November at 79 or even 81 N is pretty dark. The sun has disappeared for winter a long time ago, and all that is left is a bit of twilight at noon. For the phytoplankton in the sea that means that there is not enough sunlight to grow. For us, out on a research cruise to service instruments that were deployed north of Svalbard and in the Barents Sea last year or the year before, it means that we struggle to see! Most of the day, it is pitch black dark, especially if it’s new moon as at the start of our cruise. The ship itself is lit up like a Christmas tree with lots of light especially on the work deck in the aft, which often makes seeing anything out at sea very difficult. Light on the bridge is therefore always dimmed and only red light is used when needing a bit more illumination.

It is November, polar night, and almost winter – must be time for a cruise to the Arctic Ocean to collect instruments and equipment for our project!

After four seasons and four exciting research cruises, I finally finished my PhD field work

Arctic marine research is really exciting, and one could make blockbuster movies, or a tv-series based on research expeditions, such as those within the Nansen Legacy project. The logistics around planning and executing research cruises when going into the sea ice of the Barents Sea are enormous, but probably not that exciting when thinking about film material. However, simple things such as the safe arrival of our samples in Bergen following the completion of a long cruise are very special to us. Still, when aiming to make an Arctic marine science tv-series one should focus on the research cruises and the samples taken. The different cruises could represent the episodes of the series and the samples that we are taking might well be the characters of the series. I guess everyone agrees that if you want to understand what is going on in the series (the Arctic marine ecosystem) you should not miss out any episodes or only shoot with half of the cast.

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.