We have just returned to the NIOZ from our stay in Ny-Ålesund. It was an even longer way southwards than the one northwards… from Monday at 11:00 until Wednesday at 19:00. The time passed by fast between sampling and filtering, but we found time to take also some ice samples near the glaciers. During this time we also had Royal visits in the lab, the fox showed up her new 8 cubs litter, we had the midsummer party (almost warm…), and we had one day to walk around (7 hours walking!!!). The snow melted very fast, and almost disappeared through our stay, so we hope we will be able to detect the changes associated to the melting waters.

Now we have to wait for our samples to be back from the Arctic, so we can continue the processing here, to determine the prokaryotic community composition and all the other parameters we decided to sample. Kings Bay and the Marine Lab personnel helped us a lot, but also the Norwegian Polar Institute gave us support for some samplings, and the AWI managed the transport of our lab material to and from Ny-Alesund. In conclusion, it was a good time up in the Arctic, with 24h light and mostly sunny, a lot of work but a good feeling that we will get good results too. Maybe some when in the future we come back again.  

Eva Sintes blogt vanuit Ny-Ålesund in Noorwegen. Vandaag stuurt zij een filmpje.

This year we are staying for the second time in Kings Bay, Ny-Ålesund (Norway) to investigate the marine microbial organisms (bacteria and viruses) and the influence of the melt water from the North Pole glaciers on them. To arrive here is not so easy. We started in the NIOZ, in Texel, and we used many transports (one ferry, several airplanes, taxis and buses) summing up, we left from Texel at 11:00 from the 8th of June and we finally arrived to the base at 16:00 on the 9th of June. During this long trip, we changed from 25ºC to -2ºC, and from having around 6h to 0h of darkness during the night, from walking on the sand or the grass from Texel to walking on the snow.

Soon after we arrived, we unpacked our 15 boxes of research material (it took us one day!), and next day we started sampling. Unfortunately the weather was not so good, and we moved a lot while trying to get our precious water samples (for over 3 long hours on the Teisten, going from near the glacier towards the mouth of the fjord). But now, at half of the sampling period, it seems that we will survive, even with the long working days. Maybe it is a long way, but we hope to have a nice reward, after the initial results from last year’s field research here, we expect to fill up some gaps in our knowledge about the Arctic microorganisms and how they are affected by the climate change.

It is also a worthy experience, with many people helping us to set up the lab, take the samples, make our life easier and more tasty with nice food and giving us the option to relax with a gym which even has some nice routes to climb. And for sure it is a prize to be able to be here surrounded by this magnificent landscape of glaciers, snowed mountains and mirrored seawaters (sometimes, mainly when we don’t go sampling), and at the same time do what we like most work in science and try to understand our world, starting by the microbes. We will try to keep you informed on our life here, for now to start you can watch a bit of our travel and sampling routine.

Camera: Eva SintesMounting and sound: Daniele De CorteMain characters: Taichi Yokokawa, Daniele De Corte, A. Christophe (the captain), Teisten (the boat)