Between missions: from the Antarctic to the Arctic

The German icebreaker Polarstern has ended its Antarctic research expedition in Punta Arenas, Chile. While almost all the scientists left the vessel there, our blogger Gabriel Erni Cassola stayed on board with a small team. In his last post, he tells us about his final days on board as the icebreaker makes its journey back across the Atlantic to its home port in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Soon Gabriel and his colleagues will take water samples and data collected during their journey to the lab at the University of Basel. There, over the coming months, they will analyse how widespread microplastics and bacteria are in the Antarctic Ocean.

It will take some time for them to get back to us again with their findings. However, the 2MB field notes will continue this summer with a new project. This time three PhD students from the Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich will take us up to Svalbard, an archipelago located around half-way between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole, where they will be investigating the greening of the Arctic due to rising temperatures.

Read the final entry of the 2MB field notes from Antarctica here:

In our “2MB field notes from Antarctica” blog series, the two researchers from the University of Basel give insights into their work and life on board the German icebreaker “Polarstern” that is sailing in the Southern Ocean. The scientists are studying how animals and bacteria in the Antarctic are affected by microplastics.