Zackenberg Research Station is extending its facilities again
Extensive marine activities at Zackenberg Research Station has since 1994 been carried out from very primitive facilities in Daneborg, c. 20 km south of Zackenberg. In 2006 Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation made means available for construction of a 144 m2 house for winter storage of boats and a small laboratory. However, accommodation was still in a nearby abandoned weather station, ‘Kystens Perle’ (‘Pearl of the Coast’), which originally and until 1975 was used for accommodation of staff from a local weather station. The conditions of this house was even from the beginning very bad, and despite several attempts to renovate the house its conditions has become worse and worse during the last years, mainly due to permafrost penetrating its basement. In 2008, it was finally decided that the house was not appropriate for accommodation, and the scientists moved out of the house to sleep either in tents or among the boats in the building from 2006.

During the same period there has been an increased interest for carrying through marine investigations in the region. This is partly due to an increased interest among international scientists to be involved in the activities at Zackenberg Research Station and partly due to Greenlandic and Danish scientists having the same interests.

Accordingly, Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation decided early in 2010 to donate 5 million Danish kroner for construction of a 154 m2 house to accommodate up to ten scientists. The house will contain five double rooms, a combined dinning and living room, modern laboratory facilities and storage facilities for provision and scientific equipment. The construction of the building has already started at a small entrepreneur, Venslev Tømrer and Snedker Entrepriser, in Denmark. In July the different parts for the house will be transported by ship to Northeast Greenland where the house will be assembled during a short and intensive campaign in the last three weeks of August.

Also the main station at Zackenberg extends its facilities in 2010. A storage facility for scientific and logistics equipment has for long time been on the list of wishes, and early in 2010 Aarhus Univeristy made means available for a 50 m2 storage facility. This house will also be assembled in August 2010 by the same entrepreneur who also constructs the new building in Daneborg.
 

Light in the windows in Kobbefjord
On 15-16 April 2010 logistics manager Henrik Philipsen from Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and GeoBasis assistant Karl Martin Iversen from Asiaq made a short field campaign in Kobbefjord near Nuuk prior to the main season for work in the area. The purpose of the stay in Kobbefjord was to carry through a helicopter sling operation with a snow mobile and a generator for the field activities in Kobbefjord and to do some radar measurements of snow thickness in the Kobbefjord study area. Henrik Philipsen and Karl Martin Iversen stayed in the field hut over the night between 15 and 16 April, and the above mentioned newly supplied generator allowed for electrical power supply to the newly constructed hut. So for the first night ever there was electrical light in the windows of the Kobbefjord field hut.

The hut in Kobbefjord is used for field activities under the programme Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring. The construction of the hut was based on means donated by Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation.

Volcanic ash cloud allows for small course about Climate Change issues for Greenland teachers
Due to the disturbances of European air traffic caused by volcanic ash from Iceland, senior scientist Naja Mikkelsen from Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and scientific leader of Zackenberg Research Station Morten Rasch from Aarhus University had a delayed homebound journey from an international meeting in Nuuk earlier this week. At the same time a group of Greenland schools teachers were attending a course in Nuuk on biology and physical geography. An arrangement was made between the teachers on the course and the two stranded scientists, and a small session with presentations by the two scientists concerning climate change effects on Greenland ecosystems and the Ilulissat Icefjord was put together very fast.

During the small course, the new book in Danish, ‘Naturen og Klimaændringerne I Nordøstgrønland’ which has been supported by Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation was presented, and the Greenland teachers showed great interest in using the book in their teaching.

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