• Samuel Jaccard talks about ACE during the radio broadcast CQFD
    by ACE expedition on March 19 2018 at 1:46 pm

    Prof. Samuel Jaccard, a specialist of the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean, was the guest of the CQFD broadcast on 16 March on RTS – La Première. ACE was one of the hot topics of the emission, as Samuel Jaccard as well as Bastien Confino, journalist for CQFD, had boarded the Akademik Treshnikov for... […]

  • ACE reaches out in Catalan
    by ACE expedition on March 2 2018 at 10:42 am

    Rafel Simó, PI of the ACE project Surveying Organic Reactive gases and Particles across the Surface Southern Ocean (SORPASSO), has published his diary of the expedition in Catalan in form of an ebook. This beautiful patchwork of science, personal thoughts, poetic allegories and metaphors, as well as some inputs in the history of the exploration... […]

  • ACE projects discuss joint data management
    by ACE expedition on February 13 2018 at 11:31 am

    The ACE expedition may be over, the valorisation of the collected data is still at an early stage. The common management of numerous and huge data sets will last for many years to come. On 23 and 24 January, participants of different ACE projects gathered at EPF Lausanne in order to discuss the way forward... […]

 

 

 

About the Antarctic
Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE)

 

ACE was the first project of the Swiss Polar Institute, a newly created entity founded by EPFL, the Swiss Institute of Forest, Snow and Landscape research WSL, ETHZ, the University of Bern and Editions Paulsen. It was designed to enhance international relations and collaboration between countries, as well as to spark the interest of a new generation of young scientists and explorers in polar research.

From December 2016 to March 2017, scientific teams from all over the world have boarded the Russian research vessel Akademik Treshnikov for an unprecedented expedition around Antarctica. From biology to climatology to oceanography, researchers have been working on a number of interrelated fields for the future of  this Continent.

On the Akademik Treshnikov’s way down from Bremerhaven to Cape Town, 50 young scientists were on board to follow lectures and to do practical and oceanographic work. The “ACE Maritime University” was conducted under the auspices of the Russian Geographic Society and started on 19 November 2016 from Bremerhaven.

A better understanding of Antarctica is critical, not just for its preservation, but for the whole planet. The poles are affected by climate change more than any other region on Earth. Moreover, they play a central role in providing oceans with strong underwater streams that regulate the world’s climate from the poles to the equator.

Today, scientific progress depends more than ever on collaboration between diverse scientific domains. Polar studies are no exception. For example, marine biology depends on complex mathematical models currently being developed by oceanographers. Meanwhile, microorganisms that play an important role in transforming the atmosphere, can help climatologists to make more accurate predictions.

In order to foster an interdisciplinary culture, ACE has combined competences and know-how from a broad range of scientific disciplines. We do believe that this is the only way to understand Antarctica and its global role in today and tomorrow’s climate issues.