When on a reconnaissance flight with the helicopter along the shelf ice edge in Antarctica we discovered the leftovers of a research station/research container of unknown origin. I found it incredible that we were for days on the ship without seeing anything human made and then found traces of humankind left behind. Antarctica is an incredibly large continent, so the chance to discover something like this was rather small, I believe.

This is Mareike adding on to this question: From my knowledge there are a lot of jobs that are not within research at Antarctic (and I guess Artic) research stations: e.g. Rothera Research Station has seasonal staff for air field operations, field guides, which are mainly coming from a mountaineering/climbing background to keep research and operations teams safe in the field, but also general assistants who keep the station running and organise kitchen, cleaning, supply and logistics. Some of the jobs will only operate in the summer season (e.g. airfield, some of the field guides), but some of the jobs will stay and overwinter as well (field guides, a chef, generator mechanics, ...).

>How about the trees from the eocene on Axel Heiberg?

Right now, yes!

Historically, the Inuit and Innu have not been participants in the governance of Arctic shipping for example, but efforts are underway to better account for their concerns concerning the operations of vessels in their waters through partnerships. There is a higher need for Arctic Indigenous to be active in different forms of collaboration due to their knowledge of the ecosystems!

Also, I never saw the Smoking Hills or even Axel Heiberg island, but it should be an amazing experience!

Ah ok, Kent Driscoll. Unfortunately, I don't know... I did a quick research but I couldn't find anything. Probably, someone will know, let's wait!

>Do you know Kent in Iqaluit

Hi there!

This is Hugo currently working with the population dynamics of Emperor Penguins using satellite imagery analysis from Cambridge, UK.

Are you talking about the Iqaluit’s Brown Row condo units that haven’t had water or sewage services for several weeks, right?

I did a quick google search and found that there is some literature on psychometric research in polar research (some examples at the end of the post). I would guess national research councils would be the best option (like NSF) for this type of funding, but if you are interested you could contact some of the authors of these papers and ask for their suggestions! :)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42797-019-00013-6#ethics

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494405801872

The field of bioinformatics is what we would call for using molecular data to understand more about organisms in different environments (including extreme environments). There are a number of free or relatively cheap courses online that can be used to start (Udemy has a course here.) If you search for "bioinformatic courses online" on google you should find some. Most molecular data is placed on open source repositories meaning they are available to everyone. Other datasets as mentioned in the other post can sometimes be hard to acquire not through an institution, but this is changing slowly to be more open I would say.

Many questions can be answered using this data, I would say the difficult thing is defining the question - there is so much data it is easy to get lost when exploring it. You might be interested in understanding if x species of bacteria is affected by temperature, or if the total microbial community is different between different kinds of ice - these are all things you could answer with this data.

many stations (both Arctic and Antarctic) will have those who work in food preparation, logistics and medicine - so not research orientated. Some of the big employers would be the British Antarctic Survey in the UK or the National Science Foundation in the US (https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/opportun.jsp) so there are options for non research positions.

Some organisations have also hired people to work on social media and communications to bring these environments closer to the public :)

at least for most expeditions, a medical check is required to go on the expeditions. This is particularly relevant for Antarctica since the nearest hospital is very far away! You can get homesick, like missing loved ones, pets or "creature comforts", but as the previous poster said it usually isn't so long and you are busy with work or admiring being in such a special place you tend to soak it up as much as you can.

In the town of Longyearbyen on Svalbard there are a number of bars and even a night club (Huset!) which we visited when being there for research for a couple of weeks. I remember we tried using Tinder while there and the only people nearby were those of us sitting together or in Tromsø (>900km away!) so not so successful :)

On field stations there is usually quite a good social scene with the other people there as the others have said. Since you are so remote you can form some very good friendships with people quite quickly, and getting to be in such a special place as the polar regions with someone is a great bonding experience.

On research ships, particularly in the Arctic, since the internet doesn't always work, you tend to play a lot of board games, or watch movies (many ships have a very big DVD collection) when taking a break from the research.

Ecologist here also, even after the ice has melted there is still an ecosystem there, it will just be different to the one we have now. A lot of research is going on to understand how a "new" Arctic might look. Particularly for algae, we are unsure if the ice loss will lead to more of them (since more sunlight gets to the water) or less. This is because as light hits water it will warm it up and cause what we call stratification (warmer water is lighter than cold water so forms 2 separate layers) and reduces the amount of nutrients which can come up from the deep water which algae need to grow. There is also research going on looking back into the past when temperatures have also been warmer and trying to understand what conditions were like and organisms that lived at that time were. We can use this to try and guess what might happen in the future!

Most expeditions are 2-4 weeks only, but some are longer. I have only done 6 weeks in Antarctica and as an avid traveler, i have never been homesick. Loneliness is a different thing, but usually you are there with a team and not alone. I have also not heard of cases where colleagues had problems. But there is no preparation, that I know of.

Hi,

pretty broad question. There are many datasets available in repositories, like NMDC https://www.nmdc.no/. Here you get all kinds of data in the usual format (Darwin Core Archives or netCDF). If you are looking for sequencing data (assuming you mean extremophile microbes) then I would check ENA (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/) or NCBI (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). But there are many more around the world. Check if your country has a center. These center also often have courses or at least some documentation about how to use them and what to do with the data. And for a start up, best ask a science friend. Some of these things are tailored to specific disciplines which use specific programs etc., and so they are not easily accessible for people from outside. Which is a shame, but also has some practical reasons, like data complexity and ownership etc.

Hmm...I think the cabins on Svalbard, where you sometimes hide from the cold for lunch or to warm up before going on are pretty unique. In some you feel thrown back to very early days of polar exploration. I also found the ice caves of Svalbard quite strange and interesting. You crawl through a small hole in the ground and suddenly after a few meters you are in a 5 m high cavern of ice with a lot of different colors. And in Antarctica the Russian church is quite a strange thing to see.

Chipping in, this is Stefan. See my post about expedition parrticipation and projects above. As a non-scientist, it is difficult. But in Antarctica, the stations often look for personell to stay in the station for a year. Question is then, are you up for a whole year.

What happens on the ship, stays on the ship...in theory. But befriend a polar scientist and they all have one or the other story about some people that ended up in naughty situations. In Norway, this is a bit calmed down, because the ships are dry (no alcohol). German ships are a bit different and I hear stories that french ships are really good for having a little glass or two.

When it comes to land based expeditions, Svalbard was mentioned, but there you are in a village (usually) and go out. So this is not as much of a social experiment. The other side is different. In Antarctica you are in stations with some people and it is similar to boats. I can recommend chilean bases, as they have pretty good BBQs. During my time at Statione Prat we also had a folklore evening, some banquetts, and even the first Antarctic olympic games. It was basically Chile vs. Ecuador, but it was fun to play soccer so far South.

I think you can find several strange things in the Arctic! Personally, it's hard for me to get used to seeing people around Longyearbyen (Svalbard) with a rifle on their back like the one who wears a backpack

I am not aware of these types of studies being carried out in polar regions, but maybe I should inform myself better since I'm not sure. There are some research grants to conduct research in Polar regions but sometimes they are not very well spread I highly suggest you follow APECS news and Instagram (apecs.norway) we try to spread offers related to Norway.

I personally have never been to Antarctica, I haven't tried it either, so I don't know exactly how difficult it is to get a job there. But taking into account the experience of colleagues and some of the job offers I have seen I think it is important to have some previous experience in polar environments as well as having some physical fitness and mental strength. I would say that in all or almost all long-stay selection processes both physical and psychological tests are carried out. For fieldwork, I guess it's like everything else in science, it's important to have a good CV and be lucky to find the research team at the time they run a project in Antarctica. However, not only researchers have the opportunity to work there. On the research stations, there are jobs for computer scientists, mechanics, cooks, divers, and much more. There is also more and more tourism in Antarctica and there is a need for guides with experience in extreme situations to fill these jobs. Safety courses and experience in polar regions/high mountain areas I personally think are highly valued when it comes to getting a job in Antarctica.

I currently live in Tromsø, a great city surrounded by mountains. You can practice lots of outdoor activities here like kayaking, skiing, climbing, diving, biking and much more!!! If you are a city person maybe this is not your place even though there are some students and tourism so even if there is a small city there are some things to do in the city and some ambiance in the bar! My favorite activity in winter is skiing the landscape is amazing and the mountains are so close that you can go after work!! But unfortunately this year I am not able to ski due to an injury and I have to confess that this winter is harder mentally because the winter is very long up here! Relating to dating a fun fact is that many couples I know here fell in love during a stay in Svalbard :P

Hello! Danielle here, I'm a PhD student working primarily in the Arctic marine environment. This is a fun question -- mainly I have spent time on ice breakers during field campaigns as well as a bit of time up in Svalbard. The research ships can have a very intense environment, after a couple of days it really starts to feel like you have spent weeks together with the same group of people. This is really a perfect setting for people to meet new ship-romances (whether they admit it or not that is a second thing) -- but I agree with one of the other comments from Stefan earlier, a lot of these field campaigns seem to be their own social experiments in a way! In my experience there is also a high likely hood that any flirty behaviour is noticed by the rest of the crew pretty fast, for me it always ends up feeling a little bit like you are at an adult summer camp forming some pretty deep connections while also "giggling" a bit about different developing relationships. For the second part of your question about what do to for fun -- Svalbard is a really incredible place to explore! Personally, I am pretty excited to be outdoors at home but in Svalbard it is on another level, and with the added element of having to keep polar bear safety in mind for even small hikes! :) Thanks for the question!

Hi! This is Eva a Phd student in zooplankton ecosystem dynamics at UiT(Tromsø,Norway).

It has been shown that mercury accumulates in fish tissue, and humans who consume a lot of fish may consume elevated levels of mercury. The content f mercury is directly correlated with fish size. In 2006 it was reported Greenland halibut (GH) caught in the Barents Sea had shown mercury levels exceeding the European Union’s upper limit of 0.5 mg/kg wet weight. After this, a larger Study was initiated to gain more knowledge about mercury and other metal concentrations in GH. This larger Study showed that mercury concentrations in Greenland halibut fillets were higher than those found in other marine species living in the Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea, and North Sea and 14% of the analyzed fish contained elevated levels of mercury. In this study, it was found that mercury concentrations varied geographically, with much lower levels found in the shallower waters in the easternmost parts of the Barents Sea than in the deeper areas along the shelf slope. Because of this further investigation must be done to be able to know better know the sources of polluted metals such as studies relating to the diet of GH. But for the moment the source of these metals is associated with air emissions. So the reduction of Hg emissions will protect the environment and human health. You can look at this study model based which shows a temporal decrease in mercury in GH and they associate Hg in GH to Hg air emissions, decreasing trophic position, and lower demersal prey use.

Sources:

Bank, M. S., Frantzen, S., Duinker, A., Amouroux, D., Tessier, E., Nedreaas, K., ... & Nilsen, B. M. (2021). Rapid temporal decline of mercury in Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides). Environmental Pollution, 289, 117843.

Julshamn, K., Frantzen, S., Valdersnes, S., Nilsen, B., Maage, A., & Nedreaas, K. (2011). Concentrations of mercury, arsenic, cadmium and lead in Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) caught off the coast of northern Norway. Marine Biology Research, 7(8), 733-745.

I am certainly not a nutritionist, but your body burns a lot of calories trying to stay warm when you are out in the extreme cold of the polar regions. Making sure you eat high caloric density foods (e.g., high protein and fat foods) before you go out onto the sea ice or on a long snowmobile drive to your sampling site, for example, will help keep your core warm. Dehydration is also something to watch out for. People generally don't drink enough water when it's cold because you don't experience thirst the same way as when it is hot and humid around you, and people don't want to drink cold water when it's well below freezing outside! So a thermos of water, tea or soup is your best friend to stay hydrated and warm while in the field.

Being in isolated and remote places like at the poles definitely presents its own challenges in research. Being on a research vessel or research station means you live and work with the same group of people for weeks to months on end. Psychologically, it can be difficult to handle. For Antarctic research stations in particular, this is something that is considered before allowing scientists to overwinter, for instance. For those who were in the field during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a bit apocalyptic to be hearing news of a global viral outbreak while isolated in the middle of the Arctic or Antarctic! Most researchers I work with, however, LOVE the lifestyle of time in the field and at sea. You get to go to some of the most remote places and see things few people on the planet get to experience.

I think like most things in life, the experience on a research ship or station depends on the people. In my experience, people are very creative with finding was to keep entertained when you can't simply go out downtown for dinner with friends or see the newest movie in the cinema. If you have a good group of people to work with, the experience will be fun, productive, and respectful (i.e., less hierarchical). But authority is also an interesting experience on ships in particular. The scientists on board only control the science. The captain and crew are responsible for safe navigating, etc. We still adopt some of the historic dynamics of seafaring which was very hierarchical. The captain is the ultimate authority.

In short, being on a research ship or a research station is certainly a very interesting social experiment!

Apparently, yes! Historically, ham radio was one of the only ways of quickly communicating in remote places, including research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic. But there are still operators today, for instance, in remote parts of Canada, Greenland and in Antarctica. It's a useful back-up system for communication since satellite and internet communications can easily be lost in bad weather, but it also provides a fun activity too!