The Barents Sea is of great importance to Norway and is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The “Nansen Legacy” project focused on climate and ecological conditions in the area. Around 300 researchers from ten Norwegian institutions, including the Nansen Center, have contributed to what is the largest Norwegian research project ever.
Preparations for “Nansen Legacy” began as early as 2011, and the project work started in full swing in 2017. The project budget totalled NOK 740 million, with contributions from the Ministry of Education and Research, the Research Council of Norway and contributions from the participating institutions (see fact box). Over the course of the project period, the researchers involved have made great efforts in the various disciplines included in the project. Several exciting research results have been produced, all of which address the big question: “How does the marine ecosystem in the northern Barents Sea respond to climate change?”. The question was sought to be answered through five different sub-projects; Physical drivers, Human impacts, The living Barents Sea, The future Barents Sea, and Technology and method development.
The Nansen Center’s tasks in the project have mostly been related to sea-ice modelling. Through the project, the sea-ice model neXtSIM has been further developed so that it can now provide better representations of small-scale processes such as the formation of ridges and leads in the ice. Other sea-ice models do not have a high enough resolution or a good enough description of how forces act upon the ice to be able to recreate what happens. These small-scale processes are believed to have a major impact on the development of conditions in the Arctic and changes in future climate. The first step in the improvement work was the development of a new rheology in the sea-ice model. A rheology is a mathematical description of how sea ice is compressed, stretched, or otherwise changed due to wind and ocean currents. Using the new rheology, neXtSIM gives us a greater insight into the interaction between atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice. The model also produces more accurate results. Read more about this in our news story from 2022, or see the publication Ólason et al., 2022.
The sea-ice model was also coupled with an ocean model to calculate the interaction between the atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice in a new and improved way. The development work has been demanding, but very rewarding for the sea-ice modelling group at the Nansen Center. Two more articles on the subject have been published by the same researchers, with results that are of particular importance to the project’s objectives.
Guillaume Boutin and colleagues used the coupled model to investigate how much of the ice produced during the winter months is formed in leads. Using the model, they found that up to a third of all ice in the Arctic is formed in leads. They also found that the proportion of ice formed in leads increased during the period they studied (2010-2018). Read more about this in our news story from 2023, or see the publication Boutin et al., 2023.
Heather Regan and colleagues also used this coupled model to study processes that affect changes in multi-year ice, both in terms of ice extent and volume. The findings clearly show that the formation of ridges has a large impact on sea-ice area in years when there is little sea ice. There are also examples of how small-scale processes – such as the formation of ridges – affect conditions in the Arctic. This is described in more detail in the center’s news story from 2023 and in the publication Regan et al., 2023.
The Nansen Center is alone in being able to produce data from a sea-ice model with a realistic representation of leads and ridges. Both the model improvements and the coupled version of the model developed through the project are used in other models and projects. This research has thus contributed to a paradigm shift in the modelling of sea-ice dynamics.
Going forward, Norwegian research communities are planning a major initiative, “Polhavet 2050”, a project initiative with 18 participating institutions and a planned budget totalling 2 billion NOK. The project will run over a 10-year period and will be an important Norwegian contribution to the Fifth International Polar Year 2032-2033. The Nansen Center’s director is deputy chairman of the board of “Polhavet 2050”, and several of the center’s researchers are key members of the scientific writing group. The aim of the project is to study what an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer will look like, which is assumed to be the situation within 25 years. The initiative builds on lessons learnt from “Nansen Legacy” and aims to explore how the environmental and political consequences of climate change can be managed more effectively through long-term collaboration.
Key researchers: Einar Ólason, Guillaume Boutin, Timothy Williams, Anton Korosov, Heather Regan
