POLAR RESEARCH IN TROMSØ EDITORIAL RESEARCH NOTES PROFILE RETROSPECTIVE IN BRIEF RECENT DOCTORATES USEFUL CONTACTS 2009 EDITORIAL Economic unrest? tre for Climate and the Environment, will be seen earliest near the poles. For much of the world, 2009 was a based in Tromsø itself. An integral part Norway has a unique perspective year of economic turbulence. The of this last initiative is the Centre for – being the only nation with territo- stock market wobbled, businesses Ice, Climate and Ecosystems, ICE, pre- rial claims in both polar regions – and and financial institutions faced bank- sented on page 14. ICE was officially Norwegian scientists have contributed ruptcy, interest rates plummeted and opened in March by Erik Solheim, the crucial monitoring data that appear to unemployment shot sky-high. Tromsø Minister of the Environment and Inter- confirm these warming trends. Indeed, is not immune to the economic situ- national Development. many experts believe we are already ation, yet the city has come through Together with the High North Strat- beginning to see the first consequenc- the year relatively unscathed. Clearly egy, New Building Blocks in the North es of global warming, particularly in Norway’s oil reserves get some credit, charts out a course for the next 10 to 15 the Arctic: shorter winters, retreating but part of the stability must be attrib- years. The world economy may be on a glaciers, thinning sea ice. uted to the Norwegian Government’s roller-coaster ride, but this long-term The Norwegian Polar Institute High North Strategy. First presented commitment bodes well for Tromsø’s and ICE have been instrumental in in 2006, the strategy aims to create future as a hub of polar research. compiling current knowledge on the sustainable growth and development cryosphere: snow, sea ice, glaciers, the through intensified international co- Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, operation around the use of natural re- A call for action permafrost and river/lake ice. The sources, environmental management, As this issue of Polar Research in Trom- result is a 95-page report targeting and research. Three years on, the High sø goes to press, scientists and world decision-makers, journalists and other North remains at the top of the politi- leaders are gathered in Copenhagen interested nonscientists. This work was cal agenda. for the United Nations Climate Change commissioned for COP15 by Nobel In March 2009 Prime Minister Jens Conference, COP15. And they are in the Laureate Al Gore and Norwegian Minis- Stoltenberg visited Tromsø, accompa- public eye. The conference is being fol- ter of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre, nied by the ministers of Finance, Fish- lowed closely all around the world – by who will soon present the report, enti- eries, Transport and Foreign Affairs, to people concerned about impacts on tled Melting Snow and Ice: a Call for Ac- present the next step in the High North the environment, people worried for tion. Will their voices be heard amidst Strategy: New Building Blocks in the their children’s future, people whose the clamour in Copenhagen? Will the North. This document defines seven very livelihood is threatened. Droughts call be answered? We do not know yet priority areas and number one on the and floods, extreme weather condi- whether COP15 will represent a step list is “to develop knowledge about cli- tions, and rising sea levels will put even forward or a disappointment, wheth- mate and the environment in the High greater pressure on people who are al- er it will end in consensus or discord. North”. ready struggling to survive. All we know is that whatever the out- Three of the goals have particular And then there are the expected come, we must continue to move on- relevance for the research community effects on ice and snow. Ironically, it ward. And we are certain that research in Tromsø: to map the diversity of the is in the coldest parts of the Earth that done in Tromsø will help light the path. seabed; to build a new ice-class re- global warming is “hottest”. Climate search vessel; and to establish a Cen- models predict that warming trends Polar Research in Tromsø Editor For the Norwegian Polar Institute Gunn Sissel Jaklin Polar Research in Tromsø is published once Janet Holmén telephone: +47 77 75 06 40 a year by the University of Tromsø (UiT), c/o Norwegian Polar Institute e-mail: [email protected] the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), the Polar Environmental Centre web: www.npolar.no Tromsø branch of the Institute of Marine N-9296 Tromsø Research (IMR) and the Polar Environmen- e-mail: [email protected] For the Institute of Marine Research tal Centre (POMI), Tromsø, Norway. Its aim Vera Helene Lund is to describe all manner of education and Sub-editors telephone: +47 77 60 97 14 research in polar (chiefly Arctic) studies e-mail: [email protected] carried out during the past year at these For the University of Tromsø web: www.imr.no institutions and at other research insti- Mona Solbakk tutes and companies in the Tromsø area telephone: +47 77 64 49 84 Print run: 3000 copies with which they have close ties. e-mail: [email protected] Layout: Bjørn Hatteng, UiT web: uit.no Trykk: HSL trykkeriet, UiT It is sent on request and free of charge For the Polar Environmental Centre Printed on eco-friendly paper to all persons who are interested in polar Are Johnsen studies. telephone: +47 77 75 02 02 Front page photographs: e-mail: [email protected] Kim Holmén (NPI) web: www.polarenvironment.no 2 POLAR RESEARCH IN TROMSØ RESEARCH NOTES Shrimp, the marine equivalent of the The northern shrimp, Pandalus borea- lis, is one of the largest fisheries in the “canary in the mineshaft” world exceeding an annual catch of 400 000 tonnes, currently worth 2.5 billon NOK. The shrimp also sits in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean’s food chain, between the small organ- isms that it eats, like phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthos, and preda- tors that eat it, like cod and other commercially important finfish. As a result, it is the marine equivalent of the “canary in the mineshaft”, sensi- tive to various types of changes in the ecosystem, often even before they are generally evident. When cod stocks collapsed in the early 1990s, shrimp populations throughout the northwest Atlantic exploded. Although much of this was eventually attributed to the decrease in predation by fish on shrimp, there Pandalus borealis is sensitive to temperature change. Photo: Rudi Caeyers is also an environmental component to the story: the late 1980s and early Michaela Aschan 1990s were years of exceptionally [email protected] Canaries are especially sensitive cold water in the North Atlantic and Norwegian College of Fishery Science to methane and carbon mon- shrimp stocks increase and thrive dur- University of Tromsø oxide. They were used in early ing periods of cold water. This makes Peter Koeller coal mines as a method of gas sense considering Pandalus borealis’ [email protected] detection – as long as the canary northern circumpolar distribution, Bedford Institute of Oceanography kept singing, the miners knew but the actual cause of its sensitivity Fisheries and Oceans Canada their air supply was still safe. to changing water temperatures was not understood until now. As part of a multi-disciplinary, in- 10 ternational team of researchers we recently published an article in the journal Science, reporting that across 8 the entire north Atlantic, from Cape Cod (USA) to Svalbard (Norway) well past the Arctic Circle, northern shrimp C) o 6 eggs hatch on average within days of the annual spring phytoplankton Flemish Cap bloom. 4 Gulf of Maine This synchronisation is remark- able in itself, but even more surprising when one takes into consideration Barents Sea 2 that the timing of the spring bloom Svalbard varies greatly over the shrimp’s range. Northern Iceland Greenland offshore This is due in part to latitudinal dif- ferences in the solar cycle – gener- 0 Scotian Shelf Sea Surface Temperature ( Nfld.1-4 Gulf of St. Lawrence Greenland inshore -2 Sea-surface temperatures for each study area at their annual minimum (solid blue circles), at phytoplankton bloom initiation (open green circles), at peak chlorophyll-a -4 concentration (solid green circles), and at 0 50 100 150 200 50% hatch times (pink triangles) (Science 2009, 324:791-793). DoY POLAR RESEARCH IN TROMSØ 3 RESEARCH NOTES ally spring comes later as one moves this strategy for improving the chan- and peak food abundance, a coupling poleward. Moreover, the time it takes ces of larval survival has its pros and the shrimp have been cultivating over shrimp eggs to develop into young cons. eons of evolutionary time. A decrease shrimp (larvae) and hatch depends As long as the bottom water re- in shrimp abundance may be the first on local bottom water temperatures. mains cold, egg development times sign of such fundamental changes to In the warm waters off Cape Cod, the are long and eggs hatch late, close to the marine ecosystem. eggs take only 6 months to hatch, but both the phytoplankton bloom and Essential data on shrimp biology off Northern Svalbard and Northern the seasonal warming of the surface were provided for this research by the Iceland it takes almost a year. waters where the larvae live – ideal national fisheries research programs If the larvae are to emerge during conditions for survival. On the other of major shrimp fishing nations, in- the spring bloom when food is abun- hand, if bottom water temperatures cluding Norway, Iceland, Greenland, dant, their parents must mate at just rise due to global warming, this may Canada and the USA.