Greenland Sea: projects/activities

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Directory entires that have specified Greenland Sea as one of the geographic regions for the project/activity and are included in the AMAP, ENVINET, SAON and SEARCH directories. Note that the list of regions is not hierarchical, and there is no relation between regions (e.g. a record tagged with Nunavut may not be tagged with Canada). To see the full list of regions, see the regions list. To browse the catalog based on the originating country (leady party), see the list of countries.

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Displaying: 1 - 6 of 6
1. RADNOR - Radioactive dose assessment improvements for the Nordic marine environment: Transport and environmental impact of technetium 99 (99Tc) in marine ecosystems

Radioactivity in the Arctic environment is a central topic within environmental pollution issues. Increased discharges of technetium-99 (99Tc) from the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Sellafield to the Irish Sea has caused public concerns in Norway. This project (acronym “RADNOR”) includes model and monitoring assessments and improvements, assessment of current and novel abiotic and biotic dose parameters and dose calculations and use of realistic climatic background scenarios in order to assess corresponding consequences for transport of radioactive pollutants. RADNOR consists of three main components: part 1, the determination of levels and time series of 99Tc in benthic and pelagic food webs; part 2, containing working packages on improvements to the understanding of site-specific and time-dependent sediment-water interactions (KD), kinetics of accumulation (CF) and body distribution in marine organisms, including contaminated products for the alginate industry and part 3, dealing with model hindcasts and observations for spreading of 99Tc from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant during the 1990s and improvement of the NRPA dose assessment box model. From the model outputs, doses to man and environment will be calculated resulting in a valuable database for use within environmental management and for decision makers.

distribution coefficients (KD) RADNOR Long-range transport Spatial trends Contaminant transport concentration factors (CF) Radionuclides Modelling Oceanography Arctic Food webs Sediments Temporal trends Human intake Technetium 99
2. Late Quaternary paleoceanography of the Denmark Strait Overflow Pathway

The global thermohaline circulation is driven by sinking of cold, dense surface waters in the Greenland and Norwegian Seas and its replacement by warmer surface water from lower latitudes. This global circulation system, the conveyor belt, is the main regulator of global climate. Even slight disturbances of this delicate system will cause significant climate changes, especially for NW Europe. While the current hydrographical situation and associated overflow pathways are well-documented, paleoceanographic studies of the Greenland and Faroe/Shetland (F/S) overflow pathways are still scarce. The F/S pathway is presently the subject of study of the MAST program (ENAM project). This project focusses on the late Quaternary overflow history of the important East Greenland pathway. High resolution multichannel sleevegun seismic data recently collected by the Geological Survey of Greenland and Denmark (GEUS) allowed identification of suitable box- and piston-coring sites. Results from the high-resolution cores, allowing direct correlation with regional atmospheric changes documented in the Greenland ice-cores will provide new information on causes and mechanisms of climate change. The continental slope and rise off SE-Greenland can be considered as a potential key area for paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic studies, since: 1) The area is located in the immediate vicinity of the Denmark Strait arctic gateway for water mass exchange between the Arctic and Atlantic ocean. Recent hydrographic measurements (Dickson 1994) demonstrate the important role of the area with regard to hydrographic processes contributing to the formation of NADW. 2) The seafloor morphology and information from multichannel seismic recording shows the presence of numerous large detached sediment drifts and other drift-related features, which will provide important paleoceanographic information as outlined before. 3) The distribution and architecture of the sediment drifts is also affected by down-slope processes transporting upperslope/shelf sediments of mainly glacial origin. Thus the area offers an unique opportunity to study the sediment drifts both with regard to the (paleo)oceanic flow regime and the climatically-inherited signal from the down-slope sediment input. Research activities: All research is directed towards documentation of high resolution natural climate variability during the late Quaternary. Separate topics include: 1. Seismic/sidescan sonar studies 2. High resolution quantitative micropaleontology (planktonic/benthic foraminifera, diatoms, calcareous nannoplankton, dinoflagellates) 3. High resolution stable oxygen/carbon isotope studies 4. DNA studies on planktonic foraminifera (with University of Edinburgh)

Climate variability Climate Climate change Oceanography Ice cores micropaleontology Ocean currents paleoceanography
3. Polar Exchange at the Sea Surface (POLES)

Our broad area of enquiry is the role of polar regions in the global energy and water cycles, and the atmospheric, oceanic and sea ice processes that determine that role. The primary importance of our investigation is to show how these polar processes relate to global climate.

Atmospheric processes polar cloud dynamics ice dynamics surface radiation and cloud forcing Climate variability Climate Sea ice Climate change surface heat and mass balance polar atmospheric processes ice-ocean models arctic climate Modelling Ice Oceanography Arctic SEARCH Atmosphere Ocean currents cryosphere ice thickness
4. The Role of Polar Oceans in Contemporary Climate Change

Our central geophysical objective is to determine how sea ice and the polar oceans respond to and influence the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere. Our primary technical objective is to determine how best to incorporate satellite measurements in an ice/ocean model.

Atmospheric processes ice dynamics mass balance of Arctic sea ice Geophysics Climate variability Climate Sea ice Climate change freshwater balance of the Arctic Ocean polar atmospheric processes ice-ocean models arctic climate Modelling Ice Oceanography Arctic SEARCH Atmosphere Ocean currents ice thickness
5. Polar Ice Prediction System Version 3.0 (PIPS 3)

To develop the next-generation Navy operational ice thickness and movement model.

Shelf seas Hydrography Modelling Ice Oceanography Arctic SEARCH Data management Atmosphere Ocean currents
6. The high latitude oceans in the climate system, with special emphasis on their role in the global carbon cycle

The scientific objectives of this project is to add information that helps elucidate the role of the Arctic Mediterranean Seas (Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas) in the climatic system of the Northern Europe. More specifically it has the following aims: - To assess the heat and carbon dioxide fluxes over the air-sea interface in the Barents Sea and elucidate the effect this has on the formation of Arctic Ocean intermediate waters and associated carbon fluxes. - To assess the temporal variability of the fresh water distribution in the Arctic Ocean, both river runoff and sea ice melt, and the affect this has on the outflow of fresh water to the regions of open ocean deep water formation (the Greenland, Iceland and Labrador Seas). - To assess the mixing of upper and intermediate waters along the East Greenland Current that gives the properties of the overflow into the North Atlantic Ocean and thus add to the driving of the thermohaline circulation. This also contributes to the sequestering of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

Shelf seas Hydrography Climate change Oceanography Arctic Geochemistry