Hornsund

The station was established in 1957 and has been in operation year-round since 1978. It is managed by the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences based in Warsaw, Poland. The permanent staff of the station consists of 8-10 persons employed for a full year period.

The station’s crew carries out monitoring programmes aimed at improving the understanding of the functioning of Arctic ecosystem and the changes it undergoes. The programmes focus on climatology, glaciology, hydrology, oceanography, seismology, geomagnetism, physics of the atmosphere, permafrost and geomorphical  processes.

The Hornsund weather station is as part of the Norwegian weather station network (WMO 01003 monitoring station). Physical parameters of the natural environment monitored at the Station are provided to several other recognized networks, such as Intermag, NASA, World Glacier Monitoring Service and Seismological Data Center. The Station is also a part of the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) and the INTERACT network.

The station offers access to accommodation and research facilities for over 20 visitors at one time. Logistic infrastructure and scientific facilities make it possible to develop projects in various fields of research throughout the year. Every year the Station hosts over 50 scientists from different parts of the world conducting their own research projects based on its infrastructure.