Six Student Researchers on an Antarctic Mission
Antarctique 2.0°C is a sailing expedition that set off from Marseille, France, on October 6. Baptiste, Clément, Lana, Margot, Olivier and Niels will cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the Antarctic Peninsula, before making their return to Brittany in March 2022. The six student researchers have set themselves the challenge of conducting an interdisciplinary study on the impacts of climate change and humankind’s environmental footprint. They are also hoping to promote a greater knowledge of science among young people.
Margot
Antarctica 2.0°C is a scientific research campaign headed by six students from France's prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure higher education establishments with the aim of understanding and analyzing the impact of human activity on the Atlantic and the Southern Hemisphere whilst on board a sailing boat.
Clément
What's going on down there could more or less foreshadow what will happen here, providing us with ideas on how to adapt to climate change.
Margot
This is a six-month campaign. We'll be leaving Marseille for a six-week crossing of the Atlantic to Patagonia, passing through the Drake Passage to reach the Antarctic Peninsula during the southern summer. We will stay there for about two months before setting sail again to reach Lorient in March 2022.
Clément
We have six different scientific fields of interest between us, which we all work together on, such as studying marine ecosystems, particularly the ecosystem that captures CO2 in the ocean, climate phenomena such as precipitation, evaporation, ocean dynamics and the atmosphere, and the study of our surroundings. This may offer us an opportunity to see where humans and local fauna are situated there and how they thrive, factors which may or may not be impacted in different ways by the changing climate.
Margot
The objective is to share our knowledge and the data we have acquired with as many people as possible and to demonstrate that being a researcher also means conducting studies in the field. There’s more to it than just working in a lab, it’s also a profession that involves the outdoors and teamwork.
Clément
Setting sail with six people aboard a small boat offers us more flexible ways of collecting rainstorm, storm, sandstorm and snowstorm samples, for example, and to also reach ecosystems that are less accessible via larger boats.
Margot
The Louise is a 19-meter, polar schooner that was mainly designed and built for sailing in the Arctic sea, and this project is a great opportunity to set sail on it.
Clément
One of the challenges we faced was setting up a space, like an operating room or a space for building satellites, with a high level of cleanliness inside the boat to ensure reduced contamination of the collected samples. This is known as a clean room.
Margot
Several steps have to be taken when visiting Antarctica. You have to fill out a lot of authorization forms and justify arrival to the territory to be able to conduct research. Last year was extremely intense in terms of preparations and it may finally be time to get out there and make this trip a reality.