Have you enjoyed reading and looking at the nicely illustrated Nansen Legacy fact sheets? Now we have five new ready to be explored.

In the last week of May, two new Nansen Legacy PhD students, Dr. Snorre Flo (UNIS/UiT) and Dr. Cheshtaa Chitkara (UNIS/UiA), successfully defended their PhD theses at UNIS.

The Nansen Legacy project (2018-2024) has been the largest research project in Norway, and the final reports are now approved by the Research Council of Norway. New knowledge of relevance for science and society is built, new tools are provided, and improved collaboration have demonstrated the strength and potential in collaborations of this kind.

A proper understanding of the Barents Sea food webs is essential to evaluate how changes in community composition and production of the many species living there will cascade and impact our harvestable resources.

MSc in Marine Biology Christine Gawinski at UiT The Arctic University of Norway will hold a trial lecture and defend her dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae doctor (Ph.D.) in Natural Science in a public defense on Thursday October 31st 2024.

The Barents Sea, as well as Norway’s expansive coastline, is facing increasing pressures from human activity and climate change. Continuous and detailed monitoring to manage impacts and preserve its biodiversity effectively is therefore necessary.

How tightly are the realms of the open water and the sea floor connected in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, and what does it mean for sea floor communities?

MSc in Marine Biology Yasemin Bodur at AMB will hold a trial lecture and defend her dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae doctor (Ph.D.) in Natural Science in a public defense on Friday, June 28, 2024, in the Large Auditorium (E-101), NFH building.

Natalie Summers left deep-sea coral research outside Hawaii to investigate the life of algae in the Arctic polar night for her PhD. She grew up with archaeologist parents in Turkey and was a budding researcher from an early age.

PhD candidate Siv Nam Khang Hoff at the Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, is defending the thesis ‘Elucidating genome-wide divergence and prevalence of chromosomal rearrangements in keystone Arctic teleosts’ for the degree of PhD.

Researchers involved in the Nansen Legacy project have identified the first-ever loriciferan in Norwegian waters. This find was made in the Barents Sea at coordinates 81.53N and 30.96E, at a depth of 806 meters.

Predictions on how the Barents Sea ecosystem will look like in 2050 and 2100, and their implications and consequences for the fishing industry were discussed at the Arctic Frontiers side event organised by the Nansen Legacy. The Arctic is changing and this can lead to biological but also socialeconomic changes. Based on climate models, Nansen Legacy researchers have made predictions on how the Barents Sea ecosystem will appear in 2050 and 2100 based on different CO2 emission scenarios.

Water in the Atlantic Ocean circulates from the polar regions in the north to the south. This circulation is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The production of dense water and the formation of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean are important driving forces of the AMOC. The inflow of warm Atlantic water in the Arctic via the Fram Strait and Barents Sea regulates the production of this dense water and the formation of sea ice and can thereby affect the global climate system.

Our data manager, Luke Marsden, claims to have embarked his biggest training/outreach project to date – an entire YouTube video series teaching you how to work with NetCDF files in Python.

The sea floor and its inhabitants were in focus when the two Nansen Legacy PhD students Dr. Èric Jordà Molina (Nord University) and Dr. Ivan Cautain (Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), UK) successfully defended their PhD dissertations in mid-December.

The Barents Sea generates wealth and jobs, and contributes to food security for Norway, Europe, and the world. The marine ecosystem underpinning these socioeconomic services is changing rapidly, and planning and managing for the future require timely knowledge on how the system responds to change and what may be expected over the next decades.

Organisms with calcium carbonate shells like the small planktonic foraminifers and shelled pteropods are sensitive to ocean acidification, they are part of the oceans buffer capacity for increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and they hold a key to understand past climate.

What are the key findings from the Nansen Legacy project? If you don’t have time to read the >200 scientific publications, our new Nansen Legacy fact sheets provide a visual and condensed access to new knowledge on ten topics on the Barents Sea system.

Press

On the 15th of September Stephen G. Kohler successfully defended his PhD entitled “Seasonal biogeochemical cycling of mercury on the Arctic Ocean shelf” at the Department of Chemistry at NTNU.

A critical element in mapping regional and global biodiversity is to bring existing relevant
data together. Darwin Core is an international standard on how to do this that facilitates
future integration of existing data. The Nansen Legacy trains researchers to publish and
archive the collected data on Arctic marine species for future and global use.

The registration deadline for our symposium in november 2023 is prolonged to 20 October 2023! Go to: https://www.nansenlegacy-symposium.com/registration/registration/

This autumn Nansen Legacy members are organizing several workshops to strengthen the collaboration across approaches and disciplines. Some workshops also involve key scientists outside the Nansen Legacy project. The workshops prepare synthesis papers and data files which will become available on the website upon publication.

Rijpfjorden, on Nordaustlandet, Svalbard, has long been an example of a pristine Arctic fjord that, unlike fjords on Svalbard’s west coast, has not been affected by climate warming.

Now you can register for the symposium “Towards the new Arctic Ocean – Past, Present, Future”.

Agneta Fransson (Norsk Polarinstitutt) participated in the workshop of the international initiative Synoptic Arctic Survey (SAS) at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, USA, for pan-Arctic collaboration between Norway and participating countries such as Japan, Korea, USA, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Denmark.

In six years, over 280 researchers walked in Nansen’s footsteps, and research everything from the bottom of the sea to observe the earth from satellites in space.
This has given us over 200 scientific publications with knowledge on the rapidly changing marine climate and ecosystem.
Today we present a few of these stories from bottom to space, so maybe you can understand the Arctic better.

Update 16 May 2023: We have extended the deadline and abstracts can be submitted until 23 May 2023, 23:59

The Meteorological Institute is hosting this year’s three-day workshop on sea ice and sea ice forecasting, with contribution from The Nansen Legacy.

For decades, the impact of research was measured within the research discipline itself, often in terms of citations or how ideas presented advanced the field. Nowadays, researchers must increasingly plan for and document how the results of their work will be used – how they will contribute to society.

The Gordon Research Conference for Polar Marine Science is a premier international scientific conference that gives space and atmosphere to present and discuss the frontier of polar research and ideas, including unpublished material. Results from the Nansen Legacy research were well received.

We have added a new page for you to find datasets. Search from the year it was collected or after certain types. It’s all up to you.

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.

We invite the submission of abstracts from scientific work to our Symposium: Towards the new Arctic Ocean – Past, Present, Future

Last year we hit the 100-publication mark (2018-2022), and only one year late we have 60 more! Our scientists are productive, and the results are pouring into the project.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) awards the 2023 IASC Medal to Professor emeritus Paul Wassmann, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, for outstanding long-lasting achievements to improve the knowledge of the ecology of the Arctic Ocean and the ability to combine excellent science and holistic drive to bring together various disciplines.

Arctic Frontiers takes place 30 Jan – 2 Feb 2023 in Tromsø and Nansen Legacy scientists and reference group members are organizing a side event on changing sea ice conditions and its implications.

From 1 to 3 November 2022, this year’s Nansen Legacy annual meeting took place in Bergen. In good tradition, also this year the program was tightly packed.

The future is a world full of standardized data that are easily accessible and understandable to all.

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.