Novaya Zemlya expeditions

The joint maritime history of Russia and the Netherlands traces back to the 16th century; the Dutch wintering on Novaya Zemlya being the milestone of those early years. Willem Barentsz in his own right is respected as a pioneer of Arctic exploration, which, along the northern frontier of the Eurasian continent is the exclusive domain of Russian heroes. Russia reserves the term 'polarnic' for the headstrong breed of adventurers that devotes its lives to the conquest and understanding of that vast, intimidating spread of territory. For more than ten years, between 1991 and 2003, Arctic scientists from Russia and the Netherlands worked together to secure traces of their common heritage, threatened today by rapid environmental changes. Contact with indigenous cultures and local inhabitants, observations of the landscape, weather, tides, and animal life were also a prime objective during Dutch expeditions in the 16th century. The research has demonstrated that the narratives of these early voyages are accurate in every detail and full of contemporary peculiarities. Five expeditions were fitted out to study modern and old environmental change in the Russian Arctic. This was the first research program on Novaya Zemlya since the 1930s, when access to the island became restricted, as it still is today. Much of the research revolved around reconstruction of the wintering environment, and search for the grave and ship of Willem Barents.

An overview of expeditions and publications:

1991: expedition of Dmitri Kravchenko together with Frans Heeres en Maurits Groen to
het Behouden Huys. Results were published in ‘Nova Zembla’

1992: First Marine Arctic Complex Expedition (MACE) of researchers from Moscow, including P. Boyarsky. Results published in: 'Northbound with Barents'

1992: a visit of L. Hacquebord and journalist Herbert Blankesteijn to the Behouden
Huys. The wrote the book: 'Op zoek naar het Behouden Huys. Een expeditie naar Nova Zembla in het kielzog van Willem Barentsz.'

1993: Archaeological expedition of Russian Academy of Sciences, AARI St. Petersburg, en University of Amsterdam (UvA), also published in 'Northbound with Barents' and in 'Nova Zembla.'

1995: second MACE expedition, together with UvA lead by Boyarsky and Gawronski. Results published in 'Northbound with Barents' and in 'Nova Zembla.'

1998: third MACE expedition with Boyarsky, University of Illinois Chicago
en Leiden University.

2000: fourth MACE expedition to Vaygach Island (close to Novaya Zemlya), with University of Illinois Chicago, Boyarsky, Dave Lubinski and J.J. Zeeberg
Publication: 'Into the Ice Sea' is partly a translation of 'Nova Zembla' and adds the results of the last two expeditions.

'Climate and Glacial History of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago' (J.J.
Zeeberg, Rozenberg Publishers 2002) tells the geological results of the expeditions.

'Terugkeer naar Nova Zembla' is the historical synthesis of all expeditions, including a new translation of the original sixteenth century travel reports.

OBJECTIVES
Secure traces of common Dutch-Russian heritage, threatened today by rapid environmental changes

RESULTS
To detail the nature of modern climate change, we used more than a century of meteorological observations from three weather stations on Novaya Zemlya. Climate warming during the 20th century followed on seven centuries of cooling. The reversal of the cooling trend signifies the ending of the 'Little Ice Age.' We found that the region is sensitive to incursions of North Atlantic weather; hence glacier fluctuations on Novaya Zemlya occurred in broad synchrony with those in other areas around the Barents Sea. Our research demonstrated that the Russian Arctic contributed about 6 m of global sea level rise in the past 20,000 years, equivalent to today's Greenland ice sheet.

See also:
University of Colorado at Boulder (Project)
University of Illinois at Chicago (Project)