spare time. The ice sculptures he filmed reflect the climate and social concerns important to everyone involved in the project (me, other artists who contributed to the project, Benoît, IPF…) The ice is a fragile and ephemeral material in the mid-latitudes where we live, but it happens to be one of the strongest, enduring substances in Antarctica.
Each still frame in the video represents a moment frozen time since the sun never actually sets during the austral summer at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, giving the illusion that time is frozen. In one stop-motion film, you can see a shadow that revolves around a sundial. The ice dolls mark time, which is meant to symbolize the eternity Penelope felt as she was waiting for Ulysses' return.
But with climate change and the passage of time, one can only wonder how long the ice will last. Erosion, sublimation, and warming temperatures are hostile to ice in Antarctica, just as they are to the ice dolls in the time-lapse videos.
Other videos in the installation show people merging with the landscape around them yet not disappearing. They also represent the climate migration crisis that will happen in the future if not enough is done about climate change.
What were the major milestones in the project?
We accomplished my initial vision for the project in several discontinuous phases over two years. However, I wouldn’t consider the project to be over. It’s a constantly evolving project.
I did a lot of the initial preparatory work in the two weeks when I was waiting for Benoît to leave for Antarctica the first time in 2017. I started reading as much as I could about the continent and the polar regions in general. I read some polar research, but I was especially interested in learning more about explorers who travelled to Antarctica such as Dumont d’Urville, Paul Emile Victor, and, of course, Alain Hubert.
Plastic artist Maxime Vernier involved in the project helped me to create latex and plaster moulds for the ice sculptures Benoît made for the time lapse videos. For that, we worked with Olivier Testault from the local FabLab in Besancon <link>. We used their 3-D printer to create the characters and produce some of the plastic pieces used in the short film. Stephan Angelier helped to handle post-production of the photographs. It was a long creative process before the latest and plaster moulds were ready for Benoît to take to PEA.
The first year we didn't know what Benoît might be able to do there in terms of his availability to work on the project, or if weather conditions would allow him to film outside. We made improvements and alterations throughout the project. The second year Benoît went to Antarctica we focused on enhancing the system for filming the time-lapse videos. Increasing the battery life of the camera was important, as we needed to shoot over 36 hours to have enough time-lapse footage for one video.
Benoît recorded more material than we needed, so we had to edit out a few parts of the project that didn’t work until we had a solid final product that I could be proud to show.
And now after two years of waiting the public finally gets to see some of the work?
The Penelope Project was originally supposed to be shown at the Besançon Museum of Fine Art and Archaeology in April 2020. After COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of art galleries and museums, the exhibition was initially postponed until 2021, and then, unfortunately, cancelled.
Now the city of Besançon has acquired part of the Penelope Project to put on display in a public exhibition at the Besançon Fine Arts and Archeology Museum called "Le Bureau des expositions potentielles - Fonds de diffusion d'art contemporain de la ville de Besançon”.
The exposition opens on February 24th and will remain open until April 24th. If you happen to be in Besançon, I suggest that you check it out.
In the meantime, we're still looking for other exhibition venues and additional funding.
The 2021-2022 BELARE season seems to have passed very quickly! After the departure of the last teams of scientists on February 4th, the rest of the IPF team has been doing everything necessary to prepare the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for overwintering.
As the last thirteen members of the team left at the station for the last weeks of the season, we’ve been so busy! Before leaving the IPF team needs to do maintenance on the different systems of the station and ensuring the continuation of data collection for scientific projects until the last flight back to Cape Town at the beginning of next week.
During these last few days, one of the most important tasks has been preparing the electrical systems of the station to switch to winter mode. In this mode, the station’s energy use priorities are adapted for the austral winter months when the station will run autonomously. Engineers and technicians are busy preparing and testing the station’s energy production systems, as well as making all necessary adjustments on the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC, the station's electronic “brain”), which runs all the equipment in the station and makes sure everything goes smoothly during the eight months that the station is unoccupied.
Some scientific equipment only collects data during the austral summer research season, so we must dismantle and carefully pack it away to be shipped back to scientists in Europe. However, many instruments will continue to collect data during the austral winter. Making sure power continues to feed this equipment is essential for the scientific projects that collect data all year round.
Draining and cleaning the water treatment system is another ritual we need to do at the end of the season. First, all the toilets will be closed (leaving the dry toilets as the last option). Then the washing machine and dryer will be shut off. Finally, on the last day of the season, we’ll close the showers and the water distribution to the kitchen.
As the station’s annexes sit on top of a slowly moving glacier, the team needs to lift and adjust the level of the building twice a year to compensate for the glacier’s natural retreat. One side of the construction is attached to the granite ridge the station states upon with hinges, while the other can be lifted upwards thanks to a series of hydraulic pumps. This allows us to install an additional layer of about 6 cm between the annexes’ beams and the thirteen supports on which they sit.
Finally all the vehicles, storage containers and field equipment (cabooses and mobile laboratories) need to be properly stored. This means moving them from the flat “terrace” on front of the station to the Winter Park blue ice field and hangar located about 3.5 km away from the station.
For the team leaving to Cape Town early next week (the exact date will depend on weather conditions), it will of course be nice to return home to see our families and friends again after several months on the ice. But at the same time, many of us will miss the unique and spectacular environment that surrounds the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.
After a fruitful season of scientific research, the last teams of scientists bid farewell to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on Friday, February 4th. All scientists have since returned to their home countries and are looking forward to studying the samples and data they collected during their time in Antarctica.
Now that we’re down to only 12 people, the station is now a lot quieter than it was before.
The rest of us continue to go about our business collecting data for scientific projects until we close down the station at the end of the season, preparing for next season, and starting to prepare the station for overwintering (which is especially important for the water and electrical systems). There’s still a lot to do before the reaming team members leave for the season, but we’ll talk about that in more detail in our next update!
In the meantime, Science Liaison Officer Henri Robert and Head Engineer Johnny Gaelens have been busy doing online lessons with classrooms in Belgium and around the world, including Croatia, France, the UK, and the US.
Demand for the online lessons has increased steadily over the last few years to the point that Henri’s and Johnny’s schedules until the end of the season are packed with online lessons with students of all ages and disciplines. These lessons are on top of the daily duties at the station!
Over the course of the 2021-22 season, Henri and Johnny have hosted numerous online lessons with schools, all of which have been greatly appreciated by both teachers and students, who are captivated by the Antarctic landscape that can be seen from the station’s windows, what they can learn about living at a zero emission research station, daily life in Antarctica, the scientific research being done at the station, the effects of climate change, Antarctica wildlife, and the erosion of biodiversity.
“Demand is so high that we don’t have enough time to get to all the requests we receive,” Henri said. “We have to schedule them for next season already!”
The outreach that BELARE team members do at the station perfectly complements the education and outreach activities being carried out by IPF staff in Belgian schools.
If you or someone you know would like to schedule an online lesson live from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica - the world’s first zero emission polar research station - please contact us at info@polarfoundation.org and we’ll work to find a time to schedule you in in the future!
The 2021-22 season witnessed a groundbreaking research project based out of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica that will pave the way for future marine biological research in the region.
Funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), the RECTO project (Refugia and Ecosystem Tolerance the the Southern Ocean), aims to advance our understanding of the responses of Antarctic marine ecosystems to the strong environmental pressures they face. Even though the fieldwork of the RECTO project has mainly focused on the Antarctic Peninsula, the maritime area located in the area of the Princess Regnhild Coast in East Antartica close to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station is relatively unexplored from the point of view of its marine biodiversity.
It is in this area that the International Polar Foundation led an important expedition to allow Prof. Bruno Danis, who heads the Marine Biology Lab at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) to carry out preliminary work in the region of Breid Bay and Camp Derwael, nearly two hundred kilometres from PEA on the Princess Ragnhild Coast in East Antarctica.
The purpose of this preliminary work was to:
After several days of preparations and development of the equipment, including the design and assmbley of the sampling lander, a team made up of expedition leader Alain Hubert, Bruno Danis, Timothée Grosrenaud, and Thomas Naulin set off for the coast aboard a caravan made up of three large sledges, respectively serving as a living space, work space, and storage space, all towed by a Prinoth tractor.
After a day of driving, the team established a first base camp at Breid Bay, from which it was possible for them to do short reconnaissance missions on snowmobiles to find a launch site suitable for using the harvesting machinery that we had constructed. This allowed us to identify the best access points from which we could deploy our instruments from the ice shelf’s frozen cliffs.
While the launch of the lander and the traps went smoothly, an unexpected difficulty arose: the the underwater lighting and shooting equipment turned out to be less than reliable. After recovering the lander following a dive to 206 metres, the entire lighting system was irreparably damaged due to issues with the sealing around the lamps and the batteries. Despite these problems, we managed to take more than 1500 high-resolution photos, which will provide valuable insights for future work.
After staying longer in the water, we recovered the traps with their contents, thanks to Alain Hubert’s sustained effort. In the end we managed to sample several dozen organisms. We’re going bring these samples to the biology lab at the ULB for detailed analysis (taxonomical identification and genetic sequencing).
We then moved our base camp to Camp Derwael. The team did another test with the lander, in a new configuration. Unfortunately, the underwater lighting equipment again suffered from a lack of adequate waterproofing. The team recovered the traps after they spent around thirty hours at the bottom of the ocean, which enabled us to recover around fifty smaller organisms who will also be shipped to Belgium.
In addition to our biological sampling, we launched CTDs (sensors recording depth, temperature and salinity), which allowed us to collect data that are not often collected in this part of Antarctica. These data will make it possible characterize the profiles of the water masses along the Princess Ragnhild Coast. We finished the day by deploying a CTD in a deep zone (784 metres) so we could profile water masses, which revealed unexpected results!
After eight days in the field, we returned to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica with a few stops along the way. Despite the technical difficulties we encountered, the expedition produced a series of data, allowed us to collect specimens, and gave us the opportunity to get valuable field experience, which will shape future marine biological research in an area that has been identified as having a particular ecological value for large marine predators (birds and mammals), but which is a heavily under-researched area.
After some delays brought about the COVID-19 pandemic, the 3rd Arctic Shorts film evening took palce on Wednesday, January 26 at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels.
The Arctic Shorts film evening, which featured eight films from filmmakers from across the Arctic, was made possible thanks to the financial and organizational support of the Mission of Canada to the EU, and the Arctic Futures Symposium partners, who each contributed a film from their region to the event.
An official side event of the Arctic Futures Symposium, the event had been delayed a few times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty around the cutlural sector being open in Belgium. It was finally given the green light to happen this past Wednesday.
The event welcomed around 150 people in BOZAR's Salle M to watch eight flims featuring the beauty, challenges, and realities of life in the Arctic, seen through the eyes of Arctic filmmakers.
Before the films were shown, Judith Gelbman, Councellor from the Mission of Canada to the EU, and Michael Mann, the EU Special Envoy for Arctic Affairs, gave brief opening remarks to welcome the cinema-goers.
All attendees were required to have COVID safe tickets and wear masks at all times inside the venue.
In spite of the the restrictions, everyone who attended from the Arctic commmunity in Brussels and the general public enjoyed the event.
The Arctic Futures Symposium partners are already thinking about when it might be possible to organize another Arcitc Shorts film evening, hopefully at a time when the pandemic will be less of an issue.
At PEA a lot of scientific instruments are continuously collecting data for researchers working at different universities or research institutes in Europe and around the world. But have you ever wondered how these data find their way to the scientists who need it for the reserch projects?
We can divide the data repatriation in three categories:
An example of near real time data collected is the amplitude and orientation of Earth's magnetic field. A variometer and a proton-magnometer housed in a specially-constructed shelter located about 500 metres from the station send their data via fiber link to the station, where it is then forwarded via satellite to the Royal Meteorological Institute in Belgium every second!
Other data from various instruments around the station are transmitted to a data centre inside the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, where they are stored until they can be transmitted. So as not to disturb activities of people at the station, these data are transmitted every night to a datacenter in Amsterdam. The data are then forwarded to the various instutues who are colelcting data at PEA.
The last category of data repatriation are devices that store all their data within the instrument. Scientists or IPF staff visit the instrument yearly, do an inspection to make sure it is orking properly, and download the data. At the moment, this is the case for most of the instruments that have been set up in the field, far away from the station.
Always eager to find better solutions, IPF is currently investigating ways to conduct data downloads from instruments in the field. Data will be sent with a low power point-to-point radio link to PEA. From the station, these data will be forwarded via satellite to the respective institutes who need the data. We expect the first project using these links to perform the data repatriation soon.
Scientific projects providing real time data transmission:
Scientific projects transferring data every day each evening
Instruments delivering data once per year:
It’s been a busy time at the Princess Elisabeth. Scientists from the Mass2Ant, CLIMB, and PEACE projects along with the station cook for mid-season and a few members of the station’s technical team left the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on Friday, January 14. The 15 people who left were replaced by six new people, including scientists, station engineers, and the final cook for the 2021-22 season.
Arriving via Novo Station, the six new arrivals quickly settled in, did their field training, and got started on their respective research projects or duties.
In addition to engineer Johnny Gaelens making a return to the station after three years of absence and a new cook, Thomas Fontaine, the station welcomed four new scientists who will spend the next few weeks conducting research on diverse topics.
Two of the scientists who arrived on January 14 included Olivier Francis and Sajad Tabibi from the University of Luxemburg. They’re here working on one of the oldest ongoing research projects at PEA - the GIANT project, which, as those of you who have followed the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for years may remember is using geodesic techniques (including gravimetric and gnosis observations) to track the mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in the region of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.
These measurements will contribute to a greater understanding of how quickly the Antarctic Ise Sheet is gaining or losing mass. Combined with measurements taken in other parts of the white continent, determine where the ice sheet is gaining mass and where it’s losing mass. As 90% of the world’s freshwater is contained in the Antarctic Ice Sheet, how rapidly the ice sheet loses mass to the oceans can determine how much sea level rise will occur in the coming years as the climate changes.
The work the GIANT team is doing perfectly complements the work of research projects such as Mass2Ant.
This season, the GIANT researchers plan to update their equipment. They’re upgrading the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) antenna at PEA, and installing a GNSS antenna at the nearby abandoned Japanese Asuka Station, 60 km north from PEA. They also plan to repeat absolute gravity measurements the project has been taking intermittently over the last decade to see if snow accumulation on the ice sheet in the region is permanent or not.
Another new arrival is Quentin Van Hellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. He’s spending a few weeks with us to take some measurements for the Horizon 2020 funded HYPERNETS project.
The EU-funded project has developed a new low-cost multi-head hyperspectral spectroradiometer that works as an in-situ validation for satellite measurements of surface reflectance of solar radiation on both land and water. The project is measuring visible, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared radiation reflected from the snow and ice in the vicinity of the station.
The project chose 24 places around the planet to take these validation measurements, including in the vicinity of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.
The amount of radiation reflected from various surfaces on Earth plays an important role in how much solar radiation is absorbed by the planet and how much is reflected back into space, and plays a key role in climate change. Lighter surfaces with snow and ice reflect more solar radiation, while darker surfaces free of snow and ice absorb more solar radiation, contributing to greater warming of the planet.
While a number of microbiological studies have taken place at PEA over the years, this season marks the second season since the station’s inauguration that it has hosted biologists looking at macro fauna and the continuation of the BELSPO-funded RECTO project (initiated in 2017 with the census of Snow Petrel around the Western Sør Rondane Mountains). Bruno Danis, who heads the Marine Biology Lab at the Unviersité Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), arrived last week to start his research project to survey the land and marine biodiversity in the vicinity of PEA.
He’s doing some work alongside the ANTSIE project, studying the stomach contents of snow petrels to see if they’ve ingested pollutants such as PCBs or microplastics. Although Antarctica is a remote continent, its inhabitants aren’t immune from being affected by pollution from more inhabited parts of the world. Atmospheric and ocean currents bring this pollution to Antarctica, too.
Bruno will also spend a good part of his expedition at the coast with Expedition Leader Alain Hubert and Mechanic Tim Grosrenaud dropping a GoPro yo-yo cam from the edge of ice shelves to get snapshots and videos of the creatures living close to the ice edge of the Droning Maud Land coast. Baited traps will also be deployed to assess the scavenger biodiversity of the seabed. Marine scavengers are good bioindicators as they are numerous, easy to sample, and they play an important role in recycling the organic matter in the marine ecosystems of Antarctica.
Alain and Tim - who have already done a reconnaissance of the coast to determine the best study sites for the RECTO project and determine the next season’s transport ship landing site, will assist Bruno in his sampling by assembling and operating a 2000 metre-long winch equipped with a telescopic mast from which he’ll let the yo-yo cam drop into the briny deep away from the ice shelf to take photos of the sea floor and to detect living organisms.
By investigating the poorly known Droning Maud Land coast, Bruno hopes that information he collects on this trip will provide research material for future Masters and PhD students and help prepare future biological resarch expeditions to this part of Antarctica.
The first 14 members of the BELgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE) are off to a strong start opening and preparing the station for the arrival of scientists in the coming days.
The MAS exhibition 'To the Antarctic' welcomed more than 45,00 visitors over the 4.5 months that it was open to the public.
The International Polar Foundation was again present and active at the annual Arctic Circle Assembly and accompanying Arctic Circle Business Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland from October 17th-19th.
The latest edition of the annual Arctic Futures Symposium organised by the International Polar Foundation and its many Arctic stakeholder partners will take place in early December. Register to secure your spot!
IPF is sad to learn of the passing of glaciologist Professor Roland Souchez, who made important contributions to the fields of glaciology and climate science during his decades-long career.
To celebrate the opening of the exhibit “To the Antarctic: Belgica’s Polar Pioneers”, Antwerp resident and LEGO enthusiast Daniel Vermeir built an amazing scale model of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, the world’s first and to date only zero-emission polar research station.
To celebrate the opening of the exhibit “To the Antarctic: Belgica’s Polar Pioneers”, Antwerp resident and LEGO enthusiast Daniel Vermeir built an amazing scale model of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, the world’s first and to date only zero-emission polar research station.
The International Polar Foundation has been part of creating a fascinating new exhibition on Belgium's contributions to Antarctic exploration and research, opening at the MAS Museum in Antwerp starting from Friday, June 21st.
After much anticipation, on Thursday, June 20th, the exhibition “To the Antarctic: Belgica’s Polar Pioneers” at Antwerp’s MAS Museum officially opened its doors.
On Tuesday, June 11th, IPF Founder and President Alain Hubert was invited to participate in the “Debate with Ambassadors” panel at European Sustainable Energy Week 2024 (EUSEW24).
At a ceremony held the afternoon of Monday, June 10th at The Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium, Alain Hubert, Founder and President of the International Polar Foundation, received the prestigious Belgica Prize alongside French glaciologist Professor Jérôme Chappellaz.
At a ceremony held the afternoon of Monday, June 10th at The Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium, Alain Hubert, Founder and President of the International Polar Foundation, received the prestigious Belgica Prize alongside French glaciologist Professor Jérôme Chappellaz.
