The International Polar Foundation mourns the death of a legend in climate change research.
World renowned French glaciologist Dr. Claude Lorius (1932-2023) passed away earlier last week at age 91. Over his long and productive career, he led 22 expeditions to Antarctica and Greenland to study ice and his insights were fundamental in creating the link between polar research and the study of Earth’s climate.
Claude Lorius accorded the International Polar Foundation the singular privilege of accepting to be amongst the first Honorary Members of the Foundation in 2002.
In 2001, Alain Hubert consulted the world-renowned Climatologist André Berger, professor at the Institute of Geophysics Georges Lemaître (UCL) about creating a new foundation. This new foundation aimed to establish a platform between science and society to enforce the role of science as a driver to action on climate change.
André Berger became a co-founder of the International Polar Foundation (IPF). He advised Alain Hubert to first consult with the heads of three leading European Polar Research Institutes to find out if the initiative could provide useful support to improving public outreach on climate change.
“That is how I came to meet Claude Lorius, who was at one time head of the Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE)*, in Grenoble, an institute with whom I had longstanding relations linked to the study of weather in Antarctica, and with whom I later came to do a long series of data collection on snow accumulation in Antarctica,” IPF President Alain Hubert explained. “He was a very compelling figure, with a very active imagination and keen intellect which allowed him to see a connection that might have escaped the notice of others.”
Prof. Lorius’ most important contribution to polar science came in the 1960s from his help in pioneering ice coring as a means to study the Earth’s climate history, at Vostok Station in Antarctica, where the first cores were being extracted. From a happy accident involving millennial ice cubes crackling in a glass, he postulated that studying the air bubbles trapped in such ice that had been buried over millennia in polar ice sheets could reveal information about Earth’s climate in the distant past (up to 800,000 years currently by this method). From there it could be extrapolated how temperature evolved, in line with concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). The atmospheric concentrations of various gasses stored in tiny bubbles trapped in the ice, allowed for measuring the concentrations of the carbon-dioxide in these trapped air bubbles. The deeper the core extracted, the older the ice, and the air in the bubbles. It became possible to link the concentrations of carbon dioxide to ambient temperature, creating what became known as the Hockey Stick Curve. It became evident early on that the research being carried out in the Antarctic had key lessons for the study of climate change.
The changing concentration of carbon dioxide extracted from the ice cores, could be linked to the average global temperatures rise after the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, when human activity was responsible for emitting large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels, like coal.
*(Note: the LGGE does not exist anymore, having been absorbed by other institutes such as the Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement).
During the 2021-22 and 2022-23 austral summer research seasons, Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences spent several weeks at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica installing and maintaining instruments for the Horizon 2020 Hypernets project, which is measuring surface radiation reflectance at different points of the globe, including Antarctica.
In this interview Quinten describes the objectives of the project and what they were able to accomplish over two seasons at the world’s first zero-emission polar research station.
In a few words, could you tell us what the objective of the HYPERNETS project is about?
Space agencies have been launching many optical remote sensing satellites like Landsat, Sentinel-2, and Sentinel-3. Commercial operators are also launching satellites. For example, Airbus and Maxar operate Pléiades and Worldview. These are all optical imaging satellites taking pictures of the Earth.
But there were no or only a very few in-situ stations where measurements were being made to validate, i.e. check the quality of, the satellite measurements. For this reason, the HYPERNETS project developed a new radiometer - an instrument that measures incoming light and light being reflected from a surface - to derive the reflectance of the surface, which is one parameter these optical satellites measure. The project also set up a network of satellite validation sites operating this equipment.
The project has developed a new radiometer capable of measuring land and water reflectances for the validation of any optical satellite mission. This instrument is the HYPSTAR® radiometer that was deployed at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) research station this season and last season.
You chose certain locations around the world to take in-situ measurements to validate satellite measurements. Was this based on where the project partners were located, or for other specific reasons?
A lot of it was based on where the project partners are located, but also to have a wide range of different surface types. We were planning to have about 20 sites ranging from coastal waters, inland waters, forests, deserts, and also the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. For example, we’ve deployed instruments in the Namibian desert, on the coasts of Belgium, France, and Italy, and in forests in England and Estonia.
Is there any particular reason why you chose the location you did close to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica? Was there anything special about that particular location?
Satellite measurements of Antarctica (and other snowy/icy regions) are used to understand the earth’s changing environment, so we need a validation site there to check the quality of that satellite data.
I chose the precise location where we put the HYPSTAR instrument as it’s not too close to the station, which allowed us to have homogeneous pixels up to Sentinel-3 resolution. Sentinel-3 has 300 metre pixels. To have a clean pixel, you want to be a couple of pixels away from the station and all the containers and vehicles surrounding it. That's why we put it about 1.8 kilometres away from the station in an area that is only snow, no rock.
The benefits of conducting research at PEA are also based on the availability of light. With 24 hours of daylight during the austral summer, we can characterise the directional response of the snow surface as well. So we don't only measure during the satellite overpasses, but we can measure during the whole day. This allows us to see the reflectivity of the surface change due to changing sun position.
There's also the small scale features on the surface that impact the reflectance, in particular the sastrugi on the surface of the snow that cast shadows depending on the sun position.
Since the HYPSTAR radiometer is sitting on snow, does it need to be constantly maintained?
Last year (2021-22) the instrument was deployed for a few weeks in January-February. This most recent season (2022-23) I traveled earlier to the station (December) in the hopes that the instrument could be deployed for a bit longer. At the end of the most recent season, the HYPSTAR was taken down and packed up days before the BELARE team left on February 16th.
So the instrument has only been there for a few weeks each season?
Yes. Since it’s an optical instrument, it needs light to take measurements. So we don't really need it to over-winter there. Also, that same instrument, now that it’s back in Belgium, will be deployed in other locations in Belgium.
Which partners developed the HYPSTAR radiometer
The main developer for the radiometer was Tartu Observatory. The control box was developed by the Laboratoire Océanographique de Villefranche (Sorbonne University).
Will the instrument be going to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for several more seasons?
That’s the plan! Ideally we could make the installation a bit more straightforward, and perhaps ask staff from the International Polar Foundation to set up the instrument. However, at the moment, it's not something that you can attach, switch it on, and start collecting data. But this is something that we hope to improve.
The HYPERNETS project officially ends in April. But we learned a lot during the two seasons the HYPSTAR radiometer was deployed at PEA.
Have you been able to validate measurements from certain optical satellites?
Yes. Last year, I looked at the Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 imagery and a colleague of ours at the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) in the UK used it to validate the calibration of PRISMA and Sentinel-2 top of atmosphere data. For these data, they combine our surface measurements and AERONET data (there's also an AERONET instrument installed on the top of the station) This produces a top of the atmosphere equivalent reflectance product. This is actually what the satellite measures: a combination of the surface and the atmosphere.
These are the first satellites we have looked at, but there is an interest from about 20 different satellites and space agencies to use this kind of validation data.
And what would you consider to be a success for this project since it's ending soon? What kind of results would you like to see?
I think the development of the HYPSTAR radiometer is already a big success of the project. This instrument will enable an evaluation of optical satellite missions from many different surface types. The network of sites we have set up will be continued and will expand internationally. For example, we are discussing with US colleagues to set up validation sites in the USA.
And by deploying the instrument at PEA, we've shown that it's quite robust even in relatively extreme environments. This past season we've also asked ESA to increase the observation density of Sentinel-2. For this season we hope to have many more matchups with Sentinel 2 just because now there's an increased observation density.
This past season, we had a longer deployment period and also twice the amount of Sentinel-2 data. So that should work out to more matchups. And since the station is located at such high latitudes, many of the orbits from different satellites overlap at the station. At lower latitudes, you only get two images for every orbit cycle per satellite. But if you move to 72 degrees south, you get maybe three or four images for every orbit cycle. So, you have an advantage taking measurements in the high latitudes: additional data from the polar orbiting satellites.
Also, HYPSTAR will be entering commercial production after the project ends. The goal of this project has been to create a commercially available radiometer. But also we want to keep using them ourselves for satellite validation purposes.
To what extent did IPF engineers assist with the setup of the HYPSTAR radiometer?
They’ve been a big help! During the 2021-22 season, we installed the central pole on which the instrument is mounted. So now it's quite easy to go back and mount the instrument on the pole that's already there. IPF engineers made a mobile solar power container for power in the field.
We know about optical instruments and scientific measurements, the IPF engineers know how to make things work in such a difficult environment!
So the HYPSTAR radiometer is run entirely by solar power?
Yes. I don't think that we ever had any power issues. The mobile power unit is quite robust. It produces more power than the instrument needs.
Since 2012, with the help of its partners from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Zürich, Switzerland and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), the International Polar Foundation (IPF) has maintained and expanded a network of automatic weather stations (AWS) under the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Climate Experiments (PEACE) project.
The network of automatic weather stations is set up along a 280 km transect from the Princess Ragnhild Coast to the Antarctic Plateau and passes by the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (the world’s first zero-emission polar research station, operated by IPF on behalf of the Belgian State) in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica. The weather stations measure many parameters including temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, incoming solar radiation, reflected solar radiation, and snow accumulation or ice loss.
In 2012, the late Professor Dr. Konrad Steffen, the acting director of WSL at the time, came to personally install the first two automatic weather stations in the PEACE project transect. The following year, his son, Simon, installed a third AWS at Perseus Intercontinental Airfield with the help of IPF.
In 2021, CU Boulder officially donated all three of its stations to IPF for the PEACE project. The same year, two additional stations assembled from parts of automatic weather stations recovered from Swiss Camp on the Greenland Ice Sheet also joined the transect, bringing the total number of weather stations in the project to five.
Expanding the network
During the 2023-24 austral summer research season, IPF intends to add more stations, allowing for higher resolution observations across a three-dimensional area of Queen Maud Land in East Antarctica, a part of the continent that to date has not been well understood due in part to the lack of ground truthing stations in the region.
A team of researchers from the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland has installed additional automatic weather stations in the area close to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for a different research project. The data from these stations will also eventually be added to the network.
Having additional weather stations will create a unique high-resolution data set to feed regional climate models, and will contribute to ice mass balance estimates for East Antarctica, which are currently only based on satellite data.
Robust construction
The automatic weather stations run on solar energy. They were set up in an extremely robust and resilient manner to survive the harsh Antarctic climate. These stations have the same design as the Greenland Climate Network, some of which have been operational for over thirty years. They are therefore remarkably robust and efficient in collecting data, and are able to survive brutal conditions of -40°C with sustained 70 km per hour winds in complete darkness for months.
Each weather station is equipped with two of each instrument or sensor plus a barometer in order to have a backup or control reading and to monitor faults that might develop in one of the sensors. The height of the two primary instrument arms of the tower are typically 1 and 2 metres above the ground. In certain areas with lots of snow accumulation, the stations must be raised from year to year to avoid any instruments being buried in the snow.
As there is no sun for nearly six months during the long, dark Antarctic winter, the station’s power usage has to be reduced to a minimum to ride out the periods where it can only rely on battery power. Therefore IPF engineers working to implement a switch control into the program of the weather stations in the coming years that will shut off the newly installed radio communication antenna on each if power becomes too low. This will preserve the battery for the instruments and allow the data logger to operate until the sun returns and it can recharge the batteries sufficiently.
IPF engineers are also working on a system of small yet durable wind turbines capable of withstanding the harsh Antarctic winter to give the stations more energy autonomy during the six months of the year when there is little or no sunlight.
Repatriating open data
From its inception in 2012, the PEACE project has been transmitting its data via Argos to polar-orbiting satellites that pick up its transmitted data packages every hour and reroute them to servers before being forwarded on to their correct target destinations.
However, during the 2022-23 austral summer research season, IPF engineers conceived and experimented with a different system for repatriating data from the automatic weather stations in the PEACE project. The new system uses a terrestrial hub model, where the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica acts as the hub for collecting data directly from the weather stations using terrestrial data repatriation infrastructure. To make this possible, IPF engineers installed a point-to-point link on the network, enabling each weather station to communicate with the relay station and repatriate all the data back to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. From PEA the data is sent to a geostationary communications satellite, after which the data are eventually rerouted to IPF servers back in Brussels.
Given the long distances between the weather stations and the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, and taking into account Earth’s curvature, signal loss and attenuation can be an issue. IPF engineers solved this problem by installing a relay station to establish a line of sight linking all automatic weather stations. This station was installed at a height of 2700 metres on Van Autenboer Peak in the Sør Rondane Mountains (the tallest peak in the surrounding mountain range), creating a direct line of sight between the Antarctic Plateau and the Princess Ragnhild Coast.
The relay station on Van Autenboer Peak is equipped with multiple 12-volt batteries and a small wind turbine to ensure the batteries will remain charged and in turn keep the point-to-point link operational. This allows for radio frequency contact from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica to the weather stations on the Antarctic Plateau (which would otherwise be hidden behind Vikinghogda Mountain Ridge south of the station). The weather stations located north of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica towards the coast would also be too far away to communicate directly with PEA without the relay station installed on top of Van Autenboer Peak in the neighbuoring Sør Rondane Mountains.
Tests performed this season have been promising. The majority of the automatic weather stations are currently delivering data to an online data repository using the Argos System. If all goes according to plan this coming austral winter, it will be possible to link up all the weather stations using the point-to-point system IPF engineers installed this season. This will provide open access to data once or twice daily as well as to long-term data sets that can contribute to regional and global climate models.
The 2022-23 season is drawing to a close. The BELARE team had been very busy with the final tasks before their scheduled departure at the end of this week.
Last Saturday a team of five left PEA for the coast again. Three collected the remaining supplies that the team couldn’t take back during the previous traverse. Meanwhile, two others re-oriented the automatic weather station at the coast to improve its ability to communicate with the other weather installations in the PEACE project transect from the Antarctic Plateau to the Princess Ragnhild Coast.
In the meantime, improvements to the hangar at Perseus Intercontinental Runway are finishing up. With new bedrooms, a kitchen, toilets, and a mobile container solar power unit, Perseus has been transformed into a comfortable place to spend the night for teams heading to and from the coast.
The team of five that had gone to the coast stopped at Perseus on the way back to help the three team members already at Perseus finalize the work there for the season and prepare the shutdown of the hangar.
Preparing the Princess for hibernation
At the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, the remaining eight team members have been hard at work finishing up their tasks for the season and preparing the station to overwinter.
Systems Engineer Aymar de Lichtervelde and plumber Bernard Polet have been leading a team installing as much of the new water treatment system in the station as possible while shutting down the current water treatment unit for the end of the season. Installation work of the new system will continue at the start of next season.
Johan De Muylder has finished installing a new array of solar panels on the north side of the ridge where the station sits. Additional solar power is always welcome at the world’s first zero-emission polar research station. Meanwhile, the solar panels on the walls of the station need to be protected during the winter, so the team has been covering them up with protective wooden panels that the carpenters redesigned this season.
And IPF Chief Technical Officer Johnny Gaelens has nearly finished preparing all the scientific instruments at the station for overwintering for those that will stay or for repatriation for those that will go back to their home institution or university. Johnny has taken one instrument from the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland that had been measuring snow particle size on the Antarctic Plateau and installed it next to PEA so the engineering team can check the design and improve the system.
Ready to Go
With the team at Perseus back at the station since Tuesday evening, all 16 who are left in this year’s BELARE team are now finishing closing up the Princess as they await news of when the plane will arrive to take them home.
The team of four led by Alain Hubert who had gone to the coast to offload cargo from the ship made it back to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Wednesday afternoon.
Before arriving at the station, they stopped for one night at Perseus Intercontinental Runway to drop off equipment including insulation and cables to finish this season’s work upgrading the hangar into a place to welcome visitors overnight should the need ever arise.
The team stationed at Perseus will finish up the work to be done for the season and head back to PEA by the beginning of next week to prepare for departure. The hangar will be a much cozier place to be than it was at the start of the season!
The coast party then headed to PEA to drop off the components of the station’s new water treatment system. After preparing for the arrival of the water treatment system for weeks, the team of IPF engineers, technicians and plumbers at the station have finally started installing it. With just over a week to go in the season, the team will make as much progress as possible in its installation before it’s time to leave.
With the season coming to an end soon, the team at the station has already started preparing the building for overwintering mode by levelling the annexes, packing up scientific instruments that were taking data during the season, preparing the station’s systems to be put in winter mode, and assembling protective covering on the station’s solar panels. In addition to doing all the regular end-of-season inventories of the food stock and mechanical spare parts is also mandatory, which is also a bit more work. Nevertheless, with one week left, they still hope to install additional solar panels on the ridge once the cargo has arrived.
With the first of two traverses completed, Alain’s team of four will start back to the coast this coming weekend to get the remaining containers and bring them to the station before the season ends next week.
The pressure is on but the team is up to the challenge!
Since the departure of the VIPs from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica more than two weeks ago, the BELARE team has been busy preparing for the arrival of the cargo ship, which contains the components of the station’s new water treatment system, and finishing upgrades to the hangar at Perseus Intercontinental Runway.
Last week a team of eight headed toward the coast. Four team members, led by one of our engineers, performed maintenance on automatic weather stations along the PEACE project transect to the coast, while four others, including Expedition Leader Alain Hubert, went to the edge of the ice to prepare for the docking of the cargo ship.
This weather station is part of a network of five sites that will gather weather and climate data over the next ten years. These data are open-access and can be used for any scientific purpose (climate models, glaciology..etc).
Due to bad weather, the four working on the automatic weather stations had to head back to the station after the maintenance, while the four at the coast have had to wait out the bad weather for several days in a mobile living container unit, sleeping in tents next to it, as they wait for the ship to arrive. While they can see the ship off in the distance, the bad weather and poor sea ice conditions continue to delay the ship’s arrival.
Alain and his team hope the ship can moor by the end of the week so they can start offloading cargo and start bringing it to the station. Back at PEA, a team of engineers and plumbers are waiting to get started on assembling the new water treatment system. They aim to accomplish as much as possible before the team has to leave in mid-February. They plan to continue with the installation of the new water treatment system at the beginning of next season.
In addition to components of the water treatment system, additional food supplies and equipment for the station will also arrive. There’s so much cargo to bring back to the station that it will take two traverses using Prinoth tractors. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate!
In the meantime, engineer Johan Demuylder has been installing new solar photovoltaic units at PEA and on a mobile power unit (a converted shipping container) that will provide power to the hangar at Perseus Intercontinental Runway. The team at PEA is also preparing a mobile bathroom container for Perseus. Once Johan has finished putting the solar panels up, Tom Sage-Segard and Simeon Polet will bring the mobile power unit to Perseus, where they will finish their work upgrading the hangar to make it a liveable space.
By the end of this season, the hangar at Perseus Intercontinental Runway will have bedrooms, a kitchen, an office, and dry toilets.
Over three days last week, the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica welcomed a number of VIPs, including South African Minister for Environment, Barbara Creecy and her civil engineer colleague in charge of energy strategy, Mphikeleli Amos Ndlela.
Members of the Belgian Polar Secretariat, the public-private partnership that manages activities at the Belgian station, also visited the base, as well as Eric Rignot, Professor of Earth Systems Science at the University of California Irvine (UCI) and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and French Ambassador to the Polar Regions, Olivier Poivre d'Arvor.
During their three-day visit, the VIPs received a guided tour of the world’s first (and so far only) zero-emission polar research station. They learned about its passive design, how the station’s energy is produced and managed, and how the water used at PEA is treated and recycled.
"For many years I've served on the Belgian Polar Secretariat, witnessing the spectacular development of the world's first zero-emission polar research station," remarked Piet Steel, Vice-President of the Belgian Polar Secretariat. "But it's an entirely different experience once you visit it for yourself. It's a powerful, efficiently-run base. It has a professional crew that works day and night to support scientists with their work at the station or in the field. The International Polar Foundation and Belgium as a country can be very proud of everything that has been accomplished at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica as an example of sustainable management of a scientific base in a very ecologically demanding environment."
With a short plane ride from PEA, Minister Creecy and Mr. Ndlela also used the occasion to visit the South African research station, SANAE IV, and their scientific vessel, the Agulhas II, which was resupplying their station.
A platform for education
As an example of using PEA as an educational platform to encourage young people to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects, Prof. Rignot gave a live online lecture to a group of 400 students at UCI live from the station’s tower, which has an impressive view of the surrounding landscape. His students were amazed by the natural beauty of Antarctica, the zero-emission design of the station, and the ambition to create a future University of Antarctica that will offer ample opportunities for young researchers to conduct scientific work on the continent.
"People who come visit PEA will be impressed by the station design, which is an example to follow in other parts of Antarctica,” Professor Rignot stated. “The station also provides a unique vantage point to pursue innovative science in East Antarctica, improve our understanding of the impact of climate change on the continent with a low carbon footprint, and learn how to better protect it for future generations. If we can achieve this here, in the harsh environment of Antarctica, we can do it anywhere on the planet!”
Optimizing logistics
The visit of the VIPs, which had been planned for some time, also fit well with the logistical planning of the season. Preparations for bringing passengers in and out of Antarctica must be made several months in advance - although the weather can sometimes delay a scheduled flight by a day or two.
Their arrival was scheduled to coincide with the departure of the scientists from the HYPERNETS and BAMM projects (the latter project having discovered a meteorite weighing 7.6 kg!) and the arrival of new station crew members. The VIPs’ departure coincided with the departure of additional crew members who had completed their mission at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for the 2022-23 season.
The home stretch
Now the last phase of the season has begun. Once the components of the water treatment unit have been unloaded from the ship, the IPF team will work hard to install it before the season ends in mid-February.
It will be a very busy few weeks!
The new year signals the halfway point during the season. While the only scientists present at the station this season wind up their work before heading home next week, the BELARE team prepares for the arrival of another flight at Perseus Intercontinental Runway and the arrival of the supply ship at the Queen Maud Land coast.
A calm yet festive New Year’s
With a few members of the team still performing the usual reconnaissance of the coastline to find the most suitable ship unloading site, the rest of the team had a calm yet festive New Year’s Eve.
Assisted by station doctor Jeanne Picard and engineer Nicolas Herinckx, the cook Thomas Duconseil prepared a festive and elaborated meal, which the team enjoyed while socializing and talking about the various projects they’ve been working on until midnight arrived.
Work continues
New Year’s Day was back to work for everyone!
Meteorite hunters from the BAMM project have been using the international team in hopes to able to find even more micrometeorites to analyze when they return home.
Meanwhile, IPF engineers have continued maintenance of scientific instruments of the various projects collecting data at or near the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. And the engineers from Venturi have been busy testing the upgrades they’ve been making to the Venturi Antarctica, the world’s first fully electric polar exploration vehicle.
After returning from Perseus, where the team has been working on installing an office, living facilities, and solar panel energy supply at the hangar next to the runway, Alain and colleagues then headed out to the coast to complete reconnaissance to find the best offloading site for the ship, which is scheduled to arrive in mid-January. Fog and white-out conditions have made the reconnaissance task challenging. In spite of fast-changing conditions, the team managed to find a safe place to offload cargo from the ship.
The reconnaissance team has brought several containers of waste to be evacuated from the station to the coast. The remainder of the load will be transported to the coast when the ship arrives. The ship will bring the components of the long-awaited new water treatment system.
The station will have a second cook, David Rigotti, a veteran of several seasons with BELARE, and Johan Demuylder, who will help with cabling the garage in the annex and installing the new water treatment system.
After enjoying a pleasant and cheerful Christmas celebration, the PEA crew is already back at work!
Updating Perseus
This week, eight members of the BELARE team including engineers, mechanics, a Prinoth driver, and carpenters led by expedition leader Alain Hubert travelled to the Perseus runway 60 km from PEA to groom the landing strip.
In addition to preparing the runway, which is now managed entirely by IPF, the team is also in the process of renovating the hangar where snow-clearing vehicles and safety equipment are stored. The team is constructing an office for communications, a kitchen, a mess area, and a dormitory with several bunk beds in case travellers need to stay overnight while travelling to their final destination.
Reconnaissance mission to the coast
After the new year, Alain and a small team will make their way to the coast of Queen Maud Land to do reconnaissance in preparation for the arrival of a boat bringing food, supplies, and most importantly a new water treatment system for the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. This task is necessary to assess where the team can safely unload cargo from the boat, as the ice moves constantly, the ice edge height varies from place to place and crevasses may form.
In addition to bringing supplies, the boat will also bring back to South Africa 22 containers of waste that cannot be treated or recycled for other use at the station. These containers are currently being placed on sledges that will be brought to the coast by Prinoth tractor when it’s time to do the 200 km traverse in mid-January. Once in South Africa, the waste will be treated and recycled appropriately.
A new water treatment system for PE
In order to handle the increased number of occupants at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, it was decided to replace the station’s water treatment unit, which was designed to handle the waste treatment needs of a station occupied by about 20 people, with a much larger water treatment system that can handle the waste treatment needs of up to 50 people.
During the summer and autumn, the IPF engineering team assembled and tested the new water treatment system in Belgium before it was disassembled, packed up, and shipped from the Port of Antwerp to Antarctica via Cape Town. As the boat makes its way across the Southern Ocean, a team of carpenters at PEA is modifying the station’s south annex in order to accommodate the much larger water treatment system equipped with a voluminous bioreactor and other water tanks.
IPF’s team of engineers, plumbers, carpenters, and technicians will then assemble the water treatment system (WTS) during the months of January and February. As the expedition is scheduled to end mid-February, this will be a challenge, but a challenge our team is more than capable of handling.
The old water treatment unit will still be working in parallel while the new water treatment system is being installed. Some parts will continue their life as buffers to enhance the capacities of the new WTS.
The new WTS will go online at the end of this season for testing and be fully operational at the start of the 2023-24 BELARE season.
Scientific work continues
The scientists stationed at PEA continued their work.
For about a week, scientists from the BAMM project led by Vinciane Debaille (ULB) were camped out at the south-western edge of the Sør Rondane Mountains looking for micrometeorites on ice, nunataks, and moraines. Having found four meteorites - including one larger than a tennis ball - their field campaign can so far be considered a success. With bad weather approaching, the team of meteorite hunters returned to PEA this week. They’ll spend the rest of their time in Antarctica making day trips to target locations closer to the station.
Last week, Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) deployed HYPSTAR® (HYperspectral Pointable System for Terrestrial and Aquatic Radiometry) equipment in the field for the Horizon 2020-funded HYPERNETS project. Using one of the mobile power container units covered in solar panels that IPF engineers Guus Luppens and Johan Demuylder built a few seasons ago, Quentin is using 100% renewable energy to power the project’s instruments. Quentin is already receiving data and is happy with the results.
Finally, PEA Science Liaison Officer and biologist Henri Robert has been following up on the work of the ANTSIE project managed by Durham University in the UK. You may recall that last season, two researchers placed GPS and global localization sensors (GLS) on the legs of snow petrels nesting on Utsteinen Nunatak close to the station. Their aim is to study the birds' foraging range and feeding habits, as well as to reconstruct histories of snow petrel diet and the sea-ice environment. Henri has been finding back the snow petrels that were tagged last year and collecting the GLS units. The data collected will allow them to see not only where and how often the snow petrels have flown to the coast to get food for themselves and their chicks but also to monitor where the birds spend their time during the winter months.
Everyone is looking forward to celebrating New Year’s eve with the rest of the team. It’s been a lot of work so far but the entire team is looking forward to new challenges in 2023!
Image: 3D drawing of the new water treatment system that will be installed at PEA in January and February 2023.
Over the years, a plethora of scientific equipment has been set up at and in the vicinity of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for scientists to collect data on nearly any parameter you can imagine, including temperature, wind speed, atmospheric particles, cloud, temperature, ozone, albedo, seismic activity, Earth’s geomagnetic field, and many more.
Some instruments have been fastened to the roof of the station. Others are housed in shelters not far from the station. Many others are situated tens of kilometers away in the middle of nowhere, on the Antarctic Plateau, at the Queen Maud Land coast, and in between.
Regardless of where they are situated, as time passes, these instruments - along with the small solar panels and wind turbines that power them - are subjected to punishing conditions including extreme cold, hard wind, and drifting snow. Just a few months in the Antarctic winter can be brutal for instruments.
This is where the IPF teams of engineers and technicians come in. At the beginning of each season, they survey the state of each of the instruments, make repairs, update software, and replace data cards so that the instruments can continue collecting continuous data series for scientists back in Europe (or wherever they may be based).
IPF engineers to the rescue
IPF Chief Technical Officer Johnny Gaelens has been working on fixing one of the Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) collecting data for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). It was set up on the edge of the Antarctic Plateau a few years ago. However, too much snow accumulation made it impossible to keep it in this location. The team has brought it back to the station for a full check and maintenance. Ultimately, this AWS is going to find a new location with less snow accumulation.
Closer to home on the roof of the station, Johnny has also been fixing the CIMEL, MaxDoas and Brewer Ozone Spectrophotometer, which the CLIMB project is using to study the formation of clouds and precipitation in Antarctica, as well as the ozone layer and the amount of UV radiation in the vicinity of the station.
One of the GPS equipped with a GNSS antenna that had been placed at the former Japanese Asuka Station for the GIANT project (which is measuring seismic activity in Antarctica) needed maintenance as well. The mini wind turbine that powered it had to be replaced following damage to it form severe weather during the winter months. Thanks to IPF engineer Nicolas Herinckx who went on-site to fix the problem, the GPS now has a brand new Superwind turbine powering it and is ready to gather data until next year’s BELARE expedition.
