On July 19, the Tara Polar Station, a drifting laboratory, departed from its homeport in Lorient, France to commence an 18-month Arctic expedition. As a year-round mission, the Tara Polaris I expedition
On July 19, the Tara Polar Station, a drifting laboratory, departed from its homeport in Lorient, France to commence an 18-month Arctic expedition. As a year-round mission, the Tara Polaris I expedition was designed to explore the interconnectivity and seasonality of five components of the Arctic Ocean: atmosphere, snow, ice, biodiversity and the ocean itself. Tara Polaris I is just the first of multiple missions ongoing until 2046.
The Tara Ocean Foundation was launched in 2003 by Agnès Troublé and son Étienne Bourgois to support marine research, educate on its importance, and pledge for ocean protection. The Polar Station, built 18 years after the organization's first North Pole trip aboard the schooner Tara, was designed to fill a scientific gap in the Arctic Ocean, which lacks a long-term research station (compared to the five permanent sites in Antarctica) and remains vulnerable to climate change. Known as Arctic amplification, the ocean is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the planet. Arctic atlantification, the increased flow of warmer and saltier Atlantic waters, is also of concern and disrupts the natural stratification of the Central Arctic Ocean. Changes in sea ice, snow and water have consequences for the ecosystems and
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