Tara Polar expedition set to explore the Arctic

The Tara Polar station aims to uncover all the secrets of the North Pole: its atmosphere, its ice, its ecosystem. On a construction site in Cherbourg (Manche), workers are busy. They had 18 months to build a polar station. To withstand the most extreme temperatures, the aluminum hull has been reinforced to a thickness of 20 mm, three times thicker than a conventional boat hull.

In this igloo-shaped geode, 12 to 18 people will live in a small space for a year and a half. The station will sail from northern Norway in 2026. Then, it will get caught in the ice and drift with the pack ice for 500 days. This will allow scientists to study over time the microorganisms living in the ice, which capture carbon from the atmosphere. The Tara Polar station must carry out around ten Arctic drifts in the next twenty years, a major challenge for this region which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the planet.

Watch the full report in the video above