From September 6 to 26, 2024, some twenty scientists boarded the icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot for a crossing of the Arctic Ocean, from Nome (Alaska) to Longyerbyen (Svalbard) via the North Pole. They responded to a call for projects from ARICE (ships and platforms of opportunity) in cooperation with the PONANT company. We were four scientific coordinators to assist these researchers.

Opportunities to reach this central region of the Arctic are very rare, but the contribution of cruise ships to polar research raises hesitations and debates (read the CNRS opinion: Opportunity-driven campaigns: Ethical partnerships for scientific research? ).

Scientific work carried out during the Transarctic focused on : - thermohaline and biogeochemical properties of the Arctic Ocean - sea ice - marine ecosystems (pelagics, sea ice and bioaerosols) - the carbon cycle - the plastisphere - ship performance and structural response - ethnographic studies of polar scientific expeditions

An international team of researchers with complementary expertises: Maurizio Azzaro, Elena Adasheva-Klein, Leticia Barbero, Indiana Bruzac, Nicolas Cassar, Federico Citterich, Fuat Dursun, Francesco Filiciotto, Caroline Guilmette, Christian Haas, Ricarda Kluge, Jan Kubiczek, Alireza Merikhi, David Pearce, Alessandro Ciro Rappazzo, Elisabeth Rosselli, Franz von Bock und Polach, Shiye Zhao, Lixin Zhu.

See photos.