Arctic Science - Kiruna

From 20th of January to the 16th of March I had the opportunity to participate in the Course "Arctic Science" of Umeå University. The centerpiece of this course was a 4-day meeting in Kiruna (Sweden 🇸🇪) from 10th to 13th February. Throughout this course, lectures on the following topics were held at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), Kiruna Lapplands Lärcentra and the Abisko Research Station: 

• Space weather forecast, Royal Observatory of Belgium

• Snow and ice in the solar system, Axel Hagermann

• Living in a cold climate, Fredrik Kjellberg

• The climate’s impact on the Arctic environment, Keith Larson

• Optical phenomena in the Arctic, Carol Norberg

• Living and working in the Arctic from the point of view of the Sami people, Anna Sarri 

• Snow crystals, Kenneth Libbrecht

• Glaciers and climate, Per Holmlund

These lectures were followed by practical tasks on aurora observation and classification as well as the characterization of different snow layers. My personal highlight was definitely seeing Aurora for the first time in my life. The aurora shown in the picture below occurred in Kiruna on the 10th of February at 21:06 (UTC+1). This image has been taken on a Sony alpha 7 RII with a 35mm objective and an integration time of 3.2 seconds while the ISO value was set to 800 and the aperture was set to f1.4.

Another particularly impressive experience was visiting the ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi and the LKAB mine, which is located below Kiruna. Although my work is clearly dedicated to quantum physics, as a scientist, I am still fundamentally fascinated by the natural phenomena that surround us all.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank in particular Carol Norberg, who led the course, as well as the Swedish Government, which is funding this course and explicitly encourages EU/EEA/Swiss students to attend. #Kiruna #ArcticScience