Students completed workshops as part of the 30th AMU Arctic research expedition

Students from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań have completed workshops as part of their 30th polar expedition to Spitsbergen in the Arctic. During their trip to AMUPS - Adam Mickiewicz University Polar Station, Petuniabukta (Svalbard), they studied changes in glacier ranges and the effects of global warming.

According to the university, the expedition participants analyzed, among other things, the human impact on the high Arctic environment in terms of the level of pollution, primarily in the form of plastic and microplastics. "As we have learned, even areas as remote as Spitsbergen are exposed to significant shipments of debris floating around the world," noted Professor Grzegorz Rachlewicz, Dean of the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) in Poznań, in an interview with Nauka w Polsce.

The students documented, among other things, changes in the extent of Arctic glaciers, which are undergoing widespread processes of melting and disappearance, resulting in the exposure of new mineral surfaces, changing the conditions of energy balance and material flow in polar geoecosystems.

Glaciological research includes measurements of the mass balance of glaciers, including the amount of snow accumulation, measured during spring expeditions, as well as thermal measurements (using direct methods and GPR) and ice flow velocity (using reference GPS) - describe Grzegorz Rachlewicz, Andrzej Kostrzewski, Krzysztof Rymer from the Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in an article devoted to the Polar Station of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań "Petuniabukta" (Central Spitsbergen, Svalbard).

"During glacier research, we also collect all kinds of archival materials—photographs, aerial photographs, maps, etc. This is also supplemented by our own field measurements, which were previously conducted using traditional geodetic methods such as theodolites or terrestrial photogrammetry. Nowadays, we use precise GPS receivers, laser scanning, or unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, equipped with cameras that allow us to record objects on the Earth's surface in various electromagnetic wave bands," says Prof. Rachlewicz.

He emphasizes that high-resolution satellite images, including those with a wide range of imagery, are also a powerful tool today. "Maps are created from all this material, presenting the extent of glacier fronts at various times—every few decades, every few years, or even several times during a single season—based on which we calculate how these fronts have moved and in which direction," explains the professor.

One of the students participating in the expedition, Alicja Kowalska, pointed out that the retreat of glaciers translates into forecasted sea level rise trends, which is particularly important for coastal communities.

The students also conducted, among other things, dendrochronological studies, which are conducted in the polar regions on shrubs, small plants that, due to the conditions at these latitudes, cannot grow like real trees and instead spread across the ground. "However, just like real trees, they produce concentric annual growth rings, colloquially and popularly called 'rings.' The difference is that in the case of Spitsbergen shrubs, these growth rings are several to several dozen micrometers wide and do not appear every year, so their observation, after appropriate preparation of the specimen, is only possible under a microscope," explains Professor Rachlewicz.

For example, the eight-petaled oak and the polar willow grow near the Adam Mickiewicz University Station. "After conducting appropriate analysis, it is possible to determine how many years a given plant has lived—and in our case, it can even exceed 100 years—as well as what conditions prevailed in given years that allowed for the formation of narrower or wider growth," explains Professor Rachlewicz. "This is crucial for determining climate variability and its trends with very high annual resolution. The preparations and collected plant material can be used in many other interesting analyses concerning the environmental conditions of their habitat."

Summing up their participation in the workshops, Alicja Kowalska noted that, under the guidance of knowledgeable guides, students could become informed observers, seeing how our world is changing through the example of a single location on Earth. For her, the most important thing was, as she says, "understanding the challenges of this area, becoming familiar with the technical equipment and apparatus, and finding solutions to the unpredictable conditions of this area." "We recorded data from ground thermometers installed in the Ebba Valley. The temperature recorded at ground level was over 20 degrees Celsius – that was a huge surprise," the student reports.

The summer research season of the 30th AMU Polar Expedition will conclude in early September. "We still have visits from groups of scientists from the AMU Faculty of Biology and the Faculty of Chemistry, as well as the University of Wrocław, ahead of us. We will also have international guests from Estonia, the Czech Republic, and the Norwegian University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), which operates in Spitsbergen, who will be conducting their individual interdisciplinary research projects," Dr. Krzysztof Rymer, head of the AMU Polar Station, told Science in Poland.

Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) in Poznań has been conducting polar research in the Arctic and Antarctic for over 55 years. Since 2011, UAM has operated its own research station on Spitsbergen, located approximately 1,300 km from the North Pole. During the 20th UAM Polar Expedition in the summer of 2015, the station was relocated to the western coast of Petunia Bay, where it operates to this day. The station's infrastructure currently includes three container houses (with a total area of approximately 40 m²) and a 40 m² tent hall connecting the buildings.

Science in Poland

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