The Arctic Ocean has obtained increased international attention due to changing sea ice conditions facilitating the accessibility, as well as the exploitation of its natural resources (minerals, fisheries), energy (oil, gas), and new sailing routes that are creating new challenges and opportunities. Although transportation into, within and/or through the Arctic waters has been on the agenda for several decades, the Arctic is not yet an arena for large-scale international marine transportation. The Arctic covers waste areas of in accessible and remotely located sea ice and ocean areas with long distances between most infrastructures. Accordingly, satellite Earth Observation (EO) techniques are crucial for monitoring of the Arctic.

Two on-going projects at the Nansen Center, funded by the Research Council, contribute to the development in both research and education on use of satellite EO data for providing information about the ice cover in the Arctic. These two projects and cooperative partners will improve sea ice observation and modelling on regional and local scale as well as support to climate research in the Polar Regions.

The overall objective of ARCONOR is to sustain long-term international partnership and cooperation between Norway, Russia, India, China and US through advancing research, higher education and recruitment within satellite Earth observations for monitoring and forecasting of the Arctic in support of shipping in the Arctic.

ARONOR will organize exchange visits, including guest lectures, for scientists, students and institution leadership among the partners. The project will develop, implement and host summer schools and scientific workshops including the project partners and external participation. An interdisciplinary university education related to shipping in the Arctic will be developed, with focus on the Northern Sea Route. Together the partners will submit future research project proposals within and beyond the ARCONOR participation.

ARCONOR has during 2017 contributed to the PhD and Post-doc summer school The Arctic Ocean and the Marginal ice Zone (MIZ). The summer school was organized by the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research (NVP), in cooperation with the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), the Arctic University of Norway (UiT), the Nord University, the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Akvaplan-niva, the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC), the Nansen Scientific Society and the Russian Geographical Society (RGS).  23 international students participated in the summer school that was organized at UNIS and NVP in Longyearbyen during 29. July to 6. August 2017. The students started on a scientific report during the summer school, which now is finished and will be their basis for a scientific publication.