Czech scientists will open a small station in the central part of the Arctic Svalbard archipelago in late September as a base for research into climate changes linked to global warming, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes reported on Tuesday.
Botanists, zoologists and climatologists from the South Bohemian University and the Czech Academy of Sciences (AVCR) will spend about ten days on the archipelago that belongs to Norway, the paper said.
Their main goal is to establish a station for ten people near Pyramiden, an abandoned Russian mining settlement, it added.
"We'll borrow a local hunting lodge. We want to bring in material before it starts snowing there, to plan our work for the next year and to look around a little bit," says one of the participants, Jitka Klimesova from the AVCR's Botanic Institute.
She said that the expedition is heading for the Arctic within an international project just because climate has been changing in this region the most of all.
A part of the Svalbard archipelago is covered by iceberg, which, receding, has left the soil bare for various new organisms to take root.
"We will measure temperatures and monitor the development of the areas from which the iceberg has withdrawn to see which organisms and how successfully will take root there ... It is a meticulous work, but very important," Klimesova said.
The zoologists among the researchers will monitor the sea shore where changes are the most striking, the paper said.
They will mainly focus on fish and their parasites which reflect the ecosystem's state. New kinds of fish can still be discovered in the Arctic, according to the experts.
Source: Xinhua
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