Projects/Activities

Projektet har til formål at forlænge og forbedre monitering af to strømsystemer gennem færøsk territorialfarvand, som udveksler vand, varme og salt mellem Arktis og resten af Verdenshavet. Den ene af disse er strømmen af koldt vand fra Arktis gennem dybet af Færøbanke kanalen, som transporterer varme og kuldioxid fra atmosfæren ned i Verdenshavets dybe vandmasser. Den anden er Færøstrømmen, som er den stærkeste transportør af ocean varme mod Arktis med indvirkning på klima, fiskebestande og isudbredelse. Endvidere vil projektet studere opsplitningen af Færøstrømmen i to separate strømgrene med forskellig indflydelse på forskellige områder og processer i Arktis. Projektet vil omfatte feltaktivitet fra sommer 2017 til sommer 2018 med udlagte måleinstrumenter og tilsammen fire hydrografiske togter med forskningsskib. Indsamlede måledata vil blive analyseret sammen med satellit­data og historiske observationer med henblik på at forlænge de ca. 20 år lange tidsserier for de to strømsystemers transporter samt at rationalisere det eksisterende moniteringssystem, således at det i fremtiden vil være mindre afhængigt af kostbare in situ målinger.

In 2013 a new ecosystem monitoring programme “DiskoBasis” was initiated at Arctic Station on Disko Island, Greenland. The project is partly funded by the Danish Energy Agency. The primary objective of DiskoBasis is to establish baseline knowledge on the dynamics of fundamental physical parameters within the environment/ecosystem around Arctic Station. This initiative extends and complements the existing monitoring carried out at Arctic Station by including several new activities –especially within the terrestrial and hydrological/fluvial field. DiskoBasis include collection of data in the following sub-topics; • Gas flux, meteorology and energy balance • Snow, ice and permafrost • Soil and soil water chemistry • Vegetation phenology • Hydrology -River water discharge and chemistry • Limnology -Lake water chemistry • Marine -Sea water chemistry

Annual measurements of physical, chemical, and biological variables are taken in small to medium sized, mostly minimally disturbed lakes, situated across the country. Of the 108 lakes that are part of the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme, 20 are situated in AMAP area. The main aim of the monitoring programme is to document long-term changes related to global or regional change and human-generated stressors. To complement the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme, national lake surveys provide spatial data needed to determine regional patterns, and coupled with time-series data, changes in surface water quality. The National Lake Survey (the Surveillance Stations, re-sampled stations) programme for lake water quality, started in 2007 and results in data of all Swedish lake conditions. Each year some 800 new lakes are sampled to determine chemical and physical conditions; lakes are resampled at 6 year intevals. 4824 lakes are sampled in the country during a six-year sampling cycle, with 1270 situated in AMAP area. The variables included in the Trend Station Lake monitoring programme include water chemistry, fish, phytoplankton, macrophytes, zooplankton, and benthic invertebrates, whilst the National Lake Survey is focused solely on chemical and physical parameters.

The possibility of restoring the salmon stocks in the Tuloma system is assessed by collecting background information on the river system: present fish fauna, habitat quality, migratory routes etc. Planning the restoration including technical and management aspects is under way.

Monitoring of the salmon stocksof the Teno and Näätämö river systems is based on long term data collection on juvenile salmon production, biological characteristics of the spawning stock, origin of salmon (wild/reared) and statistics on fishery and catches. Information on other fish species than salmon is also available.

1. Priority Research Theme (1) Clarification of the mechanism of the Arctic amplification. (2) The role of Arctic in the global climate change and future projection. (3) Evaluation on the influence of the Arctic Environmental Change to the weather in the Japan area and fishery. (4) Future projection of the sea ice distribution in relation to the evaluation Arctic route. 2. Basic infrastructure (1) Arctic research cruises by Japanese and foreign ships/ice breaker. (2) Cloud radar system. (3) Data archive system. 3. Establishment of “Japan Consortium for Arctic Environment Research” 4. Budget size: 650, 000, 000 Japanese Yen per year. (appox. 8 million USD per year) Network type: research programme

Ice-drifting buoy observation in sea ice area of the Arctic Ocean Main gaps: not well documented…

Since 1988 the regular summer hydrographic observations in the Nordic Seas and Fram Strait have been collected by the Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAS). Observational activities were carried out under several national programs, in the frames of EU projects VEINS, ASOF-N and DAMOCLES and within Polish-Norwegian cooperation in the AWAKE project. The main objectives are:  to study the long-term variability of water mass distribution, their physical and chemical properties and different pathways in the Nordic Seas;  to investigate the Atlantic water (AW) circulation in the Nordic Seas and its inflow into the Arctic Ocean;  to recognize the possible feedbacks between the Atlantic water variability and local and global climate changes.

- To document levels and trends of radioactivity in the environment - Basis for reports to international organisations (mainly OSPAR) - Inform authorities, media and the public in general about status of radioactive contamination

The ZERO database contains all validated data from the Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations Basic Programmes (ClimateBasis, GeoBasis, BioBasis and MarinBasis). The purpose of the project is to run and update the database with new validated data after each succesfull field season. Data will be available for the public through the Zackenberg homepage linking to the NERI database. The yearly update is dependent on that each Basis programme delivers validated data in the proscribed format.

Marine foodwebs as vector and possibly source of viruses and bacteria patogenic to humans shall be investigated in a compartive north-south study. Effects of sewage from ships traffic and urban settlements, on animals of arctic foodwebs will be studied.

The aim is a better understanding of the impact of contemporary climatic change (posterior to Little Ice Age) on plant dynamics and the morphodynamic processes active at the glacial margins in polar environments. The selected research field is constituted of the Brøgger Peninsula, where erosion assessments will be evaluated for various processes (frost weathering, runoff, biological weathering, …).

The 2003 field activity will be mainly dedicated to coring activity which includes: 1. the sampling of snow and ice cores from a Ny-Ålesund nearby glacier (midre Lovenbreen). 2. the collection of near coast (Kongsfjorden) and lakes sediments (maximum under pack depth 30 m). Sampling collection of ice and sediment cores will be performed using a portable, electric operated, sampling corer. The transport of all materials up to each sampling station should be performed with snowcats.

The aim of this project is to study the physical oceanography of the sea in the area where Kongsbreen glacier get in touch with the sea in the inner part of Kongsfjord. In particular the project aims:  to characterise temperature and salinity of water masses in the inner part of Kongsfjord close to Kongsbreen Glacier  to characterise major fresh water outflow from Kongsbreen glaciers to the sea in the inner part of the fiord  to collect time series if seawater currents in-out from the inner part, temperature and salinity patterns for one year from summer 2001 to summer 2002.  to collect a one year time series of sea level changes by an automatic self recording depth gauges deployed close to the base.

The aims of the project are: - to evaluate the fluxes of radionuclides in the water column and their accumulation in the sediment, on a short-time scale; - to determine the C/N and delta13C-delta15N ratios in suspended and sedimentary matter, and test their use as tracers of origin, composition and transformation pathways of organic particles. The selected study area is the Kongsfjord-Krossfjord system, Svalbard, considered as representative test-site for studying processes occurring in Arctic fjords. The focus of the project will be on the processes occurring at the glacier-sea interface, where enhanced lithogenic and biogenic particle fluxes are reported in summer. Specific methods will be used to trace the particle sources. The rate of accumulation-resuspension processes will also be investigated from the inner fjord to the outer continental shelf.

The general objective of this research concerns the quantitative and qualitative study of particulate matter retained in natural (sea-ice and sediment) and artificial (sediment traps) traps in order to determine the main origin (autochtonous and allochtonous) and the relative importance of different fractions of particulate matter and to follow their fate in the environment. To quantify the autochtonous origin of particulate matter, primary production, nutrient uptake, biomass distribution, phytoplankton community structure and fluxes in the first levels of the trophic chain will be investigated. Studies will be conducted in the sea-ice environment and in the water column and compared to the particle fluxes measured both in the water, using sediment traps and in the sediment, by radiometric chronology, in order to estimate the different contribution of these habitats to carbon export to the bottom. The zooplankton will be identified and counted and primary production, nutrient uptake and phytoplankton dynamics will be related to hydrological structure and nutrient availability in the environment. The Kongsfjord results particularly suitable for the main objective of this research as it is influenced by important inputs of both atmospheric (eolic and meteroric) and glacial origin and is characterised by a complex hydrological situation which may promote autochtonous productive processes, thus determining important particulate fluxes.

To survey and characterise the occurrence of biogenic reefs of cold-water corals in the Minch: • Conduct side scan sonar survey of ridge feature east of Mingulay. • Ground-truth the sonar results with targeted camera / ROV deployments. • Repeat this survey at other locations to examine how widespread this habitat may be in the Minch. • Sample live coral and rubble zones with minimally invasive video-directed grab sampling. • Report on findings and present summary data in a GIS compatible format (ArcView).

Changes in surface reflection at the arctic tundra at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard (79 N) were monitored during the melting season 2002 using a low cost multispectral digital camera with spectral channels similar to channels 2, 3, and 4 of the Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite sensor. The camera was placed 474 m above sea level at the Zeppelin Mountain Research Station and was programmed to take an image automatically every day at solar noon. To achieve areal consistency in the images (which is necessary for mapping purposes) the images were geometrically rectified into multispectral digital orthophotos. In contrast to satellite images with high spatial resolution the orthophotos provide data with high spatial and high temporal resolution at low cost. The study area covers approximately 2 km2 and when free of snow, it mainly consists of typical high arctic tundra with patchy vegetation and bare soil in between. The spectral information in the images was used to divide the rectified images into maps representing different surface classes (including three subclasses of snow). By combining classified image data and ground measurements of surface reflectance, a model to produce daily maps of surface albedo was developed. The model takes into account that snow-albedo decreases as the snow pack ages; and that the albedo decreases very rapidly when the snow pack is shallow enough (20-30 cm) to let surface reflectance get influenced by the underlying ground. Maps representing days with no image data (due to bad weather conditions) were derived using interpolation between pixels with equal geographical coordinates. The time series of modeled albedo-maps shows that the time it takes for the albedo to get from 80% to bare ground levels varies from less than 10 days in areas near the coast or in the Ny-Ålesund settlement till more than 70 days in areas with large snow accumulations. For the entire study area the mean length of the 2002 melting period was 28.3 days with a standard deviation of 15.1 days. Finally, the duration of the snowmelt season at a location where it is measured routinely, was calculated to 23 days, which is very close to what is the average for the last two decades.