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.

The interplay between mercury and manganese in Arctic seawater may explain a surprising drop researchers found in mercury levels in the Barents Sea during the winter.

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.

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.

NTNU researchers from AMOS, the Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems, used small satellites and subsea robots — and everything in between — to study marine life in Svalbard’s Kongsfjorden in a first-ever experiment in May.

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

Nansen Legacy’s side event “From Science to Policy to Impact in the Arctic” on the last day of the Arctic Frontiers conference was a full success!

How can we keep track of all the data we collect in the Arctic? Watch this video to see how we do this in a consistent and standardized way that makes publishing our data easier.

Half-way through the Nansen Legacy project, 2021 was the year to take stock and to catch up.

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’.

The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) 2022 took place in Tromsø 26 March to 1 April 2022 and scientists from the Nansen Legacy contributed in various ways.

Nansen Legacy has reached and passed the magical number of 100 publications! Congratulations to all scientists who have contributed. What are actually these publications about, where were they published and

The floor vibrates and a crushing sound fills the bridge as the Norwegian research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon breaks through the sea ice. At 87°N and 17°W, north of Greenland and

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.

The heat transport into the Nordic Seas has increased steadily in volume and temperature over the last century, according to recent study.

In a big project as Nansen Legacy a lot of samples are collect and even more data are produced. Good data management is therefore highly important. Only when data are archived in a good way, they can be made available to all project participants, shared with other scientists, and preserved for the next generation of researchers.

A major goal in the Nansen Legacy project is to educate a new generation of Arctic scientists. In 2021, five Nansen Legacy master students finished their degrees. Congratulation to all of them for a very successful work in the fields of oceanography, marine biology, and geology.

An international panel of experts has assessed the Nansen Legacy project and states in their report that they are very satisfied with the progress and research results midway through the project period.

An important pathway from knowledge to users goes through national and international science synthesis and assessment initiatives where expertise merges and extracts relevant scientific results to address societal needs for knowledge. Nansen Legacy scientists – especially those working in the management institutions among the project partners – have contributed to several national and international status- and management reports on the ocean and climate state in 2021. This ensures a direct transfer of the new knowledge generated by the Nansen Legacy project into assessment reports used for knowledge-based management and policy making in Norway and the World.

After a very busy year in the project (six cruises, ongoing sample analyses, a rising number of publications), we are glad to announce that also the Nansen Legacy newsletter is finally running again.

Edson Silva just published his first article as part of his institutional PhD project – congratulations! Together with five other co-authors from NERSC and one from the University of Bergen (UiB), he studied the annual cycle of phytoplankton/algae blooms in the Nordic Seas by utilizing satellite data from 2000-2020.

The Nansen Legacy is home to more than 70 early career scientists. These young and dynamic researchers are a core element of the project, and present the next generation of Arctic researchers, consultants, policy makers, teachers, communicators, or other resources in society. Hence, the Nansen Legacy thrives to support its early career scientists in forming a strong and supporting network. The annual Nansen Recruit Forum is an essential element in this work.

The Nansen Legacy disposed over 350 days of ship time to ensure high-resolution sampling of physical, chemical and biological parameters of the ecosystems of the northern Barents Sea and the adjacent Arctic Ocean.

Satellites aid researchers with important information on environmental state and processes. Yet, essential empirical data of the Arctic marine environment cannot be collected from space. Ship-based measurements are in many

Last week in October, the Nansen Legacy was finally able again to host a physical annual meeting. After almost two years with virtual meetings, it was a great pleasure to gather 160 scientists to present and discuss science in person.

Important groups of calcifying zooplanktons (planktic foraminifera and shelled pteropods) were examined under the sea ice cover to see how they cope with changes of physical and chemical properties in the Arctic Ocean, such as ocean warming and changes in carbonate ocean chemistry during the polar night in December 2019. They are doing well!

Marine heatwaves, ecosystems shifting and sea ice melt are just some of the many topics on this Nansen Legacy annual meeting in Trondheim. The Nansen Legacy is now halfway into the 6-year project and are now moving into a phase with more focus on results for all disciplines.

After a long period of not being able to meet up and be together, people welcomed the possibilities to aquire knowledge and attend as an audience at a social event at their local pub. In four cities, 16 speakers participated with lectures about their research work in the Arctic Ocean.

A major ambition of the Nansen Legacy project is the education and recruitment of a new generation of polar researchers, managers, educators and policy makers, who can help society to

Earlier this summer Nansen Legacy post doctoral fellow Khuong Dinh from the University of Oslo received the prestigious Young Research Talent grant from the Research Council of Norway. The Young Research Talent grant is highly competitive and is a 3 year researcher project for scientific renewal.

Our scientific crew of 35 people for the Nansen Legacy cruise JC2-2-Arctic Basin will spend five weeks onboard the Norwegian icebreaker and research vessel Kronprins Haakon, with departure on Thursday 24th August 2021. Cruise leaders are Agneta Fransson (NPI) and Bodil Bluhm (UiT).