Report of the TANGO 1 expedition to the West Antarctic Peninsula ...

• Main Authors: Danis, Bruno, Amenabar, Maria, Bombosch, Annette, Brusselman, Axelle, Buydens, Marius, Delille, Bruno, Dogniez, Martin, Katz, Lea, Moreau, Camille, Pasotti, Francesca, Robert, Henri, Wallis, Ben
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; Biodiversity; Low environmental impact; Expedition; Antarctica; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8013722; https://zenodo.org/record/8013722

The TANGO1 expedition ventured to accumulate new data on the responses of marine ecosystems to shifts in ice regimes in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), taking full advantage of a nimble sampling platform, the R/V Australis, a steel hulled, fully rigged motor sailor. TANGO1 took place between February and March 2023, sampling two main locations at different spatial scales. Deploying 14 different types of gear (both traditional and modern), the TANGO1 team gathered over 4000 samples that will be brought back to Belgium for further analysis. The team focused on synchronized, transdiciplinary sampling to understand the linkages between realms (atmosphere, sea-ice, watercolumn, seafloor) and there potential responses to changes in climate-changed linked ice regime at various spatial scales. The use of R/V Australis for coastal studies deemed to be extremely efficient, in terms of environmental impact (ca. 40 times less CO2 emissions than a Polar class icebreaker) and reactivity, allowing the team to adapt the ...