CO

AWIPEV

http://www.awipev.eu/

Arctic

Open

Station

France-Germany

Observer station

2003

Year-Round

AWIPEV Artic Research Base at Ny-Ålesund / Spitsbergen is owned by the German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) which operate their research stations as the joint French-German Arctic Research Base. This base includes the Koldewey Station, the Rabot Station, and the Jean Corbel Station buildings.

AWIPEV Arctic Research Base is located in the research village of Ny-Ålesund situated on the southern shore of Kongsfjorden on the island of Spitsbergen. The village hosts more than 10 national research stations which shares facilities run by the Kings Bay company. AWIPEV operates and runs a second research base Jean Corbel situated at 5 km southeast of Ny-Ålesund.

Spitsbergen belongs to one of the northernmost archipelagos in the Arctic. Ny-Ålesund on the west coast is an international center for various modern Arctic research activities. The village is one of the world's northernmost human settlements and is surrounded by glaciers, morains, rivers, mountains and a typical tundra system. Most of the fauna living in Svalbard is represented in the area with birds (auks, kittiwakes, terns, barnacle geese, …), reinders, foxes, polar bears and often visible in the fjord seals and sometimes belugas and walrus.

Ny-Ålesund was a mining town for commercial exploitation of the coal deposits in the Kongsforden area from 1916 to the closure of the mines in 1963. After the mining activity Ny-Ålesund developed into a research village providing laboratories, facilities and research infrastructures to scientists from many nations interested in polar research. The French research base Jean Corbel was established in 1963 at 5 km from Ny-Ålesund village and has a capacity of 8 persons in summer. In 2003, AWI and IPEV decided to jointly operate their three Koldewei, Rabot and Corbel stations as the AWIPEV Arctic Research Base. The station provides logistical resources: boats, snowmobiles, vehicles, storage facilities (cold and warm, cooling facilities), field equipment, workshop and office facilities and scientific resources: laboratories, scientific equipment and sampling tools.

Research covers a large field of scientific disciplines. Both, long term and short term projects of atmospheric studies, marine and terrestrial biology, or cryosphere studies, are carried out at the AWIPEV Research Base. Many different measurements as well as field expeditions are possible at the base. Prominent examples are atmospheric long term measurements, scientific diving, glacier expeditions, seabirds as indicators of global changes in the marine ecosystems, installation of measuring systems in the permafrost and launches of research balloons. An overview on research at AWIPEV and accessible data can be found at www.awipev.eu/awipev-observatories/

There is no permanent population living and activity is mainly linked to science. The local community is mostly a mixture of staff from the Kings Bay Company and scientists of various nationalities. Visits of tourists coming mostly onboard cruise ships for just a few hours are relatively frequent in summer. The closest town is Longyearbyen (population c. 2000). During the summer season the Ny-Ålesund population reaches 150-180 persons down to the 30-40 permanent staff during the winter months. 3 persons constitutes the AWIPEV Arctic Research station permanent staff.

A regular air shuttle service organized by Kings Bay with a small plane (14 passengers) connects Longyearbyen with Ny-Ålesund. The flight takes c. 25-30 minutes. Access is also possible by ship but there are no regular ship transport to Ny-Ålesund. Transport of freight is possible with a monthly freight ship excepted during winter. Fjord shores and islands are easily accessible using small boats and local transportation is possible by cars, snowmobiles or bicycles.

French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)

Government

French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)

management@awipev.eu

http://www.awipev.eu

Roland Neuber

management@awipev.eu

2018-02-05

Yes

Alfred Wegener Institute

Germany

French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor

France