[A-CC25] Glaciology in the new normal

[ACC25-03] Observation at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard under the COVID-19 situation

★Invited Papers

*Junji Matsushita¹, Hiroshi Miyaoka¹ (1.National Institute of Polar Research)

Keywords:COVID-19, Ny-Alesund, Arctic

Located in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway (79N,12E), the Ny-Alesund NIPR Observatory was established after concluding an agreement for cooperation with the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) in 1991 as the Japan’s first high Arctic research station, so it marks the 30th anniversary this year. Under the international collaborative research framework in Ny-Alesund, the NIPR Obseravatory has been supporting a variety of studies such as clouds, aerosols, radiation, greenhouse gases, vegetation and ecologies in the high Arctic. In April 2019, the Observatory relocated to the brand new observation building ‘Kingsbay Veksthus’ which was constructed at the central area in Ny-Alesund. After the relocation, NIPR started to send a technical staff who stays at the Observatory to maintain facilities and supports for researchers.
Since March 2020, NPI and Kingsbay AS, in charge of management of the whole infrastructure in Ny-Alesund, started to apply the strict safety regulation to block the COVID-19 infections from the mainland and abroad. Due to this restriction, researchers and technicians have met a difficult situation, but we succeeded to send two researchers from NIPR to Ny-Alesund to maintain monitoring instruments, amid the pandemic outbreak in October by closely collaborating with NPI and the Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo.
The Arctic Environment Research Center (AERC), NIPR has been regularly updating these restrictions on immigration in Arctic countries. https://www.nipr.ac.jp/aerc/topics20200525.html
In this presentation, we will share our experience to maintain Ny-Alesund NIPR Observatory in the COVID-19 situation and some ideas for the coming operation in 2021.