A campaign North of the Arctic Circle

The Arctic is predicted to warm up at a quicker pace than other parts of the globe due to climate change. Therefore dramatic changes are expected to happen in that region in the future and scientists express an increasing interest for this region. 

As one of our main research interest is focused about substances released into the atmosphere by vegetation (biogenic volatile organic compounds, BVOCs) spring always marks the time when our instruments get to travel again to places after spending the winter in the laboratory for testing and optimization purposes. This year our group is setting up measurements of BVOCs (and other VOCs) and of hydroxyl radical (OH) reactivity in the Arctic.


The Finnish Meteorological Institute has been active at Pallas in the Finnish Arctic as early as 1935. Since 1994 Pallas-Sodankylä is established as one of the global observation station of the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) programme. The station has one node in Sodankylä at FMI's Arctic Research Center and one at Pallas, which consist of various subsites. For this summer our campaign will take place at Lompolojänkkä, an open, nutrient-rich sedge fen.

Figure 1. Left: Cottage for instrumentation at Lompolojänkkä (Picture: Simon Schallhart, CC-BY-4.0). Middle: Panorama view of the Lompolojänkkä site towards Matorova (Picture: Simon Schallhart, CC-BY-4.0). Right: Surroundings of the cottage for instrumentation at the site (Picture: Arnaud Praplan, CC-BY-4.0).

The installation took place in the week from 9 to 13 April. At this time of the year, the site is still covered with snow, which makes it more easily accessible with snowmobile to bring all the necessary boxes there. The measurements will be ongoing until the autumn with the most intense period of the campaign in July at the peak of the growing season. Until then, observations of emissions from the melting snow and thawing ground and of the early growing season will be made.

Figure 2. Left: Yours truly checking the our Comparative Reactivity Method instrumentation for OH reactivity measurements and GC-MS in the back inside the cottage at Lompolojänkkä (Picture: Simon Schallhart, CC-BY-4.0). Right: Enclosure on snow at the Lompolokänkkä site with the snow-covered Lommoltunturi in the background (Picture: Arnaud Praplan, CC-BY-4.0)

The week went by very quickly and we had a really comfortable accommodation from Metsähallitus next to the lake Pallasjärvi where FMI also has an apartment. As an extra treat we were able to see wonderful Northern lights, of which our colleague Dr. Simon Schallhart could snap beautiful pictures! We also could enjoy the views from the Kenttärova tower a few kilometers away from Lompolojänkkä.

Figure 3. From left to right: Accommodation building next to lake Pallasjärvi (Picture: Arnaud Praplan, CC-BY-4.0); Northern lights (Picture: Simon Schallhart, CC-BY-4.0); Kenttärova measurement site with its walk-in tower (Picture: Arnaud Praplan,  CC-BY-4.0); View from the Kenttärova tower towards lake Pallasjärvi, Lommoltunturi and Pallastunturi (Picture: Simon Schallhart, CC-BY-4.0).

Now that everything is set up we will keep an eye on the instrumentation to ensure its smooth operation and we are looking forward to share our results at the end of the campaign with the scientific community and the general public. I will surely write about them on this blog too!

We are extremely grateful for Juha and Timo's help. Their experience of the site and their technical skills have helped us in planning the campaign and getting our instrumentation in place.