A Short History of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory
The first geophysical observatory at Sodankylä was the Polar Year observatory in years 1882-84. The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, established in 1908, set up the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory in 1913 as a geomagnetic observatory. Its activities increased before and during the Second Po...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.604.8343 http://www.geophysica.fi/pdf/geophysica_1999_35_1-2_003_kataja.pdf |
| Summary: | The first geophysical observatory at Sodankylä was the Polar Year observatory in years 1882-84. The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, established in 1908, set up the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory in 1913 as a geomagnetic observatory. Its activities increased before and during the Second Polar Year 1932-33, but then the observatory was destroyed because of war in autumn 1944. The rebuilt observatory started on January 1, 1946. During IGY (1957-58) the ionospheric station was started, as well as the seismological station. During the time 1961-71 there was an active period of construction. In 1973-92 an astronomical station (polar variation telescope) was run; this activity had been the original goal of the donation, which led to the establishing of the observatory. After 1970 the activities of the observatory have enhanced remarkably. In 1977 a receiving station of the EISCAT radar association was located at Sodankylä. A network of field stations is run, mainly in Northern Finland. In 1997 the observatory joined to the University of Oulu. Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (SGO) is situated near the southern edge of the Auroral Zone (Lat. 67°22’N, 26°38’E), 5 km south of the Sodankylä village on the left (eastern) bank of the Kitinen river. Northern Scandinavia is sometimes called a ‘natural geophysical laboratory ’ because of its unparalleled geographic, climatic and geophysical location. For more than one hundred years, there has been remarkable scientific expedition activity both on the mainland and in the Arctic Ocean. |
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