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The Nansen Legacy project invites the Arctic research community to the international symposium in Tromsø, Norway, 7-9 November 2023.

After a period with focus on data collection, sample analyses, and model-based investigations and predictions, it is time to merge and integrate new knowledge across approaches and key themes. To do so, seven overarching themes have been identified and task force groups have been initiated in the project Nansen Legacy.

After two years of digital meetings the board at Nansen Legacy finally could meet in person at the Nansen Legacy board meeting in Tromsø today.

In June and July 2022, heatwaves struck Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, as temperatures climbed above 40 degrees Celsius in places. Less known is that heatwaves also occur in the ocean. Like heatwaves on land, marine heatwaves have the potential to devastate ecosystems and cause large economic losses in fisheries, aquaculture, and other marine ecosystem services, calling for an increased focus on and understanding of the occurrence and impact of marine heatwaves.

The interplay between mercury and manganese in Arctic seawater may explain a surprising drop researchers found in mercury levels in the Barents Sea during the winter.

In many Arctic regions, sea ice retreats northwards. This often moves the ice edge zone from relatively shallow waters on the continental shelf to several kilometre deep waters in the central Arctic Ocean. Implications of this displacement for organisms living at the ice edge are largely unknown. Scientists from the Institute of Marine Research have studied harp seals, which’s icy habitat has retreated from shallower to deeper waters north of Svalbard over the last 30 years.

Arctic sea-ice plays a pivotal role in the Earth’s climate system and its loss may accelerate the rise of global temperatures. Understanding the future state of sea-ice is therefore a prerequisite for evaluating the development of the World’s climate. Now scientists of Norway’s largest Arctic research project – The Nansen Legacy – have looked into both the past and the future to unravel the question of future sea-ice state in the Arctic.

NTNU researchers from AMOS, the Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems, used small satellites and subsea robots — and everything in between — to study marine life in Svalbard’s Kongsfjorden in a first-ever experiment in May.