Photo: International expedition to Greenland in the summer of 2024
The original method of transportation was used by members of the 8-person WindSled 2024 expedition, which completed a carbon-neutral expedition in extreme polar conditions, exploring the hardly accessible Greenland ice sheet. The expedition covered more than 1,500 kilometers using exclusively wind and solar energy.
The source of propulsion is an aerial kite sail towing a 3-ton sled designed by Spanish polar explorer Ramon Larramendi. During the expedition, numerous scientific data were collected, including through the active participation of the CNR-ISP National Research Council Institute of Polar Sciences (Italy), the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine (USA) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain).
The WindSled 2024 team carried out the experiments “Snow Samples” (to clarify the role of melt dynamics and the importance of snow cover in the accumulation of pollutants), “Project PIONEER” (to develop wireless network technologies with low-cost sensors (LCS) for environmental monitoring of remote areas of the planet), “The MicroAirPolar Project” (to study microorganisms present in the air, proposed by researchers from the Autonomous University of Madrid), and the Monitoring and Detection of PFAS by the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine.
The WindSled project began 25 years ago, and in 2024 another expedition was carried out in Greenland. Given the extreme rapid warming in the Northern Hemisphere, and especially in the Arctic, this time it was called “SOS Arctic – WindSled”.
The expedition was supported by various international organizations, including:
Sources: Osservatorioartico, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
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