Braving the cold: European polar research advances with new polar hub

In 2025, the EU will establish a new Polar Research Institute based in Sweden, where scientists will drill deep into polar ice to study the history of Earth’s climate and determine the effects of climate change on this fragile ecosystem. We plan to help reduce this.

German scientist Dr. Nicole Bibou is keenly aware of how important it is to study and protect Earth’s increasingly fragile polar regions.

The poles are warming faster than any other region on Earth, and are melting and losing ice. The Arctic, for example, is warming three times faster than the global average, according to polar scientists. This not only affects local communities and wildlife, but also has far-reaching socio-economic and climatic impacts across the world, including rising sea levels.

“We always say that the polar regions are the canaries in the coal mine,” said Beebou, project coordinator for the project named EU-PolarNet 2, which ended in December 2024.

Mr. Bibou is head of the international cooperation unit at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and former chair of the European Polar Board (EPB). The EPB is an independent group of research institutes, funding agencies and ministries established to advance the coordination of European polar research in both the Arctic and Antarctic.

EPB and another important polar research institution, the European Polar Coordination Office (EPCO), will operate in Sweden’s far north from 2025. This reflects Europe’s determination to take the lead in research in these high latitude regions.

EU-PolarNet 2 carried out much of the work for the establishment of EPCO, which is hosted by the Arctic Center of Umeå University in Sweden. EPCO will begin work in January 2025.

sense of urgency

As global temperatures rise and polar ice melts faster and faster, uncovering the secrets of the polar regions becomes increasingly urgent.

“A lot of the work being done now is about understanding, mitigating and adapting to future changes,” Beebou said, adding that “a lot of the work being done now is about understanding, mitigating and adapting to future changes,” adding, “It is important for EU member states with Arctic coastlines and for the region to There are people living there,” he said.

As the EU-PolarNet 2 team prepares to launch EPCO, researchers have compiled a list of future research priorities, including projects on sea ice, glacier melting and permafrost thaw.

Mr. Bebou expressed his hope that EPCO will make a significant contribution to research activities in the polar regions.

“The polar regions, like the deep ocean, are still very sparsely explored,” she says. “It’s the area that will define what our future weather and climate will be like, and that’s why it’s so important.”

Collaboration with indigenous communities

Dr. Annette Schoepstra, researcher and member of the EU-PolarNet 2 Executive Committee, focuses on collaboration with experts from local indigenous communities who have deep knowledge of the polar regions.

Indigenous communities make up about 10% of the approximately 4 million people living in the Arctic region. Until now, they have often been left out of polar research activities.

Schoepstra, who is a PhD in Arctic and Antarctic Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said: “We are working not only with rights holders such as indigenous communities and organizations, but also with indigenous scholars and researchers at universities and research institutes. We are also cooperating with them.”

“For years, people have been told it’s important to include Indigenous knowledge holders or work with them. But how? It’s often not addressed. It’s my interest,” she said.

Currently, collaboration with indigenous peoples is essential to defending their rights, respecting their culture and society, avoiding harmful impacts on local communities, and leveraging indigenous knowledge in shaping scientific thinking about the Arctic. It is based on the principle that

Sjöpstra’s work includes developing a research roadmap in collaboration with the Sami Council, an NGO representing the rights of the Sami people living in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

“I really enjoy working with people with Indigenous knowledge because they often have a very holistic view of things,” she said. It is also a good way to ensure that projects in the region are successful.

breaking the ice of Antarctica

In the field, many researchers focus on both ice melt and endangered species. This is the case with a seven-year project called Beyond EPICA. This builds on an earlier research project called EPICA, which used polar ice samples to reconstruct Earth’s climate going back 800,000 years.

Now, researchers coordinated by Carlo Barbante, a professor of environmental science at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy, aim to harvest Antarctic ice that is well over a million years old.

“That’s when the Earth’s climate system completely changed,” said Barbante, who is also a member of the EPB. The project he will coordinate will run until June 2026 and involve teams from 10 European countries.

The working conditions of his team are very tough.

In a sparse camp in East Antarctica, 16 members of the Beyond EPICA research project team have been living and working in harsh conditions for several weeks.

Their temporary home is just a few tents and shipping containers set up in a dazzling white desolate landscape.

Although it’s almost summer in Antarctica in early December, temperatures at Little Dome C Camp, 3,200 meters above sea level, average around -52 degrees Celsius, and can drop as low as -60 degrees Celsius.

The team drilled thousands of meters to extract and analyze samples of Earth’s oldest ice, and used them to learn about how Earth’s climate evolved over time. You are there to get the important information included.

The climatologists’ giant drill is steadily advancing through the ice and has already passed 1.8 kilometers. The drilling process is electronically monitored at every stage and the hole is only 10 centimeters in diameter, so the impact on the environment is minimal.

But why drill?

“Ice provides information about the past composition of the atmosphere and global temperatures, helping us better understand how the climate works,” Barbante said.

This article was originally published in Horizon, EU Research and Innovation Magazine.