Blomstring av planteplankton kontrolleres av tilgang på næringsstoffer og lys, i likhet med andre planter. Det er antatt at variasjoner i dyreplankton bestander kan relateres til endringer i planteplankton. Siden mange fiskearter er avhengige av dyreplankton for å vokse og overleve, er det viktig å forstå variasjoner i planteplankton og om dette kan varsles.
Det er dyrt og tidkrevende å hente inn observasjoner av planteplankton, næringsstoffer, salt og temperatur på havet. I tillegg kan man ikke dekke både tid og rom, derfor benytter vi oss av havmodeller.

The Nansen–Zhu International Summer School focus this year on “Climate Teleconnections between Low and High Latitudes” has to day opened at the Nansen-Zhu International Research Centre in Beijing. More than 100 participants including lecturers and Ph.D. students from the several Universities in China, Norway and Russia as well as the Nansen Centers in Bergen, St. Petersburg, Cochin and Beijing will during the next five days give lectures and have discussion on the state of the art in research on teleconnections in the climate system.

The interest in the Arctic Sea Ice seems inversely proportional to the area covered, and has exploded after the record minimum in September 2007, which were not beaten this year (see below articles). The Arctic ice has in many ways become the “canary in the coal mine” of global warming, but at the same time global models show a large spread in future predictions of the Arctic energy budget.

The publication “Recent and future changes of the Arctic Sea Ice Cover” by Lars H.

The ice area minimum in the Arctic happens every year in mid to late September, when the melting season in the Arctic is over. Even though the ice area today is about 100.000 km2 above last year’s minimum, both the Northeast- and Northwest passages are ice free, something that has probably not happened since before the last Ice Age, 100.000 – 125.000 years ago.

The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre in Bergen, Norway continuously monitor the ice conditions in the Arctic using satellite observations. The Centre receives new satellite observations on a daily basis.

The Nansen Center and collaborating partners have this week launched an acoustic tomography experiment in the Fram Strait as part of the DAMOCLES EU project. The first acoustic source and receivers were successfully deployed on 15th and 16th August from RV Håkon Mosby with Dr. Hanne Sagen as cruise leader.

The tomography system will measure travel time of sound signals in different depths of the water column. The data from the array will be recovered during summer 2009 and be converted to a year-long record of temperature measurements across the West Spitzbergen Current.

Global warming is enhancing in the Arctic regions. The air temperature has increased to double that of the global average over the last 100 years, the ice cover is decreasing at a rate of 3 – 5% per decade while the thicker multi-year ice is decreasing at a rate of 7 – 10% per decade, the river discharge from Russia is increasing, the tundra-permafrost is thawing and the snow cover on land is decreasing. Furthermore, in the past few years the Greenland ice sheet has lost mass along its edges – more than the accumulation increase in the interior.

De respektive styrene ved Nansensenteret og Unifob AS har vedtatt å ta en pause i forhandlingene om et nytt klima- og havforskningssenter. Partene skal møtes igjen i januar 2009 for å gjøre en samlet vurdering på om man skal gå videre med forhandlingene.

- Vi har fortsatt stor tro på visjonen om et nytt klima- og havforskningssenter i Bergen, men konstaterer at tiden ikke er moden for å gå videre med forhandlingene på nåværende tidspunkt sier administrerende direktør i Unifob AS Arne Sivert Svindland.

The Nansen Center contributes to the European Science Foundation (ESF) position paper “Remote Sensing of Shelf Sea Ecosystems - State of the Art and Perspectives”.

Leading scientist Lasse H. Pettersson was a nominated member of the ESF Marine Board working group writing the report.

Norges Vitenskapsakademi for Polarforskning (NVP) ble stiftet i Oslo 27. mars 2008 av 11 nåværende og tidligere polarforskere, alle professorer. Under stiftelsesmøtet ble det innvalgt en større gruppe nye medlemmer, slik at det totale medlemstallet er nærmere 50.

Formålet med det nye vitenskapsakademiet er som følger:

• Fremme forskning og utdanning om og i polare områder.
• Stimulere til nasjonalt og internasjonalt samarbeid og tverrfaglighet innen polarforskning.