Svalbard calls

Midnight Sun

Just back from the most northerly marine station in the world at 79°N called Ny Ålesund.  An intense location with the sun never sinking and remote, vast landscapes of white and sea.  We sampled the fjord in a small boat and made optical measurements of color and tracked the glacial plumes of sediment-laden meltwater and productivity harking back to my Antarctic days.   Downwelling sunlight was completely peaked in the green portion of the spectrum and, as a gal who has been around the block a few times, I've never seen that before, even in polar regions with the long amospheric pathlength.  Turns out that the Arctic Haze was also delayed until now. Arctic haze occurs when the atmospheric polar front contracts and  brings and concentrates urban pollutants/aerosols up in the Arctic.  Sadly, one can't escape pollution even in the pristine Arctic.  On a positive note, I look forward to working with our crack team of students further on analyzing the data and publishing something really cool.

We worked 24-7 with no food or drink.  Smile.     The marine station serves delicious meals including reindeer filets, salmon and lots of desserts that were devoured in particular by very lean but hungry students, Sana and Hanna.  We need to have some blubber to keep warm after all ;)  We had some great fun including scooter rides, hikes, and a few nights of drinking and maybe a little head shaking at the bar.

This is also the location of one of the long-term CO2 monitoring station high up on a mountain that is so precise it only allows two individuals to service it and they enter through a long canopy shield into a low pressure room to avoid having their breath interfere with the measurements.  Very sci fi.

Ny Ålesund is also the location of  the famous "Norge" airship zeppelin built by Italian engineer Nobile and led by Norwegian leader Amundsen.   They were the first to actually reach the North Pole ahead of the fraudulent American named Byrd.  Roald Amundsen discovered both the North and the South Pole -- pretty epic for one individual.  I feel pretty blessed to have also experienced both the Arctic and the Antarctic in my life.  Here is an original painting from the walls of Amundsen's house that the group painted after their expedition.

Back in Longyearbyen, I also saw the global seed bank sitting like a beacon in the snow-covered hillside.  I heard the Indian government just deposited a bunch of native seeds while we were there.


Thank you Geir and UNIS (the Unversity of Centre of Svalbard) for allowing me the opportunity to teach, mingle, collect, explore, and check off another few points on my bucket list.