leonid vasilenko comes from russia. he works at the novolazarevskaya station close to the airport. he's a veteran researcher. like most of the russians here, he started working in the polar regions during the soviet era. leonid: my wife was pregnant. >> pregnant? my daughter, she was eight months, first time. reporter: having been observing the environment for many years, the researchers have been able to monitor the changes taking place. aleksey: when you have results from any year, you can know about how change weather on our planet. reporter: one subject of interest involves lunar observations. it's well known that the moon's gravity affects ocean tides. but its exact effect on weather has not yet been well explained. the russian team co-operate with the seismologists at the german neumayer research station. it's 700 kilometers away. few visitors come e here. the neumayer station is, after all, in a very remote location. josefine stakemann and edith korger study the earth's magnetic field and measure the strength of earthquakes. they're not the only ones. researchers from severa