Arctic Environment Research Center

Arctic Circle (north of 66 30N) is a key zone to know the mechanism of the global climate/environmental change and influence on ecosystem, etc.

Arctic Environment Research Center (AERC) was established in the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) in June,1990 and reorganized in April, 2004. The center aims to cooperate with researchers of university, institute, etc., as a core organization of the Arctic research as well as Antarctic researches in Japan.

The center has also the management and the administration of the research station in Ny-Alesund. The center is in charge of the Arctic data collection, Arctic information, publishing of the Arctic Research Directory (editing of Science Council of Japan), homepage (http://www-arctic.nipr.ac.jp/), so on.

Ny-Alesund Station

The Station began operations cooperating with the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1991 and established an observation station, “Ny-Alesund Station”, Spitsbergen Island, Svalbard, Norway (lat. 79 N, long. 12 E). In addition, high-speed Internet systems provide equipments in order to fix the research environments that the user is easy to use.

Other observatory stations

NIPR conducts international joint research in regions of the Arctic such as Longyearbyen (Svalbard), the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Greenland, Canadian Arctic, Russia and Iceland.

Main observations in the Arctic research stations

Atmosphere sciences such as greenhouse gas, ozone observation, emission and aerosol observation

Electron density evolved from EISCAT Svalbard radar (ESR) during one month, from March, 3 to April 6 (Altitude 90 km - 700 km)

Comparative study of auroras in northern and southern hemispheres

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