The Polish Polar Station Hornsund, run by the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geophysics (IGF PAN), took down a storage building this summer. It had ended up on an artificially reinforced headland, with the shoreline several metres behind its outline, and was in poor condition after being undermined by the sea.
“Strong storm episodes in recent years could take as much as 2-3 metres of coast at one time. We built reinforcements, but they did not work. It was a battle against windmills”, station head Mateusz Moskalik, a professor at IGF PAN, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Moskalik said the coast had visibly retreated over the past dozen or so years, largely because of climate change, with stronger winds and more frequent storms. The protective layer of snow and ice that once formed on the shore in autumn now often appears only in midwinter, he said.
The station’s fuel depot, five 25-cubic-metre diesel tanks that power its generators, must also be moved.
“When these tanks were put up, 20-odd years ago, they were more than 20 metres from the coast. Now it is less than 8 metres”, Moskalik said.
The expansion and modernisation project is worth more than PLN 17.2 million (EUR 3.9 million), including a grant of nearly PLN 15.2 million (EUR 3.5 million) from Poland’s science ministry, the institute said.
Its first element is an energy self-sufficient building to house a garage, storage, laboratories and conference facilities, replacing the demolished structure. Moskalik said the labs and meeting rooms would boost cooperation among international scientists using the station.
Management also wants to cut diesel use by adding solar panels, which he said now suit Arctic conditions, particularly in the polar day, and compact rooftop wind turbines to help in winter. Lower fuel demand would mean less transport, reducing the station’s carbon footprint and costs, he said.
Architects visited in early autumn. Design work is due to finish in late autumn, after which tenders will be announced, with some stages possibly starting next summer. Construction is due to be completed by 2030, ahead of intensified research during the International Polar Year in 2032-2033.
Separately, IGF PAN and Italy’s Politecnico di Torino will develop hydrogen-based energy storage for Hornsund under a European Commission-funded project called Sustain-Arctic, Moskalik said.
The station, in Hornsund fjord in southern Spitsbergen, was built in 1957 and has operated year-round since 1978. It is Poland’s northernmost permanent scientific institution.
(jh)
Source: PAP