international
polar
foundation

Here a member of the IPF team and a visiting scientist install the CIMEL sunphotometer (CSPHOT) which is a multi-channel, automatic sun and sky scanning radiometer that measures the direct solar irradiance and sky radiance at the Earth's surface.  The Cimel sunphotometer (CSPHOT) is a multi-channel, automatic sun-and-sky scanning radiometer that measures the direct solar irradiance and sky radiance at the Earth's surface.

This past season a new water treatment system was implemented at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, with this new system the capacity to treat and recycle water more than doubled. The station can now comfortably treat and recycle the water needs of up to 50 visitors. The system was completely custom, designed and built in house and quite an accomplishment for our team!

Pictured here are a number of IPF engineers and scientists from various institutions that all partook in 'Live from Antarctica' a webinar organized with the University of Colorado at Boulder and some other schools that allowed scientists to talk about the research they are carrying out, as well as allowed the engineers an opportunity to share the renewable aspects (energy production and water treatment) that the station itself is notorious for. 

The Princess Elisabeth Antarctic polar research station is run completely on renewable energy sources. Nearly 70% of total energy needs is supplied by our wind turbines. However, thankfully the wind isn't always blowing which allows time to service and carry out necessary maintenance to ensure that these windmills continue to reliably deliver a fossil free source of energy. 

2 proud IPF system engineers happily posing in front of the newly completed water treatment system. 

Here a field guide assists a scientist from the EPFL Lausanne install an instrument on the 30 meter tower at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. The instrument that was installed measures wind speed with high precision. 

A beautiful Antarctic sunset is captured out of one of the windows at the Princess Elisabeth station.

Panorama photo of the traverse team leaving the station and headed to the caost to meet the cargo ship coming from Cape Town. 

Quinten Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences is pictured here in front of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica polar research station. He has been coming to Antarctica and working on various projects, most recently as part of the EXPOSOILS research team as well as installing and maintaining hyperspectral cameras for a University of Maryland lead project.