Collaboration to promote Arctic science

Meeting national and international research colleagues in Vienna after Covid has been gratifying for the Nansen Legacy projects scientists. It has been very nice to participate and contribute to The Arctic Science Summit Week, which is an arena for a wide range of organizational meetings and science sessions to coordinate, plan and promote Arctic science.

“The Nansen Legacy project were involved in and contributed to several workshops and sessions with presentations and organization in collaboration with the international Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) community, Arctic Passion, with JAMSTEC and Synoptic Arctic Survey (SAS)” project leader Reigstad says.

 

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Marit Reigstad in a panel debate at ASSW 2023. Photo: Arctic Passion

Pan-Arctic DBO workshop

How can we increase our observational capacity on environmental and biological conditions and coordinate the ongoing Arctic observations better? A network of Distributed Biological Observatories (DBOs) is emerging from the first Pacific DBO founded by Jackie Grebmeier (Nansen Legacy Scientific Advisory Board). The Nansen Legacy representatives Marit Reigstad and Arild Sundfjord, are involved in establishing the Atlantic-Arctic DBO, in collaboration with the Arctic Passion project and Michael Karcher (Arctic Passion PI and Nansen Legacy Scientific Advisory Board). The Davis Strait DBO is established the Siberian DBO and during the ASSW a Pan-Arctic DBO were discussed and agreed upon to bridge the regional observations.

 

Integrating knowledge

A Science session on Integrating knowledge from regional marine observatories to pan-Arctic perspectives included keynote presentation on the Nansen Legacy by PI Marit Reigstad and a presentation on impact of sea ice on hydrography and nutrients in the Atlantic Inflow zone presented by Angelika Renner, IMR. Science presentations were followed by a panel debate on how to achieve a Pan-Arctic understanding where both Marit Reigstad and IASC medal winner Paul Wassmann participated.

JAMSTEC says welcome to all who have joined the session. Photo: Marit Reigstad. 

Joint science session with JAMSTEC

A science session on “How to improve models, observations, and collaborative approaches to understand the future biogeochemistry in the Arctic Seas” was organized as a joint effort between the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, JAMSTEC, and the Nansen Legacy. The Nansen Legacy early career scientist Filippa Frasner (UiB) gave one of the keynote presentations on how multiyear predictability capacity on phytoplankton in the Barents Sea is a possibility. Another Nansen Legacy (former early career) scientist, Elisabeth Jones (IMR) presented results from seasonal investigation of the Barents Sea Ocean acidification status.

 

Fransson with Arctic Basin results to Synoptic Arctic Survey

Agneta Fransson (NPI) presented the work and results from The Nansen Legacy Arctic Basin expedition in the session organized by the international initiative Synoptic Arctic Survey.

 

“The conference was interesting and rewarding. It was a great and well-organized event at the University of Vienna. It was a varied professional program with presentations from different natural science topics about ocean, land and atmosphere, but also social fields and presentations that included Arctic communities and indigenous people”, says Fransson.

Fransson presenterer

Agneta Fransson presenting her work at ASSW 2023. Photo Elisabeth Jones. 

She participated with the presentation “Into the deep Central Arctic Ocean – results from the Nansen Legacy Arctic Basin expedition 2021”, about the Arctic Ocean expedition and results from the Legacy after the Nansen JC2-2 Arctic Basin 2021 expedition, in the section “Synoptic Arctic Survey”.

 

“There I showed our activities on the Arctic Ocean expedition and new results on contrasting physics, chemistry and biology in the water column in the deep Nansen and Amundsen basins in the central Arctic, influenced by ice cover, ocean currents, fresh water, ocean acidification and biogeochemical processes” Agneta adds.

 

These results contribute to a pan-Arctic understanding of the ocean-sea ice system and ecosystem in the Arctic Ocean. Other presentations from, among others, Japan/Korea, USA, and Canada showed complementary results in other parts of the Arctic Ocean.

 

A good social setting was also provided for the scientist. All the participants from the Nansen Legacy agreed on this, including Agneta.

 

“I enjoyed myself at the conference and in the beautiful city of Vienna all week and participated in many events, both professional and social. We had a good conference in Vienna’s town hall, in a wonderful hall, where all conference participants were invited by Vienna’s mayor and were allowed to eat together. I even had a birthday this week and had a lot of good birthday cakes to choose from” she concluded.

(And we all wish her a happy belated birthday)

 

Elizabeth Jones (IMR) was delighted to present latest carbon and nutrient cycling results from the Barents Sea – how can our data improve models? Photo: Agneta Fransson