Webinars

APECS and ARICE invited for a webinar on “Are we losing a sink for atmospheric trace gases? Nitrous oxide in the Arctic marine ecosystem” on 28 February 2022 from 13:00 – 14:00 pm GMT.

The ARICE-funded project “TRace gAses Cycling in the Arctic marine Ecosystem (TRACE)” focused on the biogeochemical cycling of climate-relevant atmospheric trace gases at the sea-air and sea-ice interfaces in the Arctic Ocean. During this webinar we will focus on nitrous oxide (N₂O), which is a potent greenhouse gas and currently the most important ozone-depleting compound in the stratosphere. Although the ocean is generally acknowledged as an overall source of N₂O, at regional and basin-scales there is a large range of variability in terms of its sources and sinks, which in turn, poses challenges to the accurate assessment of its role on the marine nitrogen cycle. Environmental changes such as warming and decrease in sea ice coverage are expected to affect production/consumption pathways of N₂O, but the direction of the future trends is highly uncertain. We conducted a thorough survey of N₂O across the sea-ice-air interfaces within the context of the ODEN expedition in 2021, as a contribution to the Synoptic Arctic Survey. In the first part of the webinar we will briefly introduce the project and a short narrative of its development. Then we will present a few impressions of the trace gas work conducted below, within and above sea ice, as well some of the preliminary results of the expedition.

Speakers are Damian L. Arévalo-Martínez (GEOMAR) and Lina Holthusen (GEOMAR)

Moderation: Franziska Pausch (ARICE, AWI & APECS)

APECS and ARICE invited for a webinar on “Tracing Permafrost Carbon across the Beaufort Shelf – Satellites, water, microbes and mud” on 27 January 2022 from 15:00 – 16:00 pm GMT

The PeCaBeau (Permafrost Carbon on the Beaufort Shelf) project aims to track the movement and transformation of material from permafrost thaw along the land-to-ocean continuum. This multi-disciplinary effort investigates the sediment column between subsea permafrost and the seafloor, the water column, the atmosphere and the interfaces between these three units in the Beaufort Sea. By studying the sources, quantities and the quality of organic matter in the water column and in sediments, we aim to improve assessments of the Beaufort shelf as a carbon source or sink, and place these outcomes in the context of the Holocene paleo-environment and transgressed permafrost. Sampling operations took place in September 2021 on the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Amundsen funded by ARICE

ARICE and APECS invited for a webinar on How to measure water exchange in the Fram Strait using novel tracers? on 2 December 2021 from 13:00 – 14:00 pm GMT.

The ARICE funded NoTAC project (Novel Tracers of Arctic Carbon and water exchange in the Fram Strait) is an international collaboration across several institutions from Denmark, Finland, Poland and USA with a diverse team varying from early career (ECS) to senior scientists. The project focuses on assessing the application of novel, cost-effective water masses tracers, with special interest in tracking the Arctic outflow entering the Atlantic basin through a major gateway, the Fram Strait. Those tracers are, for example, dissolved organic matter composition, lignin phenols, radioisotopes, optical properties of water masses and microbial community (with focus on phytoplankton and bacteria). Apart from the tracer component, the project also has another component focused on the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the region, which are assessed through experimental work conduct during the Fram Strait cruise.

In this webinar, we presented the project itself, as well as the logistic challenges faced during the preparation for two cruises during the Covid-19 pandemic, including a remote participation in the 2020 cruise. We will also reported0 on the work conducted on board and preliminary results.

Speakers are Rafael (Rafa) Gonçalves-Araujo (DTU Aqua) and Lumi Haraguchi (SYKE).

Moderation: Franziska Pausch (ARICE, AWI & APECS)

ARICE and APECS invited for a webinar on Marine Fungi & Mineral Ballasting –  An Influence on Arctic Carbon Export? on 27 October 2021 from 09:00 – 10:00 am GMT

Sea ice is a unique habitat for microbes and has been shown to host highly productive sea-ice algal communities. During growth, algae can exude polysaccharides that can aggregate and form TEP (Transparent Exopolymer Particles), sugar-rich particles that are attractive food sources for marine bacteria and fungi. But some marine fungi can also live as parasites, directly benefiting from attaching to the sea-ice algae. This in turn can influence how well the sea-ice algae grow and how many polysaccharides they can produce.

At certain temperatures, gypsum crystals can form in the sea ice and due to their weight sink rapidly in the water column when the ice starts melting. As TEP are inherently very sticky, they potentially also stick to gypsum and get ballasted, causing them to sink rapidly out of the water column and export the carbon from the polysaccharides.

The ARICE funded ProMis (Production and export of phytoplankton-derived organic matter in the changing Arctic Ocean – Role of parasites, saprotrophs and mineral) project onboard IB Oden aimed at characterizing the influence of fungi on TEP production and degradation and looking at the influence of gypsum on TEP-related carbon export. In this webinar we will give an overview of the scientific background and aims of the project as well as samples collected.

Speakers are Birthe Zäncker (Marine Biological Association of the UK), Michael Cunliffe (Marine Biological Association of the UK) and Jutta Wollenburg (Alfred-Wegener Institute)

Moderation: Franziska Pausch (ARICE, AWI & APECS)

ARICE and APECS invited for a webinar on the preliminary outcomes from the ARICE funded cruise VACAO on board the IB Oden: Arctic Ocean Ventilation – Why it matters and how to measure it on 11 October 2021.

The Arctic Ocean is a critical part of the global ocean and the global climate system, and we know climate change is happening faster there than anywhere else on the planet. With this in mind, the VACAO (Ventilation and Anthropogenic Carbon in the Arctic Ocean) project, funded by ARICE, set out to better quantify Arctic Ocean ventilation. With ventilation we mean the process that brings water from the surface ocean to the deep ocean, and back again. This process bring characteristics of the atmosphere to the interior ocean, such as extra heat and carbon dioxide, and eventually distribute this to the global ocean. We report on preliminary results from a very recent cruise on the IB Oden where we measured and took samples for a large range of ocean ventilation tracers.

Speakers: Toste Tanhua (GEOMAR), Lennart Gerke (GEOMAR) and Yannis Arck (University Heidelberg)

Moderation: Franziska Pausch (ARICE, AWI & APECS)

The ARICE funded project DEARice (DEvelopment of snow/ice/ecosystem models using winter-to-summer ARctic observations of coupled snow, ice, and ecosystem processes) took part during the MOSAiC expedition. The aim was to collect unique data on snow and sea ice over a full year to improve our process-level understanding of processes that can eventually feed into the improvement of models. The COVID-19 pandemic caused substantial changes in the leg planning after April 2020, however, the resulting data set is very close to the optimal outcome. Serendipitous luck made it possible to sample snow for all four seasons, including the mysterious summer “snow”, called surface scattering layer. The results from this project encompass all relevant spatial scales, from microstructural processes in the snowpack and at the ice surface, to ridge scale observations of snow distribution and ice thickness, to snow-atmosphere interactions and albedo processes of the sea ice cover. Understanding how these different scales interact will improve our understanding of the vulnerability of the Arctic sea ice system, and decrease uncertainties in climate projections.

Speakers are Martin Schneebeli (WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF), Ruzica Dadic (Victoria University of Wellington), Polona Itkin (UiT – The Arctic University of Norway), Jari Haapala (Finnish Meteorological Institute) and Henna-Reetta Hannula (Finnish Meteorological Institute)

Moderation: Franziska Pausch (ARICE, AWI & APECS)

The Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE, www.arice.eu) and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS, www.apecs.is) invited for a webinar on Soft Skills: Manuscript Preparation and Results Advertisement (via Social Media), on 16 April 2021 at 9:00 am GMT.

The aim of this webinar was to provide insides on how to publish your scientific results successfully and how to advertise your findings to both the scientific community and the general public.

The webinar was organized in two parts:

In the first part, the Executive Editor of the open access journal Ocean Science, Dr. Mario Hoppema (Alfred Wegener Institute) talked about how to prepare your data and manuscript to meet journal’s requirements. Dr. Hoppema provided tips on the technical side of paper preparation and writing from the viewpoint of the editor.

In the second part, we focussed on the results presentation and advertisement. Ann Kristin Montano (GEOMAR; projects CUSCO, EVAR and REEBUS), an expert in scientific communication, talked about how to present your scientific results to the broad public and how to use social media. Later, Dr. Mar Fernández-Méndez (GEOMAR), biological oceanographer, provided examples of polar outreach activities.

Speakers: Dr. Mario Hoppema (Alfred Wegener Institute), Executive Editor of the open access journal Ocean Science; Ann Kristin Montano (GEOMAR; projects CUSCO, EVAR and REEBUS) expert in scientific communication; Dr. Mar Fernández-Méndez (GEOMAR) biological oceanographer.

The Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE, arice.eu/) and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS, apecs.is/) invited for a science webinar on 28 May 2020, 4-5 pm GMT.

In November 2019, the US icebreaker RV Sikuliaq headed to the north side of Alaska for a combined oceanographic and biological expedition. The biological work was performed within the ARICE-funded project GO-WEST. GO-WEST aimed to investigate the association of young polar cod (or Arctic cod, Boreogadus saida) with the newly forming sea ice, its prey field and carbon sources. Polar cod is a keystone species of the Arctic food web. The young (0-2 year-old) fish use the under-ice habitat as a foraging ground and shelter from predators. It has been hypothesized that juveniles get entrained with the new sea ice in autumn and use it as a transportation vector over large distances. The changing icescape of the Arctic Ocean will affect this close relationship between fish and sea ice. GO-WEST aimed to sample for the first time young polar cod at the underside of new sea ice between autumn and winter, and to investigate their survival conditions. To this end, we used a Surface and Under-Ice Trawl capable to skim the underside of sea ice. The first results of this expedition show that young polar cod were present in the under-ice habitat throughout the investigation area, along with their main prey species. During this webinar we will briefly explain how the expedition was planned and which logistical obstacles needed to be overcome. We will focus on how the field work was conducted in collaboration with the chief scientist and the crew of RV Sikuliaq, and how first raw data were generated. Finally we will give an outlook on sample elaboration, data processing and publications.

Speakers were : Hauke Flores (AWI Bremerhaven) and Mai Apasiri Klasmeier (Ruhr University Bochum). Moderation: Josefine Lenz (AWI & APECS)

Lecture slide show

The Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE) and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS, apecs.is/) invited for a webinar on opportunities for educators and scientists on May 5th, 14-15:30 GMT.

In September 2019, the German icebreaker Polarstern and the Russian research vessel Akademik Fedorov set sail into the Central Arctic sea ice. With the aim to collect data around the coupled Arctic climate system Polarstern will drift through the Arctic for an entire year as part of the MOSAiC project. MOSAiC education and outreach activities aim to create visibility of field research and awareness for globally important topics of Arctic change. Training of early career researchers was facilitated with a field camp for graduate students – the MOSAiC School. Further, educator and teachers collected materials and data which is now shared in classrooms and in online learning tools. During this webinar you will learn about the wealth of learning resources created through participation in the MOSAiC Expedition. Ask questions of young researchers, educators and teachers on how to use or implement experiments, exercises and personal experiences in classrooms and what you can take away from an massive open online course.

Speakers were Mauro Hermann (MOSAiC Ambassador, ETH Zurich), Anne Gold (CIRES, CU Boulder), Rainer Lehmann (Polar Educators Germany), Falk Ebert (Herder Gymnasium) and Friederike Krueger (Integrierte Gesamtschule Bothfeld). Moderation: Josefine Lenz (AWI & APECS)

Lecture slideshow

The Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE) and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS, apecs.is/) invited for a webinar on Data Management, on 17 Dec 9-10:30 am GMT.

The aim of this webinar was to provide an overview of current statues in data management, planning and best practices as well as advances in data presentation, integration and interpretation.

Halldór Jóhannson, Executive Director or Arctic Portal, gave an overview introduction and touched on topics of policy and best practice of data management, as well as engagement with stakeholders. Topics of data presentation and the ARICE 3D Icebreaker were discussed by Anseok Joo, Programmer at Arctic Portal.
In a second part, Øystein Godøy, senior scientist and data manager at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and Stein Sandven, director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and project coordinator of INTAROS (Integrated Arctic Observation System), spoke about the INTAROS data management practices with emphasis on meta data and federated search. Øystein and Stein are leading the Data Management in the EU Arctic Cluster.

Lecture Slideshow

APECS (apecs.is/)and ARICE (arice.eu/) invited for a webinar on Proposal Writing, on 25 April at 9:00 am GMT. The webinar was organized in two parts:

In the first part, Research Support Officer Imke Fries (Alfred Wegener Institute) gave a general introduction to successful proposal writing. Imke has been supporting the drafting of numerous national and EU project proposals and provided tips and tricks on successful proposal writing.

In the second part, we talked about how to write a ship-time proposal, with a focus on the ARICE Call for ship-time proposals 2019. Dr Nicole Biebow, ARICE project coordinator and Dr Verónica Willmott, ARICE Project Manager, discussed the application process and how to prepare a realistic work plan.

Lecture Slideshow

ARICE invited for a webinar dedicated to pre-cruise planning and preparing for ship-based research activities organized by APECS and IOPAN on 19 February 2019.

Dr Agnieszka Beszczynska-Möller, physical oceanographer at Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAN) with extensive experience as a cruise leader of multiple Arctic scientific expeditions, talked about planning ship-based and long-term oceanographic field studies and pre-cruise logistics. Dr Allison Fong, biological oceanographer and microbial ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), is a coordinator of the ecosystem team in MOSAiC and talked about planning large-scale sea ice and oceanographic research, and the challenges of combining multiple interests of different scientific teams during expeditions. Dr Monika Kędra, biological oceanographer and ecologist from IOPAN, shared her practical experience on planning and preparing Arctic multidisciplinary research with a main focus on marine ecology and biological oceanography. The webinar provides advice and shares good practices with early career researchers who are planning their field research and cruise sampling.

Lecture Slideshow