Delphine Schiltz 18:10 pm, April 24, 2023

They went from the humid tropical heat, to the bite of the polar cold. Twenty French people - ten women and ten men volunteers - returned in early April from their Deep Climate scientific expedition to Lapland to follow a battery of tests at the Brain Institute (ICM) of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Europe 1 met them.

Cracks on the tips of the fingers, the face a little purplish, tanned by the cold. After tropical Guyana in June, Diane and Nicolas keep some traces of their 22-day expedition in the Far North. They have just completed their scientific trip to Finnish Lapland as part of the Deep Climate project, a journey designed to assess human adaptation skills to different climatic conditions.

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The violence of the cold: "A real shock" for some explorers

"We had up to -34 degrees, in real temperatures. And when you handle tents in the snow with ice pins, picks, it can make little injuries like that, "says Nicolas, showing his hands. "I think I'm more of one of the lucky people because I managed to sleep, despite the conditions," he said.

Diane was spared: no frostbite, but dark circles. She struggled to sleep: "I was going to spend 20 minutes, half an hour rubbing my feet, massaging them, rubbing them against each other. I had little night slippers that I breathed in my mouth to warm them," she says. "I'm glad I came back. I had lived well in Guyana but Lapland was very trying for me, physically and mentally. It was a real shock."

Beauty as a factor of cohesion

To accurately measure the pressure of the climate on human beings, and their ability to adapt, the explorers submit to a battery of tests upon their return. Head to the Brain Institute for MRIs, measurements of brain activity, cardiac tone... In a lying position, sitting, standing, the idea is to study how ordinary people adapt to extreme conditions.

Christian Clot leads this scientific project: "Very clearly, the team suffered more in physiological terms in the extreme cold. However, I think it has adapted better in psychological terms. And above all, cooperation has worked better in this territory than in the Guianese forest."

"One of the things that also allowed the team to function and adapt was the wonder," he continues. "These territories are very hard. But we must also talk about the extreme beauty of the territories, trees, large plateaus, northern lights that can appear during the night. And it also presides over the ability to adapt. This notion of wonder totally encourages the cohesion of the group." Next step in this climatic and human adventure is the burning desert of the Middle East.