UNIS Students are ‘go’ for Rocket Launch
20 February 2015
AGF-304/804 Master and PhD students provided radar support for the University of Oslo scientific sounding rocket ICI-4 mission last night. The rocket was launched successfully from Andøya Space Centre at 23:06 local time.
Investigating ocean currents top-down and bottom-up
7 October 2014
This autumn, six moorings were placed around Svalbard to measure ocean bottom pressures at the sea floor. The measurement will give us the weight of the water column above the sea floor and we can calculate ocean currents between the moorings.
Climate-Cryosphere-Carbon cruise 2014
2 October 2014
On 4 July, a large international expedition of scientists including UNIS students and staff set sail from Tromsø towards the East Siberian Arctic Ocean. The expedition is part of a Swedish-Russian-US collaborative research program to study the linkages between Climate, Cryosphere and Carbon cycle.
New light shed on dayside Aurora
28 August 2014
The dayside aurora is less studied and less well understood than the nightside counterpart. In a doctoral thesis by UNIS PhD candidate Jeffrey Holmes, further understanding of precipitating protons in the dayside aurora is revealed.
Reduced sea ice area also in winter
12 June 2014
During the last decades warmer Atlantic water has caused a retreat of the ice edge north of Svalbard. In contrast to other areas of the Arctic Ocean, the largest ice loss north of Svalbard occurred during winter.
International radar community converges on UNIS
6 June 2014
Norway’s first ever international SuperDARN workshop was arranged in late May. Almost 50 scientists from 11 countries met in Longyearbyen to discuss upper atmospheric and auroral research, facilitating research collaboration on a global scale.
H.M. Queen Sonja visited the KHO
5 February 2013
Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway visited our auroral station, the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO), on Friday 1 February. Together with the Governor of Svalbard she got an introduction to the aurora science performed at KHO.
Warm water dominates Svalbard fjords
4 January 2013
Seawater temperature measured from December 2011 to December 2012 shows that warm water still dominates Svalbard fjords. This is of vital importance for the sea ice cover this winter. Measurements done continuously in Adventfjorden and Billefjorden monitor the development in the water column and the hitherto unknown biological activity in the Polar night.
First-ever Hyperspectral Images of Earth’s Auroras: New camera provides tantalizing clues of new atmospheric phenomenon
29 November 2012
The staff at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory, together with colleagues from Russia, Ukraine and Canada, has for the first time imaged Earth’s auroras with unprecedented clarity – simultaneously capturing multiple spectral bands of light at once.