Arctic Tipping Points

A grey day in the marginal ice zone

After the successful cruises and experiments at ATP in summer 2009 (see previous blogs) a group of ATP scientists is again in the field to obtain more data for the FP6 EU Arctic Tipping Point project. After months of preparation and discussions regarding the outcome of last years investigations (among other venues during the 1. Annual ATP meeting in March in Copenhagen) finally part of the ATP team dedicated to experimental manipulations and comparative analyses heads to the ice-covered waters of Svalbard and the Barents Sea. On board of R/V Jan Mayen they join forces with students from the ARCTOS PhD school at the University of Tromsø, an US American team of mircozooplankton specialist and Spanish TV team.

The team (to be introduced in greater detail later) consist on the following parties:

University of Tromsø
Faculty of Bioscience, Fisheries and economics (BFE), Institute of Arctic and Marine Biology (AMB)

• Paul Wassmann (cruise and ATP leader)
• Elisabeth Halvorsen (ATP secretary and scientists)
• Henrik Jeuthe (Technican, AMB)
• Rudi Caeyers (Photographer, BFE)
• Jon Terje Eilertsen (Engineer, BFE)

Inspecting data

ARCTOS PhD school

• Helene Loedemel Hodal
• Anais Aubert
• Nathalie Morata (post. Doc.)
• Matias Langgaard Madsen
• Ananda Rabindranath
• Igor Berchenko

ATP

• Gareth Pearson, Portugal
• Ana Ramos, Portugal
• Johnna Holding, Spain
• Elena Lara de la Casa, Spain
• Inigo Garcia Zaradona, Spain
• Konstantin Solovyev, Russia
• Anastasia Nikishina, Russia

US microzooplankton team

• Gayantonia Franze
• Peter Laventyev
• Fransisco Moore

Spanish TV team

• Irene Fernández-Cuevas Novo
• José Miguel González

Watching out for Polar Bears

After giving the ATP team working with benthos under the leadership of Iris Hendriks, IMEDEA (UIB-CSIC), Mallorca, access to RV Jan Mayen to sample mussels for a spawning experiment on Monday May 3, we left from Longyearbyen for a first station in Isfjord. Here we had a full sampling programme with CTD, water bottles and various nets. We found cold water from the West-Spitsbergen Coastal Current and fair phytoplankton bloom. A good mix of healthy copepods.

From there we left for the West Spitsbergen shelf and to the shelf edge, were we took some deep samples from 1000 m depth. On our way we made short CTD casts and they indicated more and more Atlantic Water and increasingly stronger spring blooms. From there we went, at a good distance to Spitsbergen because of ice, southwards in the core of northbound Atlantic Water.

On our second sampling day we are in the core of Atlantic Water with a 40 m thick layer of surface water, probably from the West-Spitsbergen Coastal Current. We have a full sampling programme and will turn east in the evening, heading along the ice edge towards the Barents Sea and the Island of Hopen.