international
polar
foundation

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?

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.
 

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is contributing approximately 0.5 mm of sea level rise per year. The timing and magnitude of the Antarctic Ice Sheet’s contribution is difficult to assess, partly due to the variability of its surface mass balance and its future evolution. Surface mass balance is the net addition or removal of mass at the surface of the ice sheet.

The BELSPO- funded Mass2Ant research project aims to better understand the processes controlling the surface mass balance in East Antarctica, its variability over the last three centuries and, ultimately, improve model projections of surface mass balance changes of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This 2021-2022 fieldwork season is the fourth and last one of the Mass2Ant project. This year the work was accomplished in three weeks at the remote location of Lokeryggen Ice Rise, which is located near the coast, about 160 km from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) station.

Since December 10th, the BELARE team at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica - the world’s first zero-emission polar research station - has been hosting a team from the Monegasque company Venturi, which manufactures high-performance electric vehicles, to test the world’s first electric polar exploration vehicle, the Venturi Antarctica.

The 2021-2022 season has begun for the Belgian Antarctic Research Expedition (BELARE) team at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station!

On the 19th of July 2021, Alain Hubert and Nighat Johnson-Amin of the International Polar Foundation flew to Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland to assist Simon Steffen and Derek Houtz of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Zürich in their mission to remove the remains of the Swiss Camp research station from its location on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

On Tuesday, July 13th, Mychael Arafe and Roman Petibon, two climate activists in their early 20s who founded the Paulette Ride for the Planet project, visited IPF headquarters to interview IPF Founder Alain Hubert and Science Liaison Officer Henri Robert for a documentary they are making about the green transition.

The most recent Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship laureate, Dr. Kate Winter of Northumbria University, along with Dr. Denis Lombardi from the Royal Observatory of Belgium and other colleagues from Newcastle University have published a paper describing their findings from data they collected using low-cost Raspberry Shake seismographs.

An expert in micrometeorites at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) who won the 2010-2012 Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, Dr. Steven Goderis has spent several seasons using the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) as a base to collect micrometeorites.

It is with immense sadness that the International Polar Foundation learned of the death of friend and Expedition Medic, Jacques Richon, who fell victim to an avalanche in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland on Friday 19th March.