Expeditions

There are more than 200 local glaciers reaching sea level and potentially affected by up welling warm waters from the Irminger Current.

Satellite imagery gives us the positions of glacier terminations, but human ‘ground-truthing’ is needed to give us the actual ice conditions. A condition report of these glaciers will help scientists to forecast the speed and volume of future melt.

We will make a video portrait of each glacier and make all our results available to all scientists via open source. 

There are over 20 major fjords (and many minor ones) in the study region.

NASA scientists on board will test fjord water columns for conductivity, temperature and density (CTD) to complement their large-scale Greenland bathymetry and climate program.

Professor Michel Andre, Director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics, University of Catalonia, Spain, will conduct two pioneering programs in Bioacoustics. 

The first will be the world’s first bioacoustic baseline survey of the ambient acoustic signature of unpolluted Arctic waters, covering 2,000 km southwards from high above the Arctic Circle. This will create a benchmark for acoustic pollution and alert scientists to the potential for acoustic trauma in Arctic waters from heavy maritime traffic. 

The second will be the first bioacoustic survey of cetaceans in East Greenland, where previously no reliable continuous observations of whale species or distribution has been possible. Current estimates derive from projections based on limited observation by infrequent ice-observing aircraft. The benchmark we create will help measure the diversity and distribution of cetaceans and help predict the effects of climate change on them.

Professor Peter Harrison, Director of the Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University, Australia, will conduct pioneering research on Arctic corals.

While there has been recent research into cold water corals, in Arctic Norway, it is unknown if true Arctic coral occurs in the unique environment of East Greenland. If they do exist they potentially offer science a complete environmental record for the last 10,000 years.