Confessions on the sea floor

Written by Anita Thorolvsen Munch, Journalist

Published: 30.08.2008

bunnproever (Ingressbilde)

While instrumental weather stations only measure 150 years back in time, bits of micro fossiles at the bottom of the sea floor can tell us how the temperatures were thousands of years ago.

SciencePub and Norclim are part of the network research programme APEX - Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extremes

APEX aims to understand Arctic climatic changes beyond instrumental records. Particularly focusing on the magnitude/frequency of the climate variability and, in particular, the "extremes" versus the "normal" conditions of the climate system.

It is an interdisciplinary programme that integrates marine and terrestrial science and utilises modelling and field observations. APEX involves scientists from 15 European countries, Canada and USA and is one of the coordinating programmes for palaeoclimate research during the IPY. 

For an intense week at the end of august this year, scientists working on the IPY-projects SciencePub and Norclim has been collecting sediment samples from the Kongsfjorden-Krossfjorden System. Their aim is to deciphre the climate history of the last 2000 years.

2000 years back in time
Taking off from Longyearbyen, Svalbard on august 18., the research vessel Lance lodged marine geologist and technicians from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Department of Geology at the University of Tromsø (UoT), Vrije Universiteit, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR), India and the Northern Illinois University (NIU).

The main goal of the cruise was to collect a suit of multi-cores from the Kongsfjord-Krossfjord system to sample surface sediment samples for living benthic foraminifera to monitor assemblage changes in reaction to ocean climate changes, and to study the history of the inflow of Atlantic water to the area during the last 2000 years.

Natural variability
Other goals for the cruise were to quantify the natural variability of Arctic climate and put the recent warming trend into the perspective of the last two millennia, as well as studying the interaction between the ocean climate and the glaciers of Svalbard.

The project will also contribute to the PAGES Working Group on Arctic climate during the last two millennia ˆ Arctic2k. Take a look at their page here

Forskningsfartøyet Lance har helikopterplatform og laboratorier.Foto: Sylvi Inez Liljegren
Forskningsfartøyet Lance har helikopterplatform og laboratorier.

The cruise is part of the the IPY-projects SciencePub and NORCLIM, which are both under the network research programme APEX. The Cruise leader was Nalan Koc

Last updated: 31.08.2008

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