Projects/Activities

Det danske bidrag til Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) under Arktisk Råd har dokumenteret at østgrønlandske isbjørne er mest forurenede mht. fedtopløselige organiske miljøgifte. Siden 1999 har Danmarks Miljøundersøgelsers Afdeling for Arktisk Miljø (DMU-AM) undersøgt isbjørnesundheden i Østgrønland via et unikt samarbejde med lokale bjørnefangere, og et tværfagligt samarbejde med biologisk, veterinær og human medicinske fagområder i Grønland og Danmark samt internationale samarbejdsrelationer med Canada, Norge og Tyskland. Undersøgelserne er mundet ud i en lang række af række internationale videnskabelige publikationer som dokumenterer tidstrend i miljøbelastningen af de grønlandske og norske isbjørne og sammenhængen mellem forurening og helbredseffekter på isbjørne. Disse har fået omtalt presseomtale verden over.

To monitor effects of hebivore grazing in established exclosures in west Greenland on diversity of plants and microarthropods in soil. One site in central west Greenland with caribou and one site in southern Greenland with sheep.

The IPY-project ‘COPOL’ has a main objective of understanding the dynamic range of man-made contaminants in marine ecosystems of polar regions, in order to better predict how possible future climate change will be reflected in levels and effects at higher trophic levels. This aim will be addressed by 4 integrated work packages covering the scopes of 1) food web contaminant exposure and flux, 2) transfer to higher trophic levels and potential effects, 3) chemical analyses and screening, 4) synthesis and integration. To study the relations between climate and environmental contaminants within a project period of four years, a “location-substitutes-time”-approach will be employed. The sampling is focussed towards specific areas in the Arctic, representing different climatic conditions. Two areas that are influenced differently by different water masses are chosen; the Kongsfjord on the West-coast of Spitzbergen (79N, 12 E) and the Rijpfjord North-East of Svalbard (80N, 22 E). The main effort is concentrated in the Kongsfjord. This fjord has been identified as particularly suitable as a study site of contaminants processes, due to the remoteness of sources, and for influences of climatic changes, due to the documented relation between Atlantic water influx and the climatic index North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The water masses of the Rijpfjord have Arctic origin and serves as a strictly Arctic reference. Variable Atlantic water influx will not only influence abiotic contaminant exposure, but also food web structure, food quality and energy pathways, as different water masses carry different phyto- and zooplankton assemblages. This may affect the flux of contaminants through the food web to high trophic level predators such as seabirds and seals, due to altered food quality and energy pathways.

In order to estimate the effect of rising global temperatures on organic carbon (OC) stocks in the temperature-sensitivity Arctic environment, our project aims at investigating the transfer of terrestrial OC from permafrost soils to the Arctic Ocean. Detailed compositional analyses of bulk soil and sediments along a transport trajectory combined with compound-specific isotopic (13C and 14C) analysis of selected lipid biomarkers will be used to study alteration processes of organic matter occurring in the soil and its during transport. Sub-goals include to a) identify suitable biomarkers for soil organic carbon in permafrost soils, b) determine residence times of selected biomarkers in permafrost soils, fluvial and marine sediments, and c) quantify carbon transfer from source (soil) to sink (marine sediment) and its timescale.

In contrast to many other marine regions, chemical interactions between organisms in Arctic waters are little understood. This project investigates natural products and chemical interactions in the sponge genus Haliclona in temperate and polar waters. Several new secondary metabolites isolated from Haliclona show feeding deterrence and activity against bacteria and fungi, but the compound composition varies with habitat and year. That raises the question whether sponges of the genus Haliclona as a model are able to adapt to changing environmental factors such as water temperature and colonization by bacteria by varying their secondary metabolite composition.

The objective of our work with arctic terrestrial plants and with algae is to study the range of climate adaptation as is expressed in special ultrastructure of cells and tissues, in photosynthetic metabolism, in antioxidative and sun screen compounds under a cold and reduced PAR / UV-B environment (climate different to alpine conditions). This is a comparison of ecophysiological processes already worked out mainly from high alpine plants, which live periodically under stronger cold and under different light regimes, especially higher UV-B and PAR irradiation. We want to find out, whether adaptations found in some alpine organisms occur similarly in polar forms.

The effects of stratospheric ozone depletion and of global warming on the marine biosphere are still underexplored, especially in the Arctic. Seaweeds are very important primary producers but are strongly susceptible to enhanced UV radiation and elevated temperatures, especially their spores. The UV susceptibility of spores has previously been invoked to determine the depth distribution of seaweeds. Therefore, we will investigate the effect of different radiation and temperature conditions on the ultra-structure, physiology and biochemistry of spores from various brown and green algae growing in different water depths. Moreover, we will study competition between zoospores of various species of brown macroalgae in order to get an insight about biotic factors structuring seaweed communities and also to explain more clearly the present seaweed zonation pattern.

The project IOANA proposes to better understand the intimate coupling between ozone mixing ratios and particulate nitrate isotopic characteristics. Ozone Depletion Events which occur in Arctic coastal locations shortly after sunrise are a subject of interest per se (scientifically challenging for two decades) but also provide a context in which ozone mixing ratios are highly variable, enabling to characterize the dynamic of correlation and process studies with a resolution of a day. This is a first step towards the use of the isotope tool in reconstructions of the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. This programme is a preparation of the IPY-OASIS project and propose to coodinate a set of collaborations than will be effective duing the International Polar Year.

The Nuuk-Basic project aims to establish a climate monitoring programme on the westcoast of Greenland. During two workshops, one being in Nuuk with field survey, framework for a future climate monitoring programme will be established. The programme builds on the concept and institutions already performing climate monitoring in NE-Greenland through ZERO (Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations).

The ZERO database contains all validated data from the Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations Basic Programmes (ClimateBasis, GeoBasis, BioBasis and MarinBasis). The purpose of the project is to run and update the database with new validated data after each succesfull field season. Data will be available for the public through the Zackenberg homepage linking to the NERI database. The yearly update is dependent on that each Basis programme delivers validated data in the proscribed format.

The central objectives of the proposed ATMAS project are:  to quantify the photo-chemically triggered NOx and HONO re-emission fluxes from permanently and seasonally snow-covered surfaces in the Arctic near Ny-Ålesund,  to quantify the sources of NO3 in these snow-covered surfaces. In detail, the following scientific objectives of ATMAS can be distinguished: 1. to quantify atmospheric gradient fluxes of HNO3, HONO, particulate nitrogen compounds, and nitrogen in precipitation (snow and rain) above snow surfaces; 2. to quantify the emission of NOx and HONO from the snow pack as atmospheric gradient fluxes 3. to formulate an influx-outflow relationship that can be used in dependence on the snow type for (photo-)chemical atmospheric process models. The results of this research may be expanded to a regional (European) or global scale, to suggest how the NOx and HONO re-emission process and its consequences can be included into regional emission, dispersion and deposition models used in Europe.

Englacial draining on Kongsvegen

In a context of global change, arctic ecosystems are exposed to deep modifications not only of the biology and ecology of endemic species but also of the interactions they may have with an increasing number of introduced species. This project attempts to assess in Svalbard, the impacts of global changes on aphids. These phytophagous insects are particularly relevant organisms for studies on the effects of global warming and biological invasion because 1) of their extreme sensitivity to micro- and macro- changes due to their spectacular rate of increase and phenotypic plasticity and 2) of their colonizing capacity conferred by their parthenogenetic mode of reproduction and their dispersal potential

The project EPOPEE is embedded in the international project ASTAR to study direct and indirect climate effects of aerosols and clouds in the Arctic. The particular goals of the project EPOPEE are to experimentally characterize the ice phase in Arctic clouds (including the ice phase) in situ, to study the aerosol-cloud as well as cloud-radiation interactions, and to develop adequate methods to validate remote sensing cloud parameters. In 2004 the project EPOPEE is mainly organized around in situ observations of detailed microphysical and optical cloud properties onboard the Polar-2 aircraft during the transition from polluted Arctic haze (observed especially in late winter, early spring months) to clean summer aerosol conditions. The transition from Arctic haze to clean summer conditions is quite sharp (a large amount of aerosols coming from Eurasian industrial areas accumulate over the Arctic and cover the Arctic by a layer of a smog-like haze of the size of the continent of Africa) due to a radical change in atmospheric transport patterns and is, thus, easy to identify. During Arctic summer, the high latitudes are then more or less “protected” from long-range transport of air masses from lower latitudes. The principal scientific objective of the project EPOPEE in 2004 will focus on studying the aerosol-cloud interactions with particular attention given to the ice phase nucleation in Arctic mixed-phase clouds. The interpretation of the instrumental observations will broadly benefit from a very close cooperation with the LaMP modelling group for theoretically coupling small-scale processes (cloud particle nucleation) with meso-scale dynamics. Furthermore, the project will focus on cloud-radiation interaction and the development of adequate methods to validate cloud parameters retrieved from remote sensing techniques. Therein, we will experimentally answer the question of how the different ice crystal shapes govern the scattering phase function of respective crystals. Moreover, the in situ cloud measurements will allow to develop an adequate strategy for the interpretation of remote sensing data from a depolarisation Lidar onboard the same aircraft (Polar-2).

Plankton of shallow polar freshwater water bodies is exposed to increasing levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) due to the limited water depth. Daphnia (Crustacea, waterflea) and algae are common representatives of the food chain in these water bodies. Daphnia almost exclusively use lipids for energy storage, which they obtain from their food (mainly algae). Therefore, Daphnia and algae are closely linked to each other. Preliminary experiments on the UV-induced damage in phyto- and zooplankton point to lipids as one of the key players. With this application we want to identify how algae specific lipids and fatty acids (FA) are modified by UVR. The factors modifying UV-doses to the animals and their food are depth of the waterbody and DOC (absorbs UV). A pondsurvey shall provide a wide spectrum on ponds which vary in DOC and depth. Lipid analysis of Daphnia and their food of these ponds as well as physical parameters of the pond waters shall identify correlations between UV-exposure and specific fatty acids. This shall enable us to estimate the effect of solar UVR on the freshwater plankton community in polar ponds.

Mapping and monitoring of the snow cover with use of satellitte born optical instruments for (1) direct use of observations of climate change and (2) use of observations in climate modelling. Measurements of the snows spectral reflectance and other physical properties.

The aim is a better understanding of the impact of contemporary climatic change (posterior to Little Ice Age) on plant dynamics and the morphodynamic processes active at the glacial margins in polar environments. The selected research field is constituted of the Brøgger Peninsula, where erosion assessments will be evaluated for various processes (frost weathering, runoff, biological weathering, …).

This technological program aims to collect permanent informations on local meteorology and aerosols particles at Corbel Station, Svalbard, 6km east of Ny alesund. 78 54 N, 12 07 E Programme 2004 – 2005 April 2004 : Prticmle counter installation and collect datas from meteo Station. Soar cels will be also instlled at the station to power these systems.