Pointe Bénédicte - The purest air in the world

2km northwest of the base, is the atmospheric measurement station called “Pointe Bénédicte”. It's about a 20 to 30 minute walk to reach Pointe Bénédicte, passing by our friends the fur seals off the base, then following the coast along the cliffs.

We then arrive at Pointe Bénédicte, where there are two buildings and a 25m mast.

It is here where I spend a large part of my time for work, as well as in the chemistry lab at the base. The Pointe Bénédicte station is equipped with several scientific instruments which continuously measure different atmospheric compounds, in particular: - Greenhouse gases: CO, CH4, N2O, CO2, H2O - Radon - Ozone - Mercury - Emerging organic contaminants: micro-plastics (air, rain water) Two research laboratories share this station: the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE) for which Yaël works, and the Institute of Environmental Geosciences (IGE) for which I work.

Two Civic Service Volunteers are employed each year by the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) to be "the eyes and the hands" of these two field laboratories. We are responsible, among other things, for the maintenance of the machines, transmitting data to the laboratories, collecting samples ...

Maintenance on the Tekran analyzer, the main instrument of the program GMOStral-1028 for which I work .

Yaël regularly works at the top of the 25m mast, where the weather stations and the sampling input lines are located.

In parallel with the atmospheric measurements at Pointe Bénédicte, the program GMOStral-1028 also collects sea water samples ​​off the hold from Martin de Viviès base. These samples are part of the framework for experiments on micro-plastics.

The data collected on Amsterdam island is extremely important for scientific research because they represent "the background noise "of the atmosphere.

We measure the air known as "the purest in the world " ! Indeed, located more than 3,000 km from the closest continent, Amsterdam island is far from any major source of pollution. In addition, there are very few other measuring stations in the southern hemisphere, so the data collected is of great value for scientific models.