UN Sec Gen Ban Ki-moon visits Ny Ålesund; from United Nations Photo (Flickr Creative Commons)
Ny Ålesund, Norway. Population: 30-40. Home to the most northerly post office in the world and a growing community of scientists from across the globe. The former coalmining village is now an international Arctic research station with centers operated by several European countries as well as Asian heavyweight nations China, India, South Korea and Japan.
This Norwegian Arctic outpost is 1,000 miles (1,600 km) further north than Oulu, Finland, which is the furthest north I’ve ever been. When I was in Oulu one spring, it was far below freezing while southern Sweden was experiencing temperatures in the 20s C (70s F). In other words, I felt like I was at the northern end of the world. But Ny Ålesund is much, much further north.
So why are there so many research facilities from European and Asian countries there?
Ny Ålesund is a great place for measuring things: both pollution from industry and from forest fires, weather conditions, local vegetation and melting ice caps. It’s also a perfect place to gauge the rotation of the Earth and the movements of the Earth’s crust via satellite.
From an article in the Economist:
The Arctic is changing faster in response to global warming than any other region of the planet, and the snows, seas and sparse grazing grounds around Ny Alesund form one of the best studied reaches of this global front line. This is another key connection to the rest of the globe: Ny Alesund is where the future of one of the Earth’s most vulnerable regions is most readily glimpsed, and where the passing of what has gone will be most fully recorded.
Ny Ålesund recently hosted a symposium on climate change entitled ‘The changing Arctic and its global implications’. For a well-written account of one journalist’s experiences at this most remote of symposiums, read this Correspondent’s diary, in three parts in the Economist.
Graham Land
Additional resources:
Edmonton Journal – Norway top of the class at the top of the world