For thirty-six years, Helix Earth has measured the atmosphere over twelve sites on six continents — and published every reading, every day, free of cost, to a small number of people who would very much like to know.
"There are quite enough loud voices on the climate. We make the long, quiet record that allows them to disagree productively."Dr. Hana Yamato— Director, Helix Earth · 2018 → present
The Ny-Ålesund station — our second-oldest — takes a single 14-channel air sample at 04:00 UTC, every morning, in any weather. The reading is published online by 05:30 UTC, in any of seventeen formats. We have not missed a day in 36 years and 64 days.
View the live data →Helix Earth is an independent, non-profit research foundation. We do three things only — and we have done them, in that order, since 1990.
Twelve field stations on six continents, run by 38 permanent staff and a rotating community of about 180 visiting researchers. Every reading is published, in real time, under CC0.
See the live recordApproximately 14 peer-reviewed papers per year, by our own staff and visiting fellows. All are open-access. None of them — by foundation policy — appear in venues that charge readers to read.
Read the latest paperOne fellow at each station, every year, for eighteen months. We accept four new fellows per intake cycle. Forty-six fellows have come through Helix; forty-six are still working in the field.
The fellowship programOn the morning of each equinox and solstice, we send one short letter. It contains the field news, the latest published paper, and one photograph — usually from a station nobody else has been to that quarter.
— Four letters a year · written from a different field station each time —