Total solar eclipse in Ny-Ålesund
Today was a very special today for all inhabitants of Ny-Ålesund and whole Svalbard. Not only is Equinox today, no today we were able to witness a total solar eclipse. A very special and rare occasion...
View ArticleThe wind in our hair…
The last two weeks were more or less our final preparations for Ny-Ålesund in Germany and France, respectively. All of us René, Thomas and myself, are excited to be in Ny-Ålesund soon. But before we...
View ArticleFirst impressions
Kathrin, Thomas and I have arrived as the new AWIPEV station team in Ny-Alesund. While the German Research Minister Dr. J. Wanka was visiting the base, Kathrin and I had a short stay in Longyearbyen....
View ArticleThe stratosphere and the water – Launch of the CFH-Sonde
As you may already know, at AWIPEV we launch daily a radio-sonde. Under perfect conditions the radio-sonde reaches an altitude of 35km and maybe more. On its way up, it measures the air temperature,...
View ArticleSummer has returned
All the spring snow had determined life in Ny-Ålesund. But finally, the snowscooters have been put away by now. The snow surface has become wet and many meltwater streams cross the flat areas....
View ArticleFirst polar bear spotted in this summer
It is not unusual for polar bears to be found in or around Ny-Alesund every now and then. The fact, that the first visit in 2015 was by a mother with her young cub, was a nice surprice for all...
View ArticleMonitoring Arctic Phytoplankton in the Kongsfjord
Willem van de Poll and Gemma Kulk are two scientists from the Department of Ocean Ecosystems of the University of Groningen. This year they are spending the month of June in Ny-Ålesund at the AWIPEV...
View ArticleThe Polar Crust Project
Laura Williams works as Biologist, Hans Reichenberger as Technical Assistant at the University of Kaiserslautern. They have come to Ny-Ålesund to explore the abundant biological soil crust:...
View ArticleAnimals and Plants in and around Ny-Ålesund
The summer is almost over. Like on the mainland we can see that by the leaves turning from green to yellow. We do not have trees here, but small other flowers and plants. The geese in the village can...
View ArticleStudents in the Arctic
For the past eight days a student group from the University of Bremen and the University of Kiel has been visiting Ny-Ålesund and the AWIPEV Station. Kai Bischof and Wolfgang Bilger had done such a...
View ArticleA week in the Permafrost
Sarah Chadburn is a Post-Doc at the University of Exeter. She is a computer modeller and works on modelling permafrost. She had the opportunity to join the group of Julia Boike for maintenance work at...
View ArticleSeptember in Ny-Ålesund
The summer has come to an end and the winter is slowly approaching. At night, the temperatures are falling below 0°C for most of the times and during the day it is only a few degrees above zero. Ice is...
View ArticleSun, Moon And Northern Lights
In a few days the polar night is starting. To be precise, on October 24th, with the end of daylight saving. Then, for the next three and a half month, until February 18th next year. the sun will not...
View ArticleKARL, the Koldewey Aerosol Raman Lidar
When it is dark over Ny-Ålesund, a bright green laser beam can be seen quite often, shooting from the AWIPEV observatory towards the clear sky. This beam belongs to a LIDAR system, runned by the...
View ArticleA day with Kittiwakes
A lot of scientists in town are here to study Wildlife. Among them, some French ornithologists from the CEBC (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé – La Rochelle). They are highly interested by...
View ArticleWhere did all the Oxygen go?
At our station we have several permanent Observatories, one of them is the UnderWaterObservatory (UWO) belonging to the the Alfred-Wegener-Instiut, Helmholtz Centre for Polar- and Marine Research. The...
View ArticleSun, Moon and Stars
The AWIPEV arctic station is situated at 79 degrees latitude. This is even 8.4 degrees closer to the pole than the Neumayer station in Antarctica. Concerning climate this place is much more hospital...
View ArticleSnow + wind = snow in every corner…how to kill time.
A new year has come and it seems like winter is finally there too. The snow cover has gotten better since a while already, but latley the temperatures have dropped quite a bit as well. But above...
View ArticleASC/NASA Rocket launch
Nothing new around here for a long time… We should definitely change that, what do you think ? We got the chance to witness the first rocket launch of Andoya Space Center (ASC) and NASA this morning. A...
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