Nicolas Bergeot from the Royal Observatory of Belgium talks about the interesting research on ice mass balance and Earth’s geomagnetic field he and his colleagues are carrying out at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station

It's Antarctica's Ozone and Aerosol Man! Alexander Mangold from the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium was kind enough to spend part of his day telling us about the atmospheric research he and his colleagues carry out at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station. Learn about the state of ozone hole over Antarctica and the risks this poses to scientific research teams, as well as how certain aerosols lead to cloud formation.

Arrival of the Toyota Hiluxes at Utsteinen. We are so happy to have those available at Princess ELisabeth Antarctica to support scientists for the rest of the 2014-2015 season and beyond. These are true game changers. many thanks to our Mechanics Kristof Soete for customising them!

While examining satellite sea ice data, Nighat Amin of the International Polar Foundation spotted that a 70 km2 iceberg had calved off the tip of the King Baudouin Ice Shelf in late January. We interviewed glaciologists Frank Pattyn and Reinhard Drews, who have both been studying the ice shelf for some time.Ice shelves losing ice is a completely natural phenomenon, and glaciologists closely track the pace at which this happens. In the case of the King Baudouin Ice Shelf, the last major calving hasn't happened since the 1960s. What we witnessed here was a natural, albeit rare, event.Both Frank Pattyn and Reinhard Drews from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) were quite confident in saying that, according the current data they have, there is no sign of acceleration of ice discharge from this particular ice shelf, and it remains relatively stable.Whether that stability will remain true for the coming decades will largely depend on the way climate change may affect that particular part of East Antarctica.

Jan Lenaerts, the 2014 Inbev-Baillet Latour laureate is really happy with the work he was able to accomplish during the 2014-2015 BELARE expedition and with the support he got from the team.Jan was in Antarctica do conduct research for the BENEMELT project. BENEMELT aims at investigating how much snow melts on the ice shelves in East Antarctica, to what extent melt may increase in the future, and how this melt would impact ice shelf stability and ultimately global sea levels.His main duties this season were to:- Install an automatic weather station on the King Baudouin Ice Shelf to get continuous measurements during a one-year period- Drill several firn cores to investigate melt layers and determine snow densityJan Lenaerts will come back to Princess Elisabeth Station and camp on the ice shelf for several weeks to measure snow albedo, snow grain size, snow density, and melt layers. He also plans to investigate a large 2 km-wide scar on the ice shelf scientists form the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in December 2014 while flying a geophysical survey.

Breaking its way through the thick pack ice, the Mary Arctica headed for Breid Bay. 5°E (the Norwegian landing site in East Antarctica) has remained closed since the end of December because of the thick fast ice failing to break, despite the advancing season. Resupply was becoming doubtful and the gloom was beginning to spread. As the icepack to the East began to open up, the decision was taken to head to the Belgian Antarctic Operations cargo unloading site. Breid Bay was selected out of the three possible sites (Crown Bay and Dog's Head Terminus, last year's unloading site, remained inaccessible). A window of opportunity presented itself between two powerful squalls. One storm abated on the 23rd, the sky opened out a washed cloudless blue, and the ship moved in to moor against the ragged ice cliff. Operations began immediately, with containers gently deposited on the blue ice, and towed away by snow tractor to be loaded on to sledges. But the swell rose, and tossed the ship up and down like a bath toy, so much so that the cranes could not be operated safely. The ship headed into the bay to await calmer conditions. Twelve hours later, the waters smoothed over, and the wind fell. She returned, and moored again, and the precious Black Panthers came ashore to a rapturous reception from the awaiting station crew. Video: © International Polar Foundation / Jos Van Hemelrijck & Fares Manners Music: "Black Vortex” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... See more from The International Polar Foundation: -http://www.polarfoundation.org -http://www.antarcticstation.org -http://vimeo.com/118124374 - / intpolarfoundation  

On January 23rd and 24th, the BELARE 10 team met the Mary Arctica cargo ship at Breid Bay on the coast of East Antarctica to unload supplies and equipment destined for the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station. Two customised Toyota Hiluxes were part of the cargo delivered, and the team was able to give them their first test drive in Antarctica.

A bad storm hit Utsteinen last weekend. It hit the station on Saturday: here is a quick glimpse of how it looks and feels like.