The drifting oceanographic station project around Antarctica has been on hold for months due to a financial dispute between Ifremer, the project lead, and Piriou, the builder. A « grain of sand » that Jean-Louis Étienne, who is leading the project, hopes will be resolved in June in Nice during the United Nations Ocean Conference, he told Mer et Marine.
« I have received letters from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), CalTech (California Institute of Technology), Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of Technology), the polytechnic schools of Lausanne and Zurich, from China… The project is eagerly awaited worldwide because it has never been done before. »
« This » is the Polar Pod, the project for a vertical drifting oceanographic platform designed to explore the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, on which Jean-Louis Étienne has been working since 2010.
Source: meretmarine
