03 December 2019
PRESS RELEASE
PARIS – DECEMBER 4, 2019
Expedition on Antarctic plateau to better gauge sea level rise
From 7 December 2019 to 25 January 2020, a team of scientists from France (CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes) and Italy (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto Nazionale Geofisica e Vulcanologia) will traverse the middle of the Antarctic plateau, travelling 1,318 km, round trip, from the Franco-Italian Concordia research station towards the south pole and back. The expedition, dubbed the East Antarctic International Ice Sheet Traverse (EAIIST), is coordinated by the French Polar Institute, in collaboration with the Italian National Antarctic Programme, and backed by the French National Research Agency and the BNP Paribas Foundation. The two main goals of the EAIIST expedition are to acquire a deeper understanding of the climate ‘archives’ encoded in ice cores and more accurately predict the rise in sea levels.
A short film by the French Polar Institute: https://vimeo.com/377102990 [in French. English available soon]