On the JC2-2 cruise we are visiting the deep basins of the Arctic Ocean. The goal of my team is to conduct experiments with animals from the bottom of those basins, which means keeping deep, Arctic animals alive. If deep-sea diving is an extreme sport, then this is definitely extreme science.

The Arctic Ocean is composed of different layers organized on the vertical, and these layers have different temperature and salinity properties. A cold and fresh surface layer caps a warm and salty layer of Atlantic Water. The heat contained at depth (about 300m) in the warm and salty Atlantic Water could melt the entire Arctic sea ice cover if it reached the surface. It does not happen because the cold surface layer caps this Atlantic layer quite well and keeps it at depth. However, in some regions, such as north of Svalbard, sea ice melts in summer even though it is -30 outside. How is that possible?

Have you ever watched the colors of the sunset over the sea – then suddenly the beautiful moment is gone, and darkness surrounds you. Arctic sea ice is like that

We passed latitude 87°N in the central Arctic Ocean onboard the RV Kronprins Haakon, not far from the Lomonosov Ridge and only 300 km from the North Pole, hoping to find traces of Siberian Shelf and river water in the Transpolar Drift current. We are sailing against the current, going northward from the Nansen Basin, north of Svalbard into the Amundsen Basin in the search for this specific water or sea ice transported in this current.

A microbe? That’s an organism whose body is made of a single cell. Some microbes like bacteria are cells that look completely different from our own body cells, whereas others are built just like our own cells are. The biodiversity in microbes is staggering. Almost all of the genetic diversity we find on Earth is encoded in microbes and their appearance can be as different as worms and elephants! Microbes are everywhere. If you could miraculously remove all other organisms on Earth and at the same time make the microbes become visible with your naked eye, you would still see the contours and whereabouts of all the plants and animals and landscape around them! In the ocean alone, there are a million times more microbes than stars in the entire universe!

Large trawlers are pulling tons of fish out of the deep Central Arctic Ocean. Our cell phones are powered with rare earth elements from the seafloor underneath the North Pole. The ice-free Arctic allows much shorter delivery time of shipped goods from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Coast guard ships dot the vast Arctic coastline and fleets of submarines survey the chilly waters. Will these scenarios soon be a reality? To some extent some of them already are.

On land grass and other plants provide ecosystems with food and play an essential role in binding CO2 from the atmosphere. Microscopically small plants called algae fulfill this role in the world’s oceans. As plants on land, these tiny algae depend on nutrients and sunlight for growth. Rising global temperatures have led to sea ice melt in polar seas, allowing more light to reach the algae in the seawater. Still researchers are unsure if sea ice melt will give a greener Arctic Ocean, supporting more marine life and increased fisheries.

The point of putting a lid on a cooking pot is to prevent the transfer of heat and moisture between the boiling contents and the air above. When you remove the lid from a boiling pot, heat and water vapour flow upward into the air, along with chemical compounds filling your kitchen with the (hopefully) promising smells of an upcoming meal.

Imagine living at a place where food is available for only a few short weeks each year. What sounds impossible is reality for hundreds of different animal species thousands of meters beneath the ocean surface.

What do a spoon, colander, garbage bag and stocking have in common?

Sea ice. A characteristic feature of the Polar Regions. What do you picture when you think of sea ice? An extensive vastness of white, a few cute seals soaking up vitamin D, polar bears on the prowl? Would you believe that underneath their flippers and paws, is an ecosystem humming with life?

During the first two days in the Barents Sea, we completed our first crossing of the Polar Front, all the way from the warm, saline Atlantic waters in the south, to the cold and fresher Arctic waters in the north to map the location of the Polar Front.

It is said that we humans know more about the surface of the moon than the surface of our planet’s seafloor. If you knew how much we’re missing out! So much life and beauty can be found near the seabed.

Primary producers: ice algae and phytoplankton

For the first time in my life I am going to experience Phytoplankton blooming in Arctic. The vessel is soon ready to take us on board, and we are currently sitting in isolation at beautiful Sommarøy. My thoughts now are on the journey. How will it be?

The buzz and hassle have paused for a moment. I am under an ice ridge in the Arctic Ocean. There is 15 meters of sea ice over me and some 3000 meters of water below. The world around me is deep blue except for some white patches of ice and the blackness of the abyss under me. Silence. Desolation. Love.

Water, water everywhere on this blue planet. But there is also a dirtier side to the sea, because under the waves is solid (though often muddy) ground. Even dirt from land eventually reaches and lays to rest on the seafloor. The ground beneath the sea is in fact, critical for maintaining a healthy planet.

The Nansen Legacy Q2 cruise has its own dive team with four scientific divers from the Norwegian Polar Institute: Divers Mikko Vihtakari and Amalia Keck, Divers/Dive leaders Peter Leopold and Haakon Hop.

Imagine yourself lying on your back in a forest on a sunny spring day watching upwards to the tree tops. Warm rays of sunlight falling through the canopy warm your face and the song of birds echo in the distance. Now imagine all the tree trunks, branches and twigs are gone and just leaves floating lofty above you.

Some days you win, some days you lose. Your car keys. A single sock out of your favorite pair. A 200-metre long rope worth hundreds of thousands of kroner in equipment and samples. No? Just us?

Hello from another fine day from the largest research vessel in Norway – Kronprins Haakon. After having a delicious pizza lunch on board today, I came up to the 7th deck (yes that’s right, this boat has 10 decks), to write this blog in the conference room – a nice, cozy room with a great view. How is a girl from the south of India where winter is 20 degrees, surviving up here in the Arctic, you ask?

Life on board a research vessel has its own and unique rhythm. Time operates a little differently here, both because days are a bit intense with sample collection and analysis, but also because the ship simply has its own time zone. When doing research in the Arctic at this time of year, it is important to follow the sun as best you can. One consequence of this is that the higher powers on board RV Kronprins Haakon have decided that we will be two hours ahead of normal time on the Norwegian mainland. Sun is a precious resource in the Arctic in March, so in order to make the most of each day, we simply define the time ourselves.

It’s been a week since we left Tromsø. The Kronprins Haakon has very quickly become our home, and we are enjoying life onboard. After a couple of days through rough seas, things are calmer now. Fast steaming through open water has now changed into slow steaming through ice that needs to be broken for us to pass. Rough seas caused some of us to get seasick, but that is now long gone. Silent rocky seas have now changed into stable noisy ice. Breaking through 40-70 cm thick ice is not noiseless and earplugs are now a must in the lower parts of the ship if you want to take a rest at any moment – day or night – whenever you are not working.

The story about 16 Nansen Legacy researchers on a cruise in the Arctic Ocean continues. This time we meet “The Captain” and a troublesome ice floe

When Gandalf the Grey was struck by the Barlog and fell into the depths of the mountain at the bridge of Khazad dum, the Fellowship despaired. They had lost and old friend and their guide. When the underwater robot Harald did not return to the surface after a routine mission, the scientists on board the R/V Kronprins Haakon despaired.

After almost a week on the Nansen Legacy winter process cruise, we now sail into the sea ice and stay there until we go south to Tromsø towards the end of February. A couple of days ago we saw the sun just above the horizon, and for us living in Longyearbyen it was a great moment of joy, having been four months without the sun!

We left Longyearbyen on Tuesday evening 12th of February and have sailed south and east in search of ice. After four days, R/V Kronprins Haakon has reached 35 degrees east. Pancake ice is the first stage in ice forming and a clear sign that there have been waves in swing. We will measure these waves with a small instrument that stands on a stake in front of the bow. We have tried already, but after two days in open sea, it was covered with so much ice from sea spray that we almost did not get the instrument back on deck.

On February 9th, R/V Kronprins Haakon departs on a winter process cruise to the Barents Sea in order to track and measure important processes taking place in the ocean during wintertime.