News archive

Toktbilde frå Arven etter Nansen 2021, med forskningsfartøyet Kronprins Haakon i bakgrunnen. Forskere arbeider på isen med lite eller intet snødekke på. (Se bilde lenger ned for å sammenligne) Sebastian Gerland, Norsk polarinstitutt

A New Barents Sea – Researchers Witness Clear Changes with Significant Consequences

The Barents Sea, as we knew it, is no more, according to a new scientific publication from Norway’s largest collaborative project: The Nansen Legacy. The ice-free southern part of the Barents Sea has been well-mapped and understood, while the northern part, covered in ice during winter, stands out as one of the polar regions where climate and ecosystem changes are most pronounced.

Read More

Supporting global biodiversity work

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.

Read More

Integrating results to new and useful knowledge

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.

Read More

Agneta Fransson represented Nansen Legacy on SAS

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.

Read More
Illustrasjon Frida

Happy World Ocean Day!

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.

Read More

The ice factories of the Arctic Ocean

Each year, the Arctic sea ice goes through a cycle of melting and freezing. From March to September, sea ice gradually melts and becomes thinner, and from October to March, the water freezes again. In our warming climate, we see that more and more ice melts each year. One would expect that the ice would also freeze less, but we have observed that the ice growth – or ice production – has increased over the last decades. Yes, you read it right: despite warming, there is more ice produced during winter than before!

Read More
Arendalsuka 2022. Marit Reigstad og Bart Eide Foto: Karine Nigar Aarskog/UiT

Science and societal impact from the Nansen Legacy project

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.

Read More

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.

Read More
Paul Wassmann

Paul Wassmann is awarded the 2023 IASC Medal

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.

Read More
Credit: Ingrid Weidmann UiT

Using task forces to integrate results and highlight important themes

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.

Read More
Marine heatwaves

Marine heatwaves in the Barents Sea and their ecological implications

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.

Read More

Nansen Legacy scientists out in the World

Good science is created by the interplay of different thoughts, work approaches and data. This is why collaboration with scientists around the World is essential for the Nansen Legacy. After years of pandemic and travel restrictions, the project is happy to see that an increasing number of its scientists are now spending time abroad working with scientists from other countries and research fields on Nansen Legacy samples and data.

Read More

Sea-ice retreat beyond the continental shelf – implications for wildlife?

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.

Read More

Could sea ice persist in the Barents Sea in a warmer-than-present world?

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.

Read More

Graphical design skills for young scientists

Graphical abstracts, infographics, one-slide posters for digital conferences – the way scientific results are presented nowadays requires increased design and illustration skills. This is why the Nansen Legacy organized a

Read More

First Nansen Legacy PhD successfully defended

The Nansen Legacy is home to over 30 PhD students. On April 22, Elliot Sivel (IMR/UiT) was the first of the Nansen Legacy PhD students to defend his work. The evaluation process included both a trial lecture on modulation of species interactions by environmental and anthropogenic stressors, as well as the dissertation defense presentation entitled ‘Investigating the drivers of the Nordic Seas food-web dynamics using Chance and Necessity modelling’.

Read More
Karoline Barstein, NTNU

My research abroad experience, fostering curiosity

Ever wonder how the ocean reserves as much dissolved organic carbon as atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide? The truth is I do not have the answer to this question. Merely this question is what captivated my interest in this topic. How is it that nature maintains this immense carbon capture system and we still can´t figure out exactly how it functions?

Read More

Fulbright students join Nansen Legacy cruise

Our names are Megan Lenss and Evan Patrohay, and we are joining the most recent Nansen Legacy cruise as US Fulbright Scholars. Fulbright, a program through the United States State Department, has granted us funding to complete yearlong research projects in Norway.

Read More

The Nansen Legacy Winter Gaps Cruise

Since 2018, the Nansen Legacy consortium has successfully completed 16 ship-based expeditions into the Barents Sea. They have provided state-of- the-art new knowledge on Barents Sea physics, chemistry and biology across different seasons and oceanographic regions. This new knowledge achieved is needed to assess potential impacts of a changing marine system and to continue the sustainable use of the rich marine resources like cod, which is part of the key mission for Nansen Legacy.

Read More