Preparing AWIPEV station for the winter requires to make all the boats ready for the cold season, with temperatures going as low as -25°C. To do so, the boats are taken on the shore, batteries are removed, engines are checked and oiled, the cockpit is folded. The boat is then ready to be put in a ...[Read more]
Happy new year 2020 from AWIPEV Team
We send our best wishes for this new year 2020 ! ...[Read more]
ASC/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 second one is planned for the next days ! You can also see the Lidar laser beam from the ...[Read more]
Snow + 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 all, we had wind. A lot of wind. Wind with snow and wind without snow. But even then, the snow on the ...[Read more]
Sun, 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 but polar day and polar night last longer. Ny-Ålesund lies in the North of the Zeppelin mountain ...[Read more]
Where 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 system consists of two parts: One is the so called ‘Underwater Node’ which is installed at the ...[Read more]
A 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 Kittiwakes living some kilometers away from Ny-Alesund. I spent one day in the field with them and ...[Read more]
KARL, 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 Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Potsdam for more than 25 years. With this instrument scientists investigate ...[Read more]
Sun, 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 rise above the horizon anymore. For now, the sun is still rising a couple degrees above the ...[Read more]
September 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 forming on the creeks and lakes and the first snow has covered the mountains like icing sugar. ...[Read more]