The Nansen Legacy disposes over 350 days of ship time between 2018 and 2022, primarily using the new Norwegian ice-going research vessel Kronprins Haakon. This, together with an array of oceanographic moorings, glider, and satellite observations, allows for collecting unique, synoptic and interdisciplinary seasonal and inter-annual time series data.

The Nansen Legacy’s field campaigns investigate different important physical features of the Barents Sea and adjacent Arctic Ocean, namely the climate gradient in the Barents Sea, spanning from the Atlantic influenced regions in the central Barents Sea, to the Arctic influenced northern shelf, and the shelf break to the deep Arctic Basin; the Polar Front in the Barents Sea where warm Atlantic waters meet colder waters of Arctic origin; as well as the inflow of warm Atlantic water from north of Svalbard. These features are sampled both seasonally as well as inter-annually. Ship-based data collections are supplemented with time series provided by gliders and oceanographic moorings at strategic locations, as well as by satellites. The observational effort links to the broad group of modelers in the project.  

In 2021, the Nansen Legacy extents its sampling program deeper into the Arctic Basin and Fram Strait in order to extend the observational coverage and to provide a context to the observations from the northern Barents Sea.