Blog Nansen Legacy Project

The Nansen Legacy Winter Gaps Cruise

Hunting moorings in the dark

– fieldwork in the polar night

A new round of hunting for instruments in the dark polar night

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!

Small pieces and large pictures in Arctic marine science

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.

Hardcore science

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.

Ephemeral landscapes

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 - a temporary and beautiful landscape constantly presenting moments that are suddenly gone, if you dare to blink.

The Transpolar Drift current

The largest Arctic river - transports materials into the central Arctic Ocean from Siberian Shelf across the North Pole

The tiniest do the heavy lifting

– Who are they and what do microbes do in the Arctic Ocean?

The Arctic Ocean blender system

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?

The Central Arctic Ocean: No longer the once forgotten no man’s land

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.

Will the future Arctic Ocean become greener?

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.

Cracks in the cooking pot lid

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.

Where food is delivered only once a year

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.

From your home to the lab: Household items in the life of a marine scientist

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

Into the deep unknown central Arctic Basin

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).

Three good reasons to visit the Arctic Basin in 2021

125 years since the return of Nansen’s Fram expedition

Aliens in the Arctic?

The outer-worldly life that resides within sea ice

Is the summer in the Barents Sea hot this year?

A blog from the northern Barents Sea on a July day in 2021.

A handful of suitcases teach us how waves and sea ice interact, and improve weather and climate models

Waves marching through the sea ice is an amazing view. It is as if a white, snow-covered landscape suddenly starts gently undulating, the solid ground dancing rhythmically. The waves’ wildness from the open sea is tamed and dampened by the ice. Yet, the waves’ energy can break solid sea ice, greatly affecting sea ice drift, formation and melt. Hence, waves in ice are an important - yet not well understood - factor in the arctic physical environment.

Journey across the Polar Front

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.

Life at the seabed: studying bottom-dwelling fish and invertebrates across the polar front

In the footsteps of Nansen

Algae sinking into the abyss of the Arctic Ocean

Departure into the known unknown

First experience onboard the RV "Helmer Hanssen"

The deep blue Arctic Ocean: A scientific diver's tales of life under water

Where the Atlantic heat meets the Arctic cold

Let’s talk dirty

Nansen Legacy Q2 Scientific divers sample ice algae and zooplankton below sea ice

Mixing production deep into the ocean

Spring, a biologically critical time window in the Arctic

The lonely Algae

Lost and (not always) found: The ups and downs of sediment trap deployments

Everything has to have somewhere to live

Tiny Arctic wildlife matters

The hunt for the hidden life in water

Excitement onboard the RV "Kronprins Haakon"

Split on a diverging ice floe

An unexpected journey to the seabed.

Pancakes in the waves - a field report from the wintery Barents Sea