Bayelva: Observing a Changing Arctic

At 79° north, near the research settlement of Ny-Ålesund, the Bayelva Permafrost Observatory lies within a landscape that appears vast, quiet and almost untouched. Yet beneath its surface, the frozen ground is responding to a rapidly changing climate.

In July 2026, I joined a four-person field expedition led by Prof. Julia Boike of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI). The expedition was based at AWIPEV, the French-German Arctic research base in Ny-Ålesund, with fieldwork conducted at the nearby Bayelva Permafrost Observatory. The work of the AWI permafrost team focused on long-term observation: maintaining monitoring equipment, collecting electrical resistivity measurements and equipping a new 50-metre borehole with temperature sensors connected to a live data stream in Potsdam. The first measurements obtained by the AWI team revealed relatively warm permafrost, at approximately −2.3 °C, as well as an unexpected temperature change at the depth of a cryopeg—a pocket of salty water that remains unfrozen within the surrounding permafrost. These observations offer new insights into how water, ice and energy move through frozen ground.

As a hydrological modeller, my objective is to use these observations to improve how water storage and movement in permafrost landscapes are represented in mHM, the hydrological model I initiated at UFZ.

Why does this matter? As permafrost warms and thaws, the way water is stored and transported through Arctic landscapes changes. Rivers, soils, ecosystems and infrastructure all respond. Long-term field observations provide the evidence needed to improve hydrological and Earth-system models—and therefore our ability to anticipate some of the consequences of climate change.

This photographic journal is my personal record of the expedition. All the photographs presented here are my own and reflect how I experienced the landscape, the fieldwork and life in the High Arctic. Beyond documenting where we worked and why we were there, I wanted to communicate the beauty, scale and vulnerability of this remarkable environment: its mountains, tundra, ice, wildlife and constantly changing sky.

The project begins in black and white, reducing the landscape to light, structure and atmosphere. It then moves into colour, bringing us closer to the expedition team, the wildlife and everyday life in this extraordinary place. Together, the photographs connect scientific observation with personal experience—a record both of what brought us to the Arctic and of the landscape we are trying to understand more clearly.