The northernmost town in the world, Ny-Ålesund, has for more than 30 years hosted the UK’s Arctic Research Station – the nation’s only permanent infrastructure at the Earth’s northern pole.
Located on the Norwegian island of Svalbard – one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth – the station acts as a base for UK scientists studying the Arctic’s ice, ecosystems and atmosphere.
On 7 February, Carbon Brief was invited to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the UK’s national polar research institute in Cambridge, to hear more about what life is like for UK scientists living in the Arctic Circle.
BAS’s Arctic Day also offered a chance to hear about how researchers are working to understand the complex impacts of climate change on the land’s most northern edge.
UK Arctic base
Formerly a mining town, Ny-Ålesund now hosts Arctic research stations for a range of countries including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK.
It is accessible via a flight on a 14-seater plane that leaves four times a week from Longyearbyen, the largest town in Svalbard.
Speaking at BAS’s Arctic Day, the institute’s Arctic operations manager Iain Rudkin explained that the town is famous for being the starting point for a number of “crazy” Arctic expeditions.
This includes the expeditions of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who was the first man to successfully navigate the treacherous Northwest Passage through the Arctic to North America by boat in 1905.
The UK’s Arctic Research Station was built in 1991. It consists of seven bedrooms, three laboratories, a sitting room, an office and storage space. The station can be explored room by room using this 3D virtual tour tool.
According to station lab manager Guy Hillyard, the labs consist of a general space, a microscopic lab and a wet lab suitable for processing dirty soils and sediments.
The station also has an annex for drying mosses and soils, freezers at temperatures from -18 to -25C for storing ice cores and separate freezers for storing frozen sediment, he added.
Until recently, Ny-Ålesund was a town of “radio silence”, meaning there was no wifi, bluetooth or other kinds of internet access. However, last year, a decision was made to install a 4G mast.
Although many living at Ny-Ålesund appreciated the radio silence, the decision was made to make it easier for people out in the field to call for help if in danger and to allow scientists to use scientific equipment that communicates via the internet, Rudkin said.
Algae, AI and invisible ecosystems
BAS’s Arctic Day saw a number of UK-based scientists briefly explain the purposes of their research at Ny-Ålesund in the past and coming few months.
Dr Jaz Millar, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, travelled to Ny-Ålesund in July 2023 as part of their research into how climate change could be affecting algal blooms on glaciers, which are vast rivers of frozen ice.
The algae that Millar studies is dark purple, meaning it lowers the “albedo” on the surface of glaciers. Albedo is a term for describing the proportion of sunlight that is reflected away from a surface, with bright white having a high albedo and dark colours having a low albedo.
When the albedo on the glacier’s surface is lowered, it absorbs more sunlight. This causes it to melt faster.
It is possible that presence of meltwater induces the growth of more algae – potentially representing a self-reinforcing “worrying positive feedback loop”, Millar explained.
Around Ny-Ålesund, Millar’s team visited three glaciers. They studied algal growth with a range of techniques, including bringing microscopes directly into their field sites and taking ice samples.
Millar’s research has not yet been published, but the results suggest that the relationship between glacier melt and algal bloom growth may be more complex than just a linear positive feedback loop.
Elsewhere, Prof Kate Hendry, a chemical oceanographer at BAS, explained more about her research into how the melting of glaciers could be altering the flow of key nutrients into coastal waters – eventually impacting marine ecosystems.
She explained that glacier meltwater typically contains nutrients that are needed by diatoms – single-cell algae that act as food for tiny marine creatures called zooplankton – which in turn support a wide range of fish, bird and mammal species, including whales. These nutrients include iron nitrate and silicic acid.
As glaciers melt at an increasingly rapid rate because of climate change, this may impact the growth of diatoms – in turn affecting species higher up the food chain, she said.
To study this, Hendry’s team visited Ny-Ålesund in 2023 to collect more than 1,000 samples from glaciers, the ocean and sediments. Her team will return this year to look further at how the availability of iron and silicon in fjord environments could be affected by climate change.
At the sidelines of the presentations, Carbon Brief spoke to Martin Rogers, a machine-learning scientist at BAS, about his research using AI to map changes to Arctic sea ice in higher resolution than is currently available.
The AI tool can search through different types of satellite imagery, offering scientists the highest-resolution image available when considering factors such as cloud cover, which can obscure views of the sea ice, he explained.
In the future, this tool could be used to help scientists understand in greater detail the extent to which sea ice is declining because of climate change, he added:
“The big question is about the decline in sea ice extent. With this product, you can get the sea ice extent in high fidelity. Then you’ve got more precise information about how the sea ice extent is changing between years.”
Finally, the conference heard from Laura Molares Moncayo, a PhD student at the Natural History Museum and Queen Mary University of London.
Her research is centred around the question of whether the Arctic’s atmosphere could be supporting an ecosystem that is invisible to the human eye.
For decades, researchers assumed that glaciers were devoid of complex lifeforms, she explained. However, research has revealed that they actually support a vast array of microorganisms, which are well adapted for harsh, frozen environments.
How did these microorganisms find their way into glaciers?
Glaciers grow by receiving rain and snow from the atmosphere. In fact, glaciers could be considered a “condensed version of the atmosphere”, Molares Moncayo explained.
It is possible, she continued, that the microorganisms found in glaciers may have fallen from the atmosphere. Such microorganisms would, in theory, already possess the adaptations required to survive the tough conditions of the Arctic air.
In a week’s time, she will travel to Ny-Ålesund to try to establish whether the Arctic atmosphere is home to an invisible ecosystem of microorganisms.
To do this, she will use a range of equipment, including dry air samplers, which collect any solid particles present in air into a filter.
She will then use DNA sequencing techniques to identify which microorganisms are present in her air samples. She will also study the microorganisms’ functional genes, which will offer clues into whether the microorganisms are interacting with each other when still in the air.
The post Ny-Ålesund: How UK scientists are studying climate change in the Arctic appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Ny-Ålesund: How UK scientists are studying climate change in the Arctic
Transitioning to sustainable practices could boost resilience to compounding geopolitical and climate threats, experts say.
The worldwide fallout from the U.S. war in Iran isn’t limited to gas prices.
Ocean and coastal creatures are being put at risk by the spills, noise, dredging and shipping associated with new offshore oil and gas infrastructure, says a new report by a group of environmental NGOs.
The report by a group of twelve environmental groups analysed planned new offshore oil and gas blocks covering 430,000 square kilometres – an area the size of Sweden – in 11 countries.
Blocks in countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia overlap with some of the planet’s hotspots for marine biodiversity, home to mangroves, coral reefs, sea turtles, sharks and whales.
Oil and gas expansion is advancing in spite of the legal protections already in place, the report says, with a third of the area being licensed overlapping with marine and coastal protected areas.
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“It is alarming to see the research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean,” said Tyson Miller, Executive Director of Earth Insight, one of the environmental NGOs involved in the report.
At the first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, around 60 countries floated the idea of creating “fossil-fuel-free zones”, which would seek to place limits on coal, oil and gas in areas where development would lead to severe social and environmental harm.
As part of the landmark Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal, governments have also pledged to protect 30% of the planet’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030. This could be used as an opportunity to limit oil and gas expansion in sensitive areas, Miller said.
The report says the findings “reinforce the need for governments, financial institutions and companies to stop funding and supporting offshore oil and gas expansion”, and calls for the creation of fossil-fuel-free zones in “high-value marine and coastal areas”.
Oil bidding in biodiversity hotspots
As one of the case studies, Kenya — which is set to host the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa later this month — has opened 50 offshore oil and gas blocks for bidding in the Lamu Basin, one of East Africa’s marine biodiversity hotspots.
These blocks overlap with all the region’s mangroves and coral reefs, the report says, which provide nursery habitats for fish, sea turtles and the vulnerable dugong.
These ecosystems are already under severe stress from climate change-related ocean heating and increased water acidity and could now face seismic surveys, offshore drilling, dredging, increased shipping traffic, oil spills, chemical discharge and underwater noise pollution.
The government estimates that oil production will start by 2026, aligning with “global best practices”, and has said the Lamu basin has vast “untapped potential”. The country is expected to open bidding for the first 10 blocks by September.
Muturi wa Kamau, network coordinator for the Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group, said in a statement that the country “is preparing to open ecologically sensitive areas for fossil fuel exploration” while positioning itself as a leader in ocean diplomacy.
“The question is: at what cost are we willing to risk these fragile ecosystems and the livelihoods of coastal communities who have depended on them for generations?” Kamau said.
Australia’s Otway Basin
After a four-year pause, Australia — which will act as co-presidency of the COP31 climate summit — resumed offshore exploration in the Otway basin last year, with American energy firm ConocoPhillips among the operators approved for exploratory drilling off the country’s southern coast.
The sites under exploration are as close as one kilometre from a series of marine reserves known as sanctuaries for pygmy blue whales, who travel thousands of kilometres to reproduce in those waters. Orange roughy, a deep-sea fish that can live for over 140 years, may also be harmed.
In total, the report analysed new LNG export projects in Argentina, Alaska, Mexico and Tanzania, as well as expanded offshore oil and gas licensing in Australia, Cameroon, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Norway, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The post Planned offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report appeared first on Climate Home News.
Planned offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report
As competition for minerals needed to produce clean energy technologies intensifies, a growing number of countries have resorted to an age-old mechanism to cope with the threat of scarcity: stockpiling.
The world’s biggest economies are racing to shore up reserves of cobalt, lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are needed to produce batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and electric systems to wean the global economy off fossil fuels. The same minerals are also increasingly sought after to manufacture military hardware and chips for AI, adding further pressure on supplies.
But the cutthroat scramble to build up reserves threatens to drive up the costs of the energy transition by intensifying competition and pushing up prices of key materials needed to produce clean energy technologies, research published today has found.
“If you undermine the financial viability of [clean energy] projects through higher raw material costs, you’re going to delay their roll-out,” co-author Hugh Miller, the critical minerals lead at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Climate Home News.
Stockpiling “is happening, whether we like it or not”, said Miller. “But if we’re going to do it, we need to have it in a coordinated manner that means we don’t have massive market volatility and adverse implications from every country trying to go at it alone,” he added.
The rise of stockpiles
A growing number of governments have adopted national stockpiling programmes in response to heightened geopolitical tensions around mineral supply chains.
Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a critical mineral reserve known as “Project Vault” to protect American businesses from shortages after China imposed export restrictions on rare earth supplies.
Beijing suspended the measures until November as part of a trade truce with Washington but the episode spooked Western governments and exposed how strategic materials can be weaponised to achieve geopolitical objectives.
Australia, China, the EU and India have also announced measures to create strategic mineral reserves. Japan and South Korea already have long-standing mineral stockpiling programmes.
“Legitimate concerns”
“There are legitimate concerns with regards to potential global shortages of these minerals,” said Miller, citing rapidly rising and concurrent mineral demand for the energy transition, AI, data centres, and military technologies, combined with underinvestment in new supplies for some minerals, such as copper.
While stockpiling can serve as an emergency response mechanism during acute shortages, it does nothing to address the underlying concentration risks in mineral supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds around 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves, for example, while China dominates the processing of 19 out of 20 minerals deemed critical by a large number of nations.
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Uncoordinated stockpiling programmes risk heightening the price volatility they are designed to hedge against, according to the report.
Researchers found that if Australia, China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea and the US simultaneously built reserves of minerals to cover six months of imports, the aggregate stockpile demand could represent up to 34% of global annual cobalt supply and over 10% of global lithium, graphite and copper supply. That could cause a shock to the market, triggering the shortages and price spikes they are trying to avoid.
Miller said it was unlikely that every country would stockpile at that rate, but aggregate stockpiling demand of just 5% of global mineral supply would have an impact on prices.
Coordinating stockpiles: a role for the IEA?
Researchers found that avoiding the negative impacts of stockpiling requires global coordination over how mineral stocks are accumulated and released – a mechanism which already exists for other commodities, including oil.
Coordination should include agreed rules for countries to build up their stocks over a slow and staggered timeline and pre-agreed conditions for releasing reserves to provide market predictability and reduce the risk of price spikes.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), which was established after the 1970s oil crisis to coordinate emergency oil stock releases among member countries, is best placed to oversee such a mechanism, they say.
Earlier this year, IEA member countries called on the agency to strengthen its work on critical minerals, including by providing support to countries “that choose to establish and expand critical minerals stockpiling systems”.
But Miller and his co-author Pau Morandi, a policy fellow at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, argue that members should go one step further and mandate the IEA to coordinate the security of supplies, rather than only helping individual governments.
The IEA has been contacted for comment.
A call to action for the G7
Miller said he hoped the research could be picked up by the G7 group of wealthy countries, which could lead on mandating the IEA to take on this coordination role.
France, which is presiding over the group this year and is hosting leaders in Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in mid-June, has made strengthening the resilience of critical minerals value chains a priority.
In a communique last month, finance ministers agreed to “deepen and expand our cooperation among G7 members and with like-minded partners” to strengthen and diversify critical mineral supply chains and to continue discussions “on how to best organise analytical cooperation”.
Sebastien Treyer, executive director of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), said he hoped the G7 leaders’ summit can help move the discussion on critical minerals towards greater international cooperation to secure the resources the world needs to build a clean economy.
From inclusive and mutually beneficial partnerships to mine resources to stockpiling minerals, “we need to coordinate more like a trade organisation than something that is about securing supply,” he said.
The post The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs appeared first on Climate Home News.
The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs
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