Crosstalks participants heading home from the Arctic
Half way through the almost hundred day’s long and physically challenging SWERUS-C3 expedition to the remote East Siberian Arctic Ocean, there is a shift in crew members. In American Barrow above the Arctic Circle, the second part of the expedition, ”From warming seawater and shrinking sea ice to venting of greenhouse gases”, starts and expedition members and Crosstalks participants Nina Kirchner and Örjan Gustafsson are heading home.
Nina Kirchner, Senior Lecturer in Numerical Ice Sheet Modeling at Stockholm University and Örjan Gustafsson, Professor in Biogeochemistry at the Department of Applied Environmental Science (ITM), Stockholm University, leader of the first part of the journey ar heading home to continue their research and take part in upcoming Crosstalks “Adventurous field work in the name of science” and “The secrets of the sea” on September 18.
Örjan Gustafsson is leaving the lead to his colleague Martin Jakobsson, featured in the clip below, explaining the difference in research focus between the first and the second part of the expedition.
The SWERUS-C3 two-leg expedition 2014, carries a scientific crew of about 40 persons including Russian/European/US-collaborators on each of the two legs. The vessel, carrying the expedition, Icebreaker Oden, is built to cope with heavy ice pressure, and can manage to open free passage even in layers of ice, ten meters thick.
Click here to see where Icebreaker Oden is right now and to follow the expedition members on their blogs.
The SWERUS-C3 program is investigating the present and historical functioning of the multi-process C3 system of the East Siberian Arctic Ocean (ESAO), an area that has vast stores of vulnerable carbon and is experiencing the fastest rates of climate warming in the world.
The objectives of the program are to quantitatively address processes central to Arctic Ocean Climate Change Feedbacks, specifically:
-CH4 release from subsea permafrost and deep sea.
-The fate of carbon in the shelf sea released from thawing subsea and coastal permafrost.
-The historical (recent/post-glacial/paleo climate) sediment record of permafrost carbon releases.
-And the History of Arctic sea ice and its impact on carbon fluxes.
The expedition is to be back to its final destination in Tromsö, Norway, in the beginning of October, on its way passing Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range, near the North Pole.
Click here to find more information about the SWERUS-C3 expedition.
