“The one thing I have suddenly learnt to value is sunlight. India has it in plenty, and thank God for that,” said Girish, a senior research scientist at Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru, who has just returned from the Arctic.
Girish was part of the four-member scientific team that became the first set of researchers from India to spend a winter carrying out scientific studies in the world’s northernmost habitation. India has a permanent research station called Himadri, in Ny-Ålesund in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic region since 2008, but it used to remain uninhabited during winter because of extremely hostile weather conditions. The place is barely 1,200 km from the North Pole. This year, however, India decided to make the station operational throughout the year, and the first winter team, which included Girish, went there in December.
India is only the fourth country in the world, after Germany, Italy and Norway, to have a year-round scientific presence in the Arctic region. “In our part of the world, there is a natural tendency of waking up at dawn and seeing the sunlight. But in Svalbard, it took us a few days to accept that we will have to live in the dark,” recalled Girish. During October-February, Svalbard experiences polar nights and slips into darkness.
Athulya Radhakrishnan, a final-year PhD student from the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, who was part of the team, vividly recalls January 2. That day, she got a chance to release the radiosonde (a set of instruments packed along with a balloon used to measure temperature, pressure, etc.) into the air amidst pitch dark. “It was only several minutes later we could confirm that the radiosonde had been successfully released when data started flowing in,” she said. For the Indian contingent, a weekday at Ny-Ålesund would typically begin with breakfast around 7.30 am after which the researchers would begin their day’s tasks. Weekends were mostly off duty and they could travel to the Svalbard settlement area.
Girish, along with Principal Investigator Saurabh Singh, had proposed to conduct the characterisation of the radio frequency environment in the Arctic, the first attempt ever from this region.
The experiments required the Indian researchers to drive an electric car to the Gruvebadet laboratory, located around 1.25 km from Himadri. India shares this lab with Italy and Japan.
Final year PhD student at IIT-Mandi, Prashant Rawat shared similar views. “It is teamwork that makes research possible while in Ny-Ålesund. But I really missed the Sun,” he said.
The Norwegian hosts ensured that none of the researchers missed the Christmas and New Year celebrations. “…A Christmas tree was specially flown in from the mainland and we all decorated it together,” said Girish.