Expressions of Intent for International Polar Year 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

Concordia, a new facility for international and long-term scientific activities on the Antarctic Plateau  (CONCORDIA)

Outline
While there is an increasing awareness of the importance of Antarctic research, the 14 million km² Antarctic continent still only houses two permanent inland research stations, Amundsen-Scott and Vostok. Recognizing the unique research opportunities offered by the Antarctic Plateau, the French and Italian Antarctic program agreed in 1993 to cooperate in developing a permanent research support facility at Dome C. The new station, named “Concordia” (75°06’ S -123°23’ E), will be opened for wintering in 2005. However, the two first years will be mainly dedicated to the achievement of the buildings, tests of safety protocols and settlement of some scientific equipment. For this reason, Concordia is expected to be fully operational when the International Polar Year starts, in 2007. Dome C has several valuable characteristics that support the installation of a permanent scientific station: A substantial layer of ice, about 3,300m thick, offers great potential for climatic reconstruction. Ice cores were collected by the EPICA program, a European project involving 10 countries, and more than 900,000 years of climatic records are expected from these samples. In addition, numerous small lakes have been detected in vicinity of Concordia, giving opportunities for exploration and tests of new technologies for the exploration sub-glacial environment. The area corresponds almost to the centre of the polar vortex, a major component of the Antarctic Oscillation driving the heat and mass exchanges between the Antarctic continent and the surrounding ocean-sea-ice-atmosphere coupled system. This area is also suitable for studying the ozone depletion and the subsequent cooling of the stratosphere in spring. The Concordia station is a vantage central Antarctic site to analyze polar meteorological high-resolution data and to evaluate the performance of satellite instruments in terms of local and large scale circulation, surface meteorology and processes, boundary layer and free atmosphere meteorological profiles… The Antarctic Plateau is a well recognised, favourable site for astronomic observations due to its geographic location and its extremely dry, cold, rarefied and stable atmosphere. Millimetric/microwave polarimeters can exploit their high sensitivity in Dome-C, rivalling with space based instruments in selected sky areas. Dome-C is the only built location on the Earth where the 200 micron window is usable; the extremely low atmospheric emissivity will also allow optimal use of the other mm/sub-mm atmospheric windows for Galactic, Extragalactic and Cosmological studies. Dome C is a particularly promising location, at critical distance from highly active seismic regions to allow optimal sampling of the deep mantle and the core in crucial geometries. Besides, it is situated on the East Antarctic plateau about 1,000 km away from the coast in a site potentially very quiet and therefore ideal for seismographic observations. Dome C, at 3,233m above the continental crust, is protected from any magnetic perturbations by earth crust anomalies and is an ideal place for studying magnetism. Concordia is also a unique place to study the Earth-Solar relations within the particular polar cap region, and to understand their symmetrical and asymmetrical properties with respect to the Northern hemisphere Dome C is as a very isolated site with severe climatic conditions. It will be an excellent site for evaluating techniques and procedures for future work on other planets. It is also an excellent site for studying small groups of people in conditions close to those encountered in space vehicles or orbital stations. So, Concordia Station will be a new earth observatory and a logistic centre permitting the exploration of the East Antarctic plateau and giving opportunities to deploy new technical challenges and international projects.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
Concordia Station and the surrounding facilities have been conceived to be a long term support to valuable international scientific programmes. In Antarctica, most of the scientific activity is confined to coastal areas; so, the geographical location of Concordia is a unique vantage to provide new data in the global network for many sciences (magnetism, seismology…) and to increase the accuracy of several models in climatology and atmosphere chemistry. These data, combined with the paleoclimatic records obtained from the ice cores, will improve our knowledge of the antarctic environment, its changes during the last million years, and its links and interaction with the rest of the planet. In addition, the exceptional quality of the site for astronomy allows developing programmes cheaper than from satellites or orbital stations.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
Concordia Station is developed jointly by Italy and France. The scientific programmes supported at Dôme C involve generally these two countries, through active collaborations, but Concordia is obviously an international facility which is offered to the whole scientific community, in Europe and elsewhere in the world. As an example, 10 european countries are involved in the EPICA project .

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
Concordia Station (75°06’ S -123°23’ E) and its surroundings, Dôme C, Antarctica

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: n/a
Antarctic: 03/07-03/09 and following years            

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
Concordia Station is an Italian-French facility which is supported and funded by the two national programmes. This support includes not only the station functioning but also the associated logistics (ships, aircraft, traverses) and partially the cost of the scientific programmes.

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
Concordia station is obviously a new polar facility offered to the international scientific community. Its life will largely exceed the duration of the IPY.

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?
Consortium
Own national polar operator

Italy and France are jointly in charge of the Concordia station

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
Yes: The Ministries of Research from France and Italy are directly involved in the Concordia project and provided political and financial support as soon as the project started. In addition, several French and Italian scientific Organizations (CNRS, CNR…) are involved in the definition of the scientific strategy of the station. For both countries, Concordia will be one of the major tools of the science in the polar regions.For this reason, Concordia receives also the support from the two national IPY committees.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?


Concordia is obviously not a new project. However, we wish to take the opportunity of the IPY to promote this new station which will be fully operational in 2007.

How will the project be organised and managed?
France (IPEV) and Italy (PNRA) will jointly operate the station according an agreement defining the structure of the management team (in Italy, in France and in the field), the scientific evaluation procedure of the submitted proposals, and the sharing of costs. These two organizations have a great experience in such polar activity in Antarctica (Italy operates Mario Zuchelli station and France operates Dumont d’Urville station).Scientists from other countries who want to work at Concordia are welcome; they are encouraged to develop collaborations with French and Italian laboratories.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
Outreach and communication issues have been a major concern of Italy and France during the building stage of the station and the scientific programmes developed at Dôme C in summer. Several radio, TV journalists and journalist for the written press have been invited on the site during the last years. Most of these medias (from magazines for children to national TV channels) are expressing their interest to cover the first years of Concordia.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document?
It is the responsibility of scientists to make their data available for the largest community. From the operator side, the station will be equipped with all facilities allowing the rapid transmission of the information.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
Concordia activity is mainly funded by the two national agencies, PNRA and IPEV. However, most of the scientific programmes are also supported by other national organization or EU.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
Several scientific projects which are submitted to IPY will use the facilities offered by Concordia: e.g. International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences - IPY intensive (IPICS), Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments- Unified Team for Exploration and Discovery – SALE-UNITED, Antarctic Mass Balance in IPY, International Polar Year Trans-Antarctic Scientific Traverses (IPY-TRAVERSE PROGRAMME)…

PROPOSER DETAILS

Dr Yves Frenot
Institut Polaire Francais (IPEV)
BP 75
Technopole Brest-Iroise, Plouzane
35380
France

Tel: +33 29 80 56503
Mobile: no
Fax: +33 29 80 56510
Email:

Other project members and their affiliation