Research infrastructure offered in 2018 call

SIOS offers funded access to research infrastructure owned by our members in and around Svalbard. The infrastructure available in the 2018 call is described below.

We encourage applicants to make contact with SIOS on logistics@sios-svalbard.org to discuss the requirements of their project before submitting their application.  

Hornsund

One room for 4 persons (including meals) is available to SIOS projects at the Stanisław Siedlecki Polish Polar Station throughout the year. The station is run by the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

See here (pdf),  https://hornsund.igf.edu.pl/about-the-station/  and https://eu-interact.org/field-sites/polish-polar-station-hornsund/ for more details about the station. 

Photo: Christiane Hübner

Hopen and Bear Island

One person can be accomodated at Hopen for a longer time period. For a shorter period, up to three weeks, three persons can be accomodated at Hopen.

At Bear Island three persons can be accommodated for a longer time period.

The person(s) have to arrange and pay for transport themselves (but the Norwegian Meteorological Institute can give relevant information/guidence). Travel funding of up to 15 000 NOK is available from SIOS. Included in the price is accomodation and food, and use of the facilities available. It is not possible to offer a seperate office or a lab, but there is space for equipment of reasonable size. 

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute facilitates external institutions' needs for research related equipment and support on the islands. Cost recovery for electricity, internet connection, accomodation and man-hours for practical support is agreed for each case.

More details about Hopen: http://hopenmeteo.no/ and Bear Island: http://bjornoya.org/

Photo: John-Tore Rudborg, MET

Ny-Ålesund

Access to facilitites in Ny-Ålesund is offered by the Alfred Wegener Institute and French Polar Institute Paul-Emile Victor, who jointly run AWIPEV, by the National Research Council of Italy, who run Dirigible Italia, and by the Norwegian Polar Institute, who run Sverdrup.

AWIPEV offers:

  • Access to data: AWIPEV runs three observatories, for atmosphere, permafrost, and the Kongsfjord Under Water Observatory, see http://www.awipev.eu/awipev-observatories/ Data access to these observatories, including the cooperation with the respective Observatory PIs, could be provided through SIOS for online, as well as for archived data sets.
  • On site access to the observatories: Access to the observatory facilities in Ny-Ålesund can be made available for joined observational programmes with the respective PIs. We recommend that potential applicants contact Observatory PIs before submission of applications through the German AWIPEV Scientific Coordinator Roland Neuber  ( https://www.awi.de/nc/ueber-uns/organisation/mitarbeiter/roland-neuber.html)
  • General access to AWIPEV: AWIPEV may host up to two persons at a time in 2019 for SIOS projects. Hosting includes accommodation in double rooms with shared bathrooms, access to station facilities like offices, and general lab facilities. 
  • For more details about the station see https://eu-interact.org/field-sites/awipev-rabot/

Dirigible Italia offers:

  • Up to about 20-30% of station capacity (2 people). This limit may be flexible depending on the period of activity requested.
  • Length of stay flexible (up to a couple of months).
  • Reduced capacity April / early May and June / July, but access may still be possible during these times.
  • Access to data from observatories (more information here)
  • For more details about the station see here and https://eu-interact.org/field-sites/cnr-arctic-station-dirigibile-italia/

Sverdrup offers:

  • Access to groups of limited size
  • Tming and capacity is dependent on coordination with ongoing projects
  • For more details about the station see https://www.npolar.no/en/sverdrup/
Photo: Christiane Hübner

Longyearbyen

The University Centre in Svalbard offers access to lab facilities, logistics and safety training in Longyearbyen. Safety training is also offered to projects that are planning to travel onwards to other parts of Svalbard. 

For more information see https://www.unis.no/ and https://www.unis.no/resources/arctic-safety-centre/

SIOS have two quadrotor drones (Inspire 1 and Inspire 2) stationed in Longyearbyen that can be used with thermal camera, RGB camera or NDVI camera. The drones are operated by UNIS and Norut and are part of SIOS-InfraNor. The drones can be flown up to 4 km away as long there is good direct line of sight, but this distance may have to be reduced according to environmental and radio noise conditions. Systems are field deployable with waterproof cases and can be transpoted by snowmobiles or small boats. Direct products are geotagged images or video. Derived products could be DEM, DSM, orthomaps, NDVI images or thermal maps. Cost per operation is pilot salaries, field travel cost, and operation planning clearance cost (NOTAM issuing, safety approval, airspace coordination), typically 8-10 KNOK for a full day of operation. If orthomaps or high accuracy geolocation is needed, use of Survey GPS and GCPs will be needed.

The Norwegian Polar Institute also offers logistical services from its office in Longyearbyen. For more details see http://www.npolar.no/en/services/logistics/index.html

Photo: Christiane Hübner

The Grand Challenge Initiative - Cusp 

SIOS is offering a unique opportunity to be part of the GCI-Cusp team in 2019. The GCI-Cusp programme uses ground based instruments, modeling, sounding rocket investigations, and satellite based instruments to determine the multi-scale physics of heating and precipitation in the ionosphere specific to the geomagnetic cusp region. One of the GCI-Cusp rockets is part of SIOS-InfraNor. You can read more details about the programme here

GCI-Cusp offers the following collaboration opportunities:

There is no room for more instruments onboard the rockets. However, the GCI-Cusp rocket team invites new members to join and contribute. The 2018 SIOS infrastructure access call supports initiatives to team in with:

i)    Observations: To support the rocket launches with ground based observations (all-sky auroral cameras, Fabry-Perrot interferometers, EISCAT Svalbard Radar, GNSS scintillation receivers, etc.). Bring in your own instrument or take part in operating existing instruments. This is needed both for deciding the time of launch, and to frame the geophysical context of the detailed rocket observations.

ii)    Intellectual capacity:  Become part of the rocket science team; either be placed in Longyearbyen or in Ny-Ålesund.  Task may be to prepare data products aiding to rocket PI to decide the optimal time for launch, and thus be well prepared to take active part in the data analysis and the research to follow.   It is agreed that the GCI-Cusp data will be publically available through the SIOS data center.

Contact: Dr. Joran Moen, GCI-Cusp Project Scientist (Norway – University of Oslo) jmoen@fys.uio.no

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=12179