Introducing Mystery Class #7
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Hi students!
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| Finding Us in the Middle of Nowhere! | ||||
My name is Ben and I work as a Communications Associate for the IPF, officially called the International Polar Foundation. Well done to all of you who uncovered our first-of-its-kind zero emissions facility. It’s seems you did a good job finding us here, in the middle of nowhere! Congratulations for that!!
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| The Location | ||||
The Princess Elisabeth Station is located at 71°57' South, 23°20' East, on Utsteinen Ridge, to the north of Utsteinen Nunatak, in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica.
You may not be too familiar with this location, but you should be interested to know that this research station is built on the windiest, coldest, or to keep it short, most extreme continent on Earth--Antarctica. Don’t worry though, the station won’t be blown away as it is solidly anchored about six meters deep into the granite of the ridge. While it has no direct neighbor, the closest research stations on the continent are the Japanese Syowa station (684 km away) and the Russian Novolazarevskaya Station (431 km away). When supplies arrive on a ship, the team has to navigate their way quite a long distance to meet the ship on the coast, which is about 190 km from the station. Over these 190 km that separate the coast from the station, the elevation goes from 0 at the coast up to around 1500 meters at the station. It’s not just an easy trip down the street!!
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| The Station | ||||
The Princess Elisabeth Station was named after the oldest daughter of HRH Prince Philippe of Belgium, the successor to the throne and Honorary President of the International Polar Foundation which created this station. However, this Princess Elisabeth station is not the first Belgian polar research station to have ever been built on the white continent. During the 1960’s and the 70’s, Belgium already had its own polar research station: the “Roi Baudouin”-station. Nevertheless, Princess Elisabeth Station is the first time in history that men have dreamt of and realized a “zero emission” polar station.
The term “zero emission” means that the station does not emit any greenhouse gas in its operations since it relies solely on renewable energies, such as solar and wind power to supply it with the energy it needs, for warmth and electricity. In doing so, this station leaves a lesser carbon footprint than any other station – in fact it leaves none! |
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| The Team | ||||
At Princess Elisabeth Station, it is not necessarily a single team which comes back here year after year for the austral summer, which lasts between November and February. While there is usually a core of certain members that do visit annually, there are also some newcomers every year. Within this team, people have several assignments and must attend to various aspects of activities in and around the station. There is the expedition leader, Alain Hubert, the mountain guides, the doctor and many others, such as the chef. All have been part of this successful project and all contribute towards the efficient running of the station.
Moreover, because the Princess Elisabeth Station is a scientific research station before anything else, there are several different visiting scientific teams every year. This year, the Princess Elisabeth Station hosted a large group of scientists participating in the 51st Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE 51) as well as researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Botany Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences. The projects that were conducted this year studied various fields such as microbiology (which studies microscopic forms of life) or geology (which studies the history of the earth as recorded in rocks). |
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| The Climate | ||||
Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth, with temperatures ranging from -60°C to -10°C. The summer is fairly short there, but there are about a 100 days of 24-hour daylight at this latitude during the austral summer season between November and February. Not only the coldest, Antarctica is also the driest continent on Earth and is a white desert with very little precipitation. However, the winds constantly blowing over the area bring in snow from other places on the continent, a phenomenon called ‘snowdrift’, which can easily cover a whole truck over the course of one season. The final element of the Antarctic climate is a rather impressive one too! The winds here are strong, with the strongest being katabatic winds, which can have gusts up to 250km/h. These winds are produced by the flow of cold dense air down a slope (a mountain, for instance) in an area subject to radiational cooling (the cooling of the Earth surface). |
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| The Languages | ||||
Being primarily Belgian, the people at the station most commonly use our country’s two main official languages: Dutch and French. However, as there are often foreign guests such as Japanese, Russian, Czech or even British scientists, many other languages are often in use at the station. That being said, English often becomes the common means of communication. |
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| The Food | ||||
Nutrition is an important aspect of life at the station given the freezing temperatures, not to mention the amount of hard work carried out by the teams. Everyday food here actually differs very little from what you may eat, thanks to the station’s top-of-the-line kitchen equipment and talented chef!
In fact, food consists in two parts: first, there’s a supply of frozen/dried food stored at the station, which is brought in by ship; second, there is fresh food coming in with every plane rotation – in short, the team doesn’t go hungry.
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| Learn More About Princess Elisabeth Station and IPF | ||||
We hope you have enjoyed learning about the Princess Elisabeth Station. You can see more photos and videos and find all sorts of other great information about the Station at our website. And feel free to write to us if you have other questions. You can use the contact us feature on our website. Finally, you can also explore other resources from International Polar Foundation, including our "Edupoles" educational tools and projects relating to climate change and Polar Regions. |
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