En ung sandlöpare har samlat proviant på det högarktiska tundran innan övervintringen långt söderut. Foto: Nicolas Lecomte

The field season around the Petermann Glacier is ending and this means a lot of preparation to safely store true accumulated data and all the gear travelling back to the South. By all means, we are not so much different than the migratory birds nesting in the High Arctic, storing up precious resources like we do with our data before a long travel. Despite being the phasing out of the scientific expeditions, this step in our fieldwork is crucial: it allows verifications of the samples and the writing of first outcomes of the expeditions but also sets the tone for further analyses and synergies between teams realizing that much can be done together.

The Petermann expedition both on land and on sea has been a great success of scientific collaboration and had planted the seed for what lies ahead for science discoveries, i.e. the writing of scientific papers gathering the new knowledge acquired and its distribution to the general public. So much remains to be done for the understanding the possible future of the Arctic, our time may be up for this expedition but our rush for knowledge and climate models is only pushed forward.