Ecosystem Studies of Subarctic and Arctic Regions (NESSAR)

This international project was developed under the IPY entitled Ecosystem Studies of Subarctic and Arctic Regions (ESSAR) which is led by GLOBEC’s Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) program. The overall goal of NESSAR is to quantify the impact of climate variability on the structure and function of Arctic marine ecosystems in Norwegian waters in order to predict the ecosystem response to possible future climate change, with particular focus on the Arctic Front.

Using state-of-the-art instrumentation and methods, this interdisciplinary program will mount intensive studies of the physical and biological processes at the front in the Barents and Norwegian seas. An important aspect of NESSAR will be comparative analysis between these two regions, as well as with other subarctic and arctic regions, to gain insights into what are fundamental processes and what are unique to these areas.

Akvaplan-niva’s focus is on arctic benthic food web dynamics in polar frontal zones and the reconstruction of recent climate variability from changes in clam shell growth rates.

The project is lead by Institute of Marine Research (IMR), Bergen; and includes Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim; Foundation of Science and Industrial Research (SINTEF), Trondheim; University of Tromsø (UiT), Tromsø; Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), Tromsø; and Akvaplan-niva.

Financed by the Norwegian Research Council IPY program.

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