Zackenberg Research Station and Arctic PASSION
About Zackenberg Research Station
Zackenberg Research Station is located in Young Sund – Tyrolerfjord complex in Northeast Greenland. The station is situated in the southern part of the National Park of North and East Greenland, the largest national park in the world (approximately 1 million km2). The nearest settlement is the military outpost Daneborg (with a marine research facility) 25 km southeast of the station. The nearest town is Ittoqqortoormiit, 450 km south of the station.
Zackenberg Research Station is situated in the High Arctic in an area with continuous permafrost. The study area comprises the drainage basin of the river Zackenbergelven, with a total size of c. 500 km2. A great variety of biotopes like ponds, fens, heaths, fell field plateaus and grasslands occur within the core study area. Muskoxen, lemming, Arctic fox, and Arctic hare are among the common mammals in the area, while polar bear and Arctic wolf are occasional visitors.
In 1974, a national park was established in Northeast Greenland, which became a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve in 1977. In 1991, the first expedition under the research programme Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations was made to Zackenberg. In 1995, a temporary field station was established, and in 1997 Zackenberg Research Station was officially opened.
Current monitoring at the station
Zackenberg Research Station provides facilities for specific but comprehensive research projects. In Zackenberg, the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring programme is responsible for providing data on climate and ecosystem interactions in the Arctic. GEM is an extensive long-term research and monitoring programme, build around five disciplinary sub-programmes called: ClimateBasis (monitoring the climate), GeoBasis (monitoring the carbon balance of the ecosystem, other feedbacks to Climate Change, and physical landscape processes), BioBasis (monitoring the living nature), MarineBasis (monitoring physical and biological processes in the marine ecosystem), and GlacioBasis (monitoring the mass balance of local glaciers. New initiatives include the implementation of a remote sensing and modelling component to strengthen the use of GEM data for upscaling and prediction efforts.
At the station, there are approximately 25 on-going projects per year, of which about two third focus on Climate Change feedbacks.
All data from Zackenberg are provided free-of-charge to any scientist interested in making use of the data for scientific purposes via https://data.g-e-m.dk/ .
Arctic PASSION
The EU project Arctic PASSION aims to improve and streamline data collection across the Arctic. Within work package 1 “Establishing an adaptive and more complete Arctic observing system”, the INTERACT Non for Profit Association (INPA) led the task to establish terrestrial
environmental monitoring sites (Task 1.2c). Zackenberg Research Station was one of the ten Arctic stations invited to join as a key monitoring site. Through a thorough review of existing monitoring at all ten stations and extensive discussions with all station managers, we identified gaps in monitoring for each of the stations and “priority parameters” to focus on when filling those gaps.
Zackenberg Research Station (GeoBasis programme) obtained equipment that was aligned with the defined priority parameters and complementary to the ongoing research and monitoring at the station. New advanced soil moisture and temperature profile sensors and modern dataloggers were acquired through the Arctic PASSION project.
“Monitoring of soil and permafrost is an important part of our programme, we have beautiful datasets for more than 20 years of measurements. However, once in a while we need to revise and upgrade our methods and instrumentation to be in line with newly established monitoring stations. Participating in the Arctic PASSION project as an INPA station gives us the opportunity to exchange the experience and the knowledge with other Arctic stations, share our scientific, methodological and technological approaches to observations, monitoring and studies in the Arctic”, says GeoBasis-Zackenberg programme manager Mikhail Mastepanov.
Connect with Zackenberg Research Station:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZERO74N
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zackenberg/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/1012056630/zackenberg-station/?hl=en
Website: https://g-e-m.dk/gem-localities/zackenberg
Contact: Mikhail Mastepanov mikhail.mastepanov@ecos.au.dk
Connect with INPA
INPA provides a sustainable, long-term platform for Arctic, alpine, and boreal terrestrial research stations to maintain their significant global contributions in capacity building for research and monitoring. Our goal is that INPA can ensure long term sustainability to ensure INTERACT's legacy.
Twitter: twitter.com/INTERACT66
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InteractArctic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eu_interact/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@interacteu1959
Website: www.interactassociation.org
Contact: info@interactassociation.org