International research expedition will depart from Nuuk Published 14.07.2021

International research expedition to depart from Nuuk to gather important data on marine ecosystems

On 17 July, an international group of 20 researchers commenced a three-week research expedition from Nuuk. The aim is to gather data to illustrate changes in the sea off the west coast of Greenland and assess the impact of the changes on the ability of the sea to maintain fisheries production and sequestrate carbon from the atmosphere.

Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark, the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Aarhus University and the Arctic University of Norway are taking part in the expedition, which is being funded by the European Horizon 2020 project, ECOTIP. The aim is to investigate a number of important processes for the global marine ecosystem that could be influenced by climate change. Among other things, studies will examine whether increasing sea temperatures and increasing discharges of fresh water from glaciers in Greenland could lead to cascade changes in marine ecosystems.

The expedition will focus on the micro-organisms at the bottom of the food chain (plant plankton and animal plankton) that form the basis for all marine food chains and are believed to be directly affected by climate change.

The research expedition will collect data along fixed lines off the coast between Nuuk and Disko.

About ECOTIP

ECOTIP – Ecological Tipping Cascades in the Arctic seas – is a project under the EU research and innovation programme: Horizon 2020. The project seeks to understand and predict changes in Arctic marine biodiversity and implications for two important ecosystem services: Fisheries production, which is the economic lifeblood of many Arctic communities, and carbon sequestration, which has important feedbacks to the global climate.

For more information, contact:

Senior Researcher Jesper Boje, DTU Aqua and Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, phone +45 35 88 34 64 or e-mail: jbo@aqua.dtu.dk