The Arctic Ocean is a remote, extreme and largely uncharted environment. Much remains unknown about how living organisms manage to adapt to the extreme variability of light, temperatures and sea ice, and how they survive the long polar night.
Over recent decades, this unique ecosystem has become increasingly vulnerable due to global warming and human-caused pollution. The speed of these transformations, combined with the fact that changes observed in the Arctic influence the entire global climate system, make this region a true sentinel of life and climate.
- Better understand the impact of climate change in the Arctic and on the rest of the planet.
- Improve knowledge of biodiversity on Earth by exploring regions that are currently inaccessible.
- Reveal the unique adaptations that have evolved to enable life in this extreme environment.
- Analyse the consequences of sea ice melting and pollution on these unique and fragile ecosystems.
- Monitor Arctic fish stocks and the impact of the arrival of more temperate species.
- Discover new molecules/species/processes with new potential applications.
- Construction of a drifting polar scientific base “Tara Polar”.
- Conducting multiple drifting expeditions in the Arctic, bringing together on board a multidisciplinary team: scientists (climatologists, biologists, physicists, glaciologists, oceanographers), as well as artists, doctors, journalists and sailors.
- Documenting and understanding the dynamics of transformations, objectifying scientific data and cataloguing the richness of local biodiversity.
The Tara Ocean Foundation, the first foundation in France to be recognised as promoting the public interest and devoted to the ocean, is developing an innovative and unprecedented open science which should enable prediction and better planning for the impact of climate change.
It uses this very high level scientific expertise to raise awareness and educate young people, to mobilise political decision makers and enable developing countries to access this new knowledge.
The schooner Tara is a floating laboratory that has already covered more than 450,000 kilometres since 2003, stopping off in more than 60 countries on 12 expeditions carried out in collaboration with the best international laboratories and organisations (CNRS, CEA, EMBL, PSL, MIT, NASA, etc.).
Their partner laboratories have produced more than 200 publications in renowned international scientific journals.