Arctic Tipping Points

Agatha Weydmann from IOPAS in Sopot, Poland, carried out successful experiments of the response of zooplankton to a warming climate in May 2010. The experiments were to be carried out at the Hornsund Polish Polar Station, Spitsbergen, Svalbard. This station, more then 50 years old, is situated in an extremely picturesque region on the southwestern part of Spitsbergen. Agatha and her two colleagues were supposed to fly to Tromsø and Longyearbyen and take a helicopter from there to the station. In comes the ash cloud of the Eyjafjallajøkul volcano and stops all flights to Norway. No chance to fly for many days. A decision is taken and with the ferry to Sweden and a car the IOPAS team drives to Tromsø, a more than 30 hours non-stop drive to the north. After arriving in Tromsø – by Gods mighty hand – the ash has disappeared and Agatha flies to Longyearbyen. By then the chance to take the helicopter is gone. Two snowmobiles are organised, but bad weather makes the 7 hours drive through a high Arctic landscape (mountain ridges, glaciers, ice-covered fjords etc.) impossible. Two days of wait and finally the weather improves and off Agatha drives. Then finally, after 7 days Odyssey Agatha and her team arrive at the Hornsund station. Ready to jump into a rubber boat to sample zooplankton and carry out the experiments. Business as normal…..

How to return from there to Poland? RV Jan Mayen, returning from the Barents Sea with another team of ATP scientists, makes her way through an ice belt into Hornsund and pick Agatha and her team up. Her experiments were stopped a few hours before the arrival of the ship and the equipment packed in a hurry. Jan Mayen brings her back to Longyearbyen and from there she can fly home, provided that there will be no ash in the air. Nobody knows what happens to a polish car parked in Tromsø…. Never work without a back up. Plan B would have bee that Jan Mayen would take the team back to Tromsø on a return trip, just 12 days later. 12 days. A piece of cake in the Arctic.

Dramatic mountains in the inner part of Hornsund

Research in the Arctic is not like research in a nearby laboratory in central Europe. Few readers of Agathas paper will have the slightest idea what it meant when she writes: “Zooplankton was sampled with a WP2 net at station x in Hornsund on day y”. And who else would have used 7 days of hardship with a big smile to be able to carry out an experiment? And without knowing when it would end? You and your team have earned the respect of the entire ATP team, Agatha! With such dedication ATP can never fail! A triple hurray for polish commitment to science!