The Wider Image: Climate change thaws world’s northernmost research station

    Paul Scherrer Institute Switzerland chemist Francois Burgay, 34, takes a snow sample to detect molecules connected to algal bloom in Ny-Aalesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 5, 2023. Filling plastic test tubes with snow, Burgay looks for chemical signals from marine algae blooms that travel from the ocean to the atmosphere and are later deposited in the snow, and once these signals are identified, there is hope that scientists will be able to use them to understand how the Arctic waters changed in the past and project how they might change in the future. “One of the special things about this place is there are a lot of different scientists. I’m a chemist. There are biologists, geologists,” he said. “It’s one of the few places in the world where these kinds of exchanges are so informal and so spontaneous.” REUTERS/Lisi Niesner