The Tara Polar Station floating scientific base has set sail from the French port of Lorient to begin a historic nine-month drift trapped in the polar ice pack.
The Tara Polar Station floating scientific base, spearheaded by the Tara Ocean Foundation, has set sail on its anticipated journey toward the Central Arctic Ocean from its home port in Lorient, France. This ambitious mission, named Tara Polaris I, marks the beginning of an 18-month expedition designed to take the pulse of the heart of the Arctic Ocean, considered a true sentinel of the global climate. The Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) is among the 30 international institutions forming the mission’s scientific consortium, consolidating Spanish marine research leadership in the study of polar ecosystems.
Twenty years after the historic schooner Tara became trapped in the Arctic ice, the new polar station—designed with an ovoid structure capable of rising above and withstanding the extreme pressure of the ice pack—will conduct continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the atmosphere, ice, and water column. The expedition will face one of its most demanding phases during its first wintering: nine months of fixed drift in the ice pack, featuring nearly five months of total polar night. A multidisciplinary crew of twelve (five sailors, six scientists, and one onboard correspondent) will live in isolation in one of the most remote and inhospitable regions on Earth.
The ICM leads genomic analysis
One of the key pillars of the Tara Polaris I scientific program is environmental genomics and systems biology applied to marine plankton. The ICM-CSIC's participation in the expedition is led by Sílvia González Acinas, a researcher at the center specializing in microbial ecology and genomics.
The ICM-CSIC’s role will focus on deciphering how marine viruses, bacteria, archaea, and protists respond and adapt their biological functions to the extreme conditions of prolonged darkness, sub-zero temperatures, and freezing that characterize the onset of the polar winter.
"Exploring marine life in the Arctic represents one of the greatest scientific challenges of modern oceanography," highlights ICM-CSIC researcher Sílvia González Acinas. "Most polar oceanographic campaigns have taken place during the summer months. As a result, there is a significant lack of knowledge regarding the metabolic mechanisms, survival strategies, and dormant states adopted by the marine microbiome when solar radiation completely disappears for months. Through metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches applied to snow, ice, and water samples collected from the station, we will be able to determine how these essential communities for the food web reorganize, and how Arctic warming is altering their biodiversity and resilience."
A cutting-edge scientific consortium
The Tara Polaris I expedition brings together a scientific consortium of 34 research laboratories across 12 countries, with scientific coordination led by polar oceanographer Marcel Babin (CNRS / Laval University / Sorbonne University). Alongside the ICM-CSIC, world-leading centers are taking part, including the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), the Swiss Polar Institute, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
To reach the drift area, the Tara Polar Station will make stopovers in Rotterdam (Netherlands) to refuel with biofuel, and in the Norwegian towns of Tromsø and Kirkenes to complete crew and equipment boarding. In mid-August, the station will head into the polar ocean escorted by the Chinese scientific icebreaker Xue Long, aiming to become trapped in the ice by early September at coordinates 82°N 140°E.
This initial journey marks the start of a long-term commitment: the program plans for a total of 10 expeditions over the next 20 years (2026–2046). Continuous, long-term data collection will be critical to predicting the consequences of the progressive loss of summer sea ice in the Central Arctic.
With its involvement in this historic mission, the ICM-CSIC reaffirms its commitment to frontier polar research, contributing its expertise in marine genomics to understand the impacts of global change on the planet's most vulnerable ecosystems.