Anthropology and ethnography: new disciplines in natural and scientific studies of the Sámi in 19th-century Sweden – a case study. My research focuses on how Sámi were represented in text and images in four natural scientists’ travel and scientific journals and letter correspondence during the nineteenth century. The scientists are Göran Wahlenberg (1780-1851), Lars Levi Læstadius (1800-1861), Sven Lovén (1809-1895) and Axel Hamberg (1863-1933). They were all based in Sweden, but did field studies and field research trips in the north of Finland, the north of Norway, the north of Sweden and Spitsbergen. They studied, mapped and categorized stones, rocks, ice, plants, and flowers, animals such as birds, reindeers and sea mammals. They also studied the...

NISSE: A partial success The REXUS 6 rocket carrying the NISSE experiment was launched from Esrange Space Centre, Kiruna, Sweden on Thursday 12 Mar, 2009 at 10:08 UT. Before eight in the morning the helicopter scanned the impact area for human beings. The wind balloons were launched for the trajectory calculation of the rocket. The sirens started and the radio silence was announced. To keep the excitement high, the EISCAT UHF radar did not start properly at first. But an hour before the launch everything was ready, and by using the calculated nominal trajectory file the EISCAT UHF was redirected, pointing at the expected water release position. It was a textbook launch (See YouTube: ...

The NISSE launch campaign The launch campaign of the REXUS 5/6 rockets started on 2 Mar and will last until 15 Mar, 2009. According to the latest time schedule, REXUS 6 with NISSE onboard will be launched next Tuesday 10 Mar, and the other rocket REXUS 5 on Thursday 12 Mar. But this may also turn to be vice versa. The NISSE team has been busy with last preparations of the experiment for the launch. Vidar Hølland and Gard Mellemstrand has been concentrating on the payload assembly and Timo Pitkänen has taken care of the preparations for the EISCAT radar measurements. The fourth member of the team, Gisela Baumann, arrived at Esrange today and will stay for the rest of the campaign. Follow the NISSE Countdown blog at ...

As predicted by all IPCC models, Arctic sea ice will most likely disappear during summers in the near future. However, it seems like this is going to happen much sooner than models predicted, as pointed out by recent observations and data reanalysis undertaken during IPY and the Damocles Integrated Project. On February 25, 2009, there will be a celebration in Geneva, Switzerland to officially close the 4th IPY that started on March 1st 2007 in Paris, France. It is not a surprise that one of the main topics of this 4th IPY was climate change, since the polar regions play a very important role in Earth's climate. This role is magnified by the combined effect of two main processes: one is due to the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trapping longwave solar radiat...

February 17, 2009 — FAIRBANKS, Alaska — The Greening of the Arctic (GOA) IPY initiative is comprised of four projects each contributing to documenting, mapping and understanding the rapid and dramatic changes to terrestrial vegetation expected across the circumpolar Arctic as a result of a changing climate. These changes will likely affect the permafrost, active layer, carbon reserves, trace-gas fluxes, hydrological systems, biodiversity, wildlife populations and the human habitability of Arctic ecosystems, says GOA principal investigator Donald “Skip” Walker, director of the Institute of Arctic Biology’s ...

International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) IPY Press release – Feb. 10, 2009, Boulder, CO Download IASOA Press Release as PDF For more information visit our IPY Media Day page at www.iasoa.org Climate observatories at Barrow, Alaska, Summit, Greenland, and Tiksi, Russia all lie between 71° and 73° North, a few hundred miles above the Arctic Circle—but the sites are hardly similar otherwise. A...

http://ipy.arcticportal.org/index.php?option=com_k2&id=1997&view=itemPress release: Kinnvika - Arctic warming and impact research - Change and variability of Arctic systems, with focus on Nordaustlandet, Svalbard Kinnvika is a project within the International Polar Year 2007–2008 that focuses on Arctic warming and impact research. Its a multinational and multidisciplinary initiative to enhance the understanding of the Arctic climate systems, to monitor environmental change due to global climate warming and to study effects of human activity in the Arctic. Kinnvika is also a logistic platform for scientists to manage research, with a base at the old Kinnvika station in Svalbard. There are 25 working packages in the project and the science involves several disciplines in the Earth Sciences including studies among others on ...

It's less than two months before the first Hot Countdown of the REXUS 6 student rocket campaign. Here are some details about the NISSE payload: The NISSE payload description The REXUS 6 rocket campaign is approaching. Currently, the first Hot Countdown is scheduled to be on the 10th March, 2009. Vidar Hølland from the NISSE team has been the main responsible of the mechanical design and construction of the experiment payload together with rocket engineers in the University of Bergen, Norway. The payload is almost ready and some details are described below. ...

Christmas is approaching fast and the NISSE team is busy, but let's have a look what happened few weeks ago considering the NISSE EISCAT activity. The longer the polar night gets the more suitable time it is for ground-based auroral measurements in the north. During a couple of weeks before the 'Above The Poles' day, several space physicists from the University of Oulu, the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, well wrapped to withstand the polar biting cold, were mobilized for the annual Finnish EISCAT measurement campaign. During the campaign, series of measurements were taken, including ev...

Background NISSE may evoke for some of us a short Elf type fellow with a long beard and a red knitted cap. According to an old tradition Norwegian farmers believe that if Nisse lives in their barns, they will be blessed. Therefore around Christmas when the Nisses are active, they prepare food for them and, believe it or not – it's always eaten up by the next morning! Some other readers may be familiar with the name NISSE because of a Norwegian s...