Floating polar research station leaves France for Arctic mission

A floating research station shaped like a large aluminium igloo has left the western French port of Lorient for a long-term Arctic mission designed to drift with sea ice while studying biodiversity and climate change.

The Tara Polar Station was built in France and is designed to resist sea-ice pressure and temperatures as low as minus 52C. Its shape is intended to let it move with the pack ice in a controlled way for months at a time. Around 30 research centres from 12 countries, including Germany, Canada, Spain, the United States, Switzerland and Japan, are taking part in the expedition.

Romain Trouble, executive director of the Tara Ocean Foundation, said the Arctic Ocean has been little studied and is already changing significantly. He said researchers cannot understand the environment by spending only two months a year there.

French Minister for the Sea Catherine Chabaud was present as the vessel departed Lorient, with hundreds of people on the quayside. From mid-August, the station is due to travel east along the Russian coast with help from an icebreaker. It is expected to become trapped in the pack ice by early September, drift at an average speed of about 10 kilometres a day, and reach the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard by the end of 2027.

Ten expeditions using the station are planned between 2026 and 2045, with trips scheduled every two years. The vessel will carry 12 people in winter, including six scientists, and 18 people in summer.

The international crew was selected after medical and psychological aptitude tests and team-building work. Expedition director Clementine Moulin said the organisers were not looking for solo adventurers, but for people able to live together in a confined environment.

Crew members spending the winter aboard will face five months of total darkness, confined conditions, extreme cold and the risk of polar bears. Eric Pelletier, a 58-year-old genomics researcher and crew member, said bears are a serious concern because they are on their own territory and can hide behind blocks of ice. Crew members have received firearms training for possible attacks, and a specially trained dog will travel with them to help detect approaching animals.

Scientists plan to use an opening in the hull and onboard instruments to collect more than 10,000 samples from water, the atmosphere and sea ice. Trouble said Arctic biodiversity is uniquely adapted to the region and could disappear if the environment changes. He warned that researchers could lose evidence of part of the evolution of life before it is documented.