Philippe Mettens on Belgium’s Return to Antarctica

17 Mar 2008 - Interviews, Logistics, Antarctic

Philippe Mettens

Philippe Mettens, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), offered some of his time to SciencePoles to discuss his thoughts on Belgium's new Antarctic research station, Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

The Belgian Science Policy Office coordinates Belgian science policy and research programmes at the national level in Belgium. The organisation designs and implements research programmes and networks, and will be managing the scientific research projects going to the new Belgian Antarctic station.

What is the significance of Belgium building a new research station in the Antarctic after 40 years of having no operational base on the continent? How will having a new research station help the Belgian scientific research community? How will it help to the international research community?

Well first and foremost the new Princess Elisabeth station is putting Belgium back on the map in Antarctica. The international community - both political and scientific - sees the station as a new Belgian commitment to enforce its support of Antarctic scientific activities over the long-term. The new station will also strengthen Belgium's position within the Antarctic Treaty System, both at the level of decision-making regarding the management of activities in the Antarctic and the protection of the Antarctic environment.

As for the scientific community - both Belgian and international - they will be able to use the unique vantage point of a new station remotely situated at the foot of the Sør Rondane Mountains, the edge of the Polar Plateau and only 190 km from the coast of Antarctica. Scientists will be able to use the station as a base that will give them access to a range of different Antarctic environments within a radius of 200 km: coastal polynias, fast ice, ice shelves, coastal ice rises, ice slopes, mountain ranges, dry valleys and the Polar Plateau. Additionally, the opening of a new Belgian station to international scientists will in a way be able to return the favour and offer services to the international scientific community, since Belgian scientists are often invited to join the research campaigns of other countries.

The new station will allow Belgian scientists to play an important role in studying how the earth's climate functions and how the Antarctic fits into this functioning. Belgian research will focus on determining the present state of the environment, observing and understanding how the natural environment is changing and developing projections about the future state of the environment using long-term monitoring programmes and incorporating them into an international monitoring network. The new station will also make it possible to open new frontiers in science, particularly with research in microbiology and subglacial extreme environments.

What kind of legacy do you think the new Princess Elisabeth station will create within the context of the International Polar Year 2007-08 and within the international polar research community as a whole?

The Princess Elisabeth station will have a very important legacy - both within the IPY and within the international scientific community - since it is completing a gap that until now existed in the network of scientific data collection and field data monitoring in one of the least occupied sectors of the Antarctic. Before the new station was constructed, the1072 km stretch between the Japanese Syowa station (684 km away) and the Russian Novolazarevskaya station (431 km away) was completely unoccupied. Since the International Geophysical Year 1957-58, this region of the Antarctic has only been investigated intermittently.

And of course Belgium will also be remembered for being a pioneer in constructing a research station that runs on 100% renewable energy. This certainly didn't pass unnoticed by the 46 Antarctic Treaty nations. Belgium has proven that sustainability is the way forward.

What is the importance of the Princess Elisabeth Station being the first ever "zero emission" polar research station?

Most importantly, research carried out in Antarctica should minimise any negative impact on the environment. It's important that researchers interfere as little as possible with the environment of the Antarctic when conducting research in order to preserve it for future generations.

We're also hoping that the Princess Elisabeth station will serve as an example to others. In constructing the new station, Belgium has shown that even in extreme conditions it is possible to have living accommodations that rely solely on renewable energy and thus minimise the impact on the environment and climate. It will serve as an example to encourage efforts to be made on a national level within Belgium, to encourage other nations that have stations in the Antarctic to reduce their impact on the environment, and to promote the need to further develop sustainable technologies.

A lot of expertise was needed to construct the Princess Elisabeth station. However a lot of the technologies used in building the station can easily be used in everyday life applications, especially in construction.

Most polar research stations are run exclusively by the public sector. The new Belgian station will be run by a Belgian Polar Secretariat, which will be created within your Department and which will be made up of a ten-member council under the supervision of a director. The council will have five members from the private sector, to be appointed by the Brussels-based International Polar Foundation (IPF), as well as five members from the various Belgian government ministries concerned, two of which will be representatives of the Belgian Science Policy Office. What are some of the benefits of having a public/private partnership in running the Princess Elisabeth station?

The launch of this ambitious project has only been made possible thanks to the private-public nature of the project. For both parties the mutual support is of great importance. BELSPO is a bit atypical as an administrational body, as it is made up of a large number of scientists who work in highly specialised fields of research. The kinds of organisations we normally have partnerships with are universities, aeronautic firms, or the European Space Agency, but we've always learned how to be flexible and adapt to the needs of our partners.

The collaboration with the International Polar Foundation has been excellent. Thanks to the IPF, we've been able to benefit from the experience and energy of Alain Hubert and his team. The IPF gathered the funding and technical support from the private sector to build the station, so without them the construction of the Princess Elisabeth station would not have been possible.

The Belgian Polar Secretariat will ensure the long-term running of the base. Our department will finance most of the operational costs and maintenance of the station during its lifetime. Over the long-term, the Belgian Science Policy Office will assure the quality and the credibility of the researchers going to the station and make sure that the research being carried out is of the greatest benefit to society and citizens. If the research programmes being carried out at the station were run entirely by the private sector, the research could become more oriented towards technical or industrial applications, and in the process lose sight of the more fundamental research objectives. So in selecting and evaluating the scientific research programmes to be conducted at the station, our Department will make sure that the research carried out at the station will remain true to fundamental and policy-relevant research objectives.

Have you determined a plan of research projects that will be carried out at the station?

Starting from the austral summer season 2008-2009, the Belgian Science Policy Office will gradually build up a scientific research programme, including research projects with extensive field work, which will use the Princess Elisabeth station as a base of operations. We will also have long-term monitoring projects, which will make use of the local facilities of the station itself.

Monitoring programmes to be developed during the first years of operation:

The Royal Observatory of Belgium will be doing a study on crustal physics. This research project will study intra-plate seismic activity and the structure of the lithosphere.
In collaboration with scientists from the European Center for Geodynamics and Seismology in Luxemburg, researchers from the Royal Observatory will also be involved in a project to evaluate the ice mass change or deglaciation within a radius of approximately 500 km of the station.
The Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium will do research in meteorology by monitoring weather and climate and determining the cloud characteristics together with (ice) mass balance measurements in order to improve atmospheric models.
The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium will conduct research in atmospheric physics aimed at measuring the chemical and particle composition of the atmosphere in order to improve our understanding of long-range transport of aerosol and trace gases.
The Royal Meteorological Institute will also cooperate with the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan in the domain of geomagnetics in studying the relationship between small and medium-scale ionospheric and magnetospheric phenomena.

First Field work projects to be developed:

In the field of glaciology, a joint study conducted by researchers from the Universit&ecute; Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the University of Washington, USA will look at the glaciers flowing around and in the Sør Rondane Mountains, which are among the least investigated glaciers in Antarctica. A survey of the ice dynamics of the glaciers will be coupled with ice-modelling and geochemical-isotopic studies, fields in which Belgian research teams excel. Researchers will set up a drill-site and an experiment at the grounding line of a local ice rise in order to investigate the change in flow characteristics of continental ice when it reaches the coastal area. Integrating the observed physical mechanisms at work near the grounding line into the ice-flow models will help researchers better understand to what extent the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) might contribute to sea level rise. The results of this will also help researchers decide on the location and the feasibility of a future ice core drilling project that would investigate the environmental and climate evolution during the last 4000 years.

Researchers from the University of Liège (ULg), the National Botanical Garden in Meise, the British Antarctic Survey, and Hiroshima University in Japan will collaborate in conducting research in terrestrial biology. They intend to carry out an extensive study of the diversity of microbial organisms such as lichens, mosses, bacteria, archaea, cyanobacteria, microalgae, and protozoa living in terrestrial and freshwater biotopes within a radius of 200km of the base. In addition, physiological experiments and molecular-genetic approaches will be carried out to reveal how the key organisms have (co)adapted to the extreme Polar environment and which factors will likely be important in the context of future climatic change.

In 2006-07, prior to the start of the construction of the Princess Elisabeth station, a biological baseline survey was carried out covering all aspects of fauna near the base and flora. These biological indicators will be monitored on a regular basis in the future, which will allow researchers to not only study the impact of the station and the station's activities on the immediate environment, but also to monitor other disturbances such as global climate changes, UV radiation, invasion of new species, and so on. These data on the initial state of the environment at the station site are unique as most of the other Antarctic research stations were constructed before application of the strict rules of impact assessment laid out in the Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty.

By: Joseph Cheek