Last week the Guiding Science Group for the flagship programme on
atmospheric research in Ny-Ålesund was established during a SSF-workshop.
The revised version of the Ny-Ålesund Science Plan states “Research
within Kongsfjorden International Research Base (KIRB) is comprised of
activities at all the stations. Substantial portions of these activities
are related and complementary. To release the full potential of these
complementarities and simultaneously increase the influence of KIRB in
the scientific debate, the stations have agreed to build and implement
flagship programs during the plan period. Each flagship program will be
guided by a science group.”
Flagship programme workshops
In order to initate these flagships, SSF organises a series of workshops
that started with a workshop on marine research ('Kongsfjorden System')
in March 2008. Last week, SSF invited to a workshop on atmospheric
research. The goal of the workshop was to form the Guiding Science Group
for the atmosphere flagship programme, which then started up the work on
identifying and implementing joint research, discuss complementarity,
overlap and synergetics of current research, and indicating funding
needs. The result will be an action plan for the coming years.
Current atmospheric research
The main focus of atmospheric research in Ny-Ålesund lies on the
troposphere. This was clearly indicated during the first session of the
workshop, where the participants gave information about the current
research activities. Several research stations conduct, beside others,
research on aerosols and greenhouse gases, but also pollutants and
radiation measurements are important contributions. In addition, both
China and Norway conduct northern light studies and also other nations
investigate processes in the upper atmosphere. There is a large array of
monitoring studies, both at the Zeppelin mountain station, as well as in
town and the Corbel station, 6 km outside of Ny-Ålesund.
Main goals for the future
Work on an inventory of atmospheric instruments currently in use in
Ny-Ålesund has been initiated in order to better utilize the available
instruments and datasets and thus be able to focus on complementary
research and joint improvements of the international instrument park.
There is also a need for common platforms for routine measurements,
field campaigns, teaching and outreach activities. The Amundsen-Nobile
Tower will be such an infrastructure, but also common lab facilities
would be of great value for the atmosphere research community.
An important criteria for the value of research in Ny-Ålesund is the
question of representativeness of the location Ny-Ålesund for climate
change and atmospheric process studies. It was therefore agreed upon the
importance of studies to investigate issues related to
representativeness of Ny-Ålesund in relation to Svalbard, the Arctic and
in global context. Finally, several focus areas for future research
within climate change and atmospheric process studies were identified.
In order to put atmospheric research in Ny-Ålesund in a broader context
the connection to the other flagship programmes as well as the other
research bases in Svalbard was emphasized and collaboration
possibilities were discussed. The final concluding document is expected
to be available in summer 2009.
Current Ny-Ålesund Science Plan:
http://www.ssf.npolar.no/documents/Ny_Alesund_Science_Plan_1november_2006.pdf
(423 kb)
Read also SSF-news from 01 April 2008:
Kongsfjorden System workshop gives direction for future marine research
in Ny-Ålesund
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The participants of the SSF workshop on Atmospherric research in
Kjeller, Norway, 17-18 November 2008 (Photo: T. Yamanouchi)
Ny-Ålesund. Picture taken from the atmospheric research station
on Zeppelin mountain (Photo: D. Schulze)
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