Concordia Station

A camp for a deep core

France and Italy began a summer camp at Dome C in 1996, for the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) drilling. The drilling ended on 21 December 2004, at a depth of 3,270.2 metres, with a record of climate stretching back about 800,000 years. The core showed that carbon dioxide and temperature have moved together through eight glacial cycles.

The station named Concordia opened for winter in 2005. The first winter-over began on 15 February 2005 with thirteen people, and included the first European Space Agency doctor to winter there.

A laboratory in the interior

Dome C is cold, with winter temperatures around −60 °C and below, very dry and calm. The sky is dark and clear for months, which makes it a candidate for astronomy, and site testing has shown atmosphere above the surface layer that is among the most stable on Earth. The isolation, of nine months without a flight, made it an analogue for crews on a long space mission, and the European Space Agency uses it to study human physiology and psychology.

The station is managed by IPEV, the French polar institute, and PNRA, the Italian Antarctic programme, with research teams from many countries.

The next core

The Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project is drilling nearby at Little Dome C to find ice more than a million years old, and the first core extraction was completed in 2022. Such ice would reveal why the rhythm of the ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years about a million years ago. The station operates a permanent programme of atmospheric chemistry, seismology and geomagnetism.

Ice that remembers

The EPICA core at Dome C holds a record of 800,000 years, with eight glacial cycles and the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane that went with them. The record shows that the present concentrations of these gases are higher than at any time in that period. The newer project aims to reach ice a million and a half years old, when the cycles of the ice ages were shorter, to learn why they changed. The ice is a physical archive that cannot be duplicated, so each core is stored in several places, in the cold, for future techniques, as an act of care for the people who will analyse it.

Instruments and technologies

• Deep ice drill A drill cut cores about 4 metres long from a hole filled with a fluid to keep it open, with the core analysed for isotopes and gas bubbles.
• Atmospheric and astronomical site testing Sensors measure turbulence, temperature, wind and sky brightness.
• Medical research Studies of sleep, immune function and the response to isolation in wintering crews.

The people

• Roberto Discallati Italian leader associated with the station's early winter-overs.

Timeline

• 1996 French–Italian summer camp at Dome C; EPICA drilling begins.
• 2004 EPICA drilling ends on 21 December at 3,270.2 m.
• 2005 First winter-over begins on 15 February with 13 people; ESA's first winter-over doctor.
• 2022 First core extraction for Beyond EPICA–Oldest Ice completed nearby.

Key lessons for observation today

• Isolation is a design constraint Nine months without resupply shape every decision. Remote sites need spares, redundancy and trained staff.
• A binational station shares load France and Italy share costs, logistics and science. Binational stations work with a common operating agreement.
• One site, many experiments Ice, astronomy and physiology share a platform. Multi-use infrastructure needs a calendar and a metadata discipline.

Sources

• Institut polaire français Paul-Émile Victor, Concordia Station
• ESA, 20 years in Antarctica
• Wikipedia, Concordia Station