Next month, six scientists and six crew members will travel to Kirkenes, a remote Arctic town in Norway near the Russian border. From there, they will begin a journey to one of the most harsh, hard-to-reach, and least-studied places on Earth. They will board a futuristic floating laboratory called the Tara polar station, which was built in France.
They will face a tough and isolated environment: months of total darkness and temperatures as low as -50°C (-58°F). They arrive in Norway on August 14 and will wait for good conditions and an icebreaker to clear a path for them. Then they will set off on an eight-month voyage, spending the long, intense polar nights on a 26-meter-long, 16-meter-wide vessel. The ship is designed to freeze into the pack ice and drift slowly over the North Pole toward Greenland.
Their mission is to collect data on how climate change and pollution affect the central Arctic Ocean’s unique, complex, and largely unknown ecosystems—one of the most fragile in the world—before it changes forever.
“We are losing species before we have time to discover them,” says Romain Troublé, a microbiologist turned sailor and executive director of the Tara Ocean Foundation, a French philanthropic organization. “So we’re there to document these. In the next 20 years, everything will shift.”
[Image: Romain Troublé with his award onboard the Tara polar station. Photograph: Handout]
For his work on developing the polar station, Troublé was awarded the prestigious Shackleton medal this week.
In 2023, Nature magazine described him and Étienne Bourgois, co-founder of the Tara Ocean Foundation, as “visionary thinkers.” An editorial compared the continuous two-year expedition of the first Tara vessel—a schooner that traveled through the coral reefs of the Pacific Ocean and led to research on reef formation and biodiversity—to expeditions like Charles Darwin’s on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836.
“We know pretty well the physics of the Arctic… But we have no clue about the life, the biological aspect. It is a blank sheet,” says Troublé.
An earlier version of the Tara schooner went to the Arctic in 2006 to complete a transpolar drift. It was only the second such expedition in the central Arctic since Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen completed the first in his ship, the Fram, from 1893 to 1896.
“We decided we wanted to do it again in the future, with more funding, with more means,” says Troublé, nephew of Agnès Troublé, co-founder of the Tara Ocean Foundation and better known as fashion designer agnès b. “We know pretty well the depth, the physics of the Arctic. But we have no clue about the life, the biological aspect. It is a blank sheet to discover.”
[Image: The Tara polar station is designed to be on a continuous expedition spanning 20 years. Photograph: Maéva Bardy/Tara Ocean Foundation]
The design of the station came from Agnès Troublé and Bourgois, while Troublé raised the required €26 million (£22 million) in funding and organized the mission. This presented several challenges, he says, including how to bring together scientists from 15 countries and the “human challenge” for the people onboard.
The scientists and crew will be very remote. While they can be rescued in an emergency, it could take a week to reach them. This is the first stage of what is planned to be a continuous expedition over 10 legs spanning 20 years, aimed at driving policy changes to protect the Arctic.
“I’ve never experienced polar night. My biggest fear is the darkness… [but] how often do you get the chance to do something like this?” says Dr. Nina Schuback.
It is a race against time: the Arctic is warming three to four times faster than anywhere else on the planet. The sea ice that once protected the region is melting quickly, exposing the sea to threats from shipping, fishing, mining, and pollution.
[Image: Fridtjof Nansen’s specially designed schooner, Fram, on Roald Amundsen’s expedition to]In 1911, the South Pole. Photo: Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy
Dr. Nina Schuback, a biological oceanographer who is taking leave from the Swiss Polar Institute to join the expedition, says: “We know the central Arctic Ocean is changing really, really fast. We can see the ice conditions shifting using satellite data, but when it comes to understanding how this affects the biology, it’s very hard to get data.”
The Arctic Ocean and its sea ice support a connected web of life, from polar bears, walruses, and beluga whales to tiny organisms like ice algae, which form the base of the food chain.
Schuback and her colleagues will collect samples of microbes from seawater through the station’s “moon pool”—a central opening that will also serve as a launch point for divers, underwater drones, and remotely operated vehicles to descend into the icy depths. They hope to discover new species that have adapted to this unique region, where the sun doesn’t rise for nearly half the year.
View image in fullscreen: A polar bear clinging to a melting ice floe near Svalbard. Photo: Arterra Picture Library/Alamy
Schuback, who went through a rigorous selection process that one scientist compared to the evaluation for the International Space Station, admits she is both “excited and scared” about the prospect of spending a polar winter.
“I’ve never experienced polar night. My biggest fear is the darkness. It makes you tired,” she says, adding, “And I exercise a lot, but it will be tough on such a small platform.”
“But time will pass quickly. There’s exciting science to do—and how often do you get a chance like this? I feel very privileged.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the Voyage to the End of the World Arctic ice drift mission
BeginnerLevel Questions
Q What exactly is this floating lab in the Arctic
A Its a specially equipped ship that will be frozen into the Arctic sea ice Scientists live on board to study the ice the ocean and the life that exists there during the long polar winter
Q Why do they call it a voyage to the end of the world
A Because the ship will drift with the ice into the remote dark and extremely cold Central Arctic far from any land Its one of the most isolated places on Earth
Q What kind of life are they looking for
A Tiny organisms like plankton algae and bacteria that live in and under the ice They are the base of the Arctic food web feeding fish seals and polar bears
Q How will the ship not get crushed by the ice
A The ship is specially reinforced to withstand the pressure of the ice It will be frozen in place not fighting the ice so it drifts safely with the moving pack
Q How long will the mission last
A The drift is planned to last for about one full year following the ice through an entire cycle of seasons from summer melt to winter freeze and back
AdvancedLevel Questions
Q What is the main scientific goal of this mission
A To understand how the Arctic Oceans ecosystem functions in winter when there is no sunlight This data is critical for predicting how climate change will affect Arctic food webs and global carbon cycles
Q How do scientists collect samples in total darkness and extreme cold
A They use remotely operated vehicles ice corers and underwater sensors deployed through holes in the ice Scientists also work in heated labs on the ship and on the ice surface with specialized coldweather gear
Q What are the biggest risks to the crew and the mission
A Polar bear encounters cracks in the ice opening near the ship extreme cold and the psychological challenge of months of darkness and isolation
