Twelve researchers at Stockholm University and the University of Gothenburg will participate in an expedition to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf where they will study greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, which can accelerate global warming. The expedition is part of the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), a Swedish-Russian collaboration that goes back fifteen years.
The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat supports five research projects within the year-long Arctic Expedition MOSAiC, where a total of nine researchers from Swedish universities participate. Salar Karam, PhD student in Oceanography at the University of Gothenburg, is now preparing to participate in the final phase of the research expedition.
Patric Simões Pereira, Postdoctor at the University of Gothenburg, is now heading back from the international research expedition MOSAiC where he spent six months studying halogenated organic compounds.
For almost 19 weeks, research engineer Adela Dumitrascu participated in the world’s largest polar expedition MOSAiC in the Arctic Ocean. During the expedition, she took samples on snow, ice and water to understand the processes associated with the greenhouse gas halocarbon. Now she is back in Gothenburg to continue with the analysis of the data.
The MOSAiC expedition has faced logistical challenges due to the coronavirus but is soon ready to enter its next phase. John Paul Balmonte, researcher in water ecosystems at Uppsala University and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, is currently in quarantine in Germany and soon ready to start his transit to the German research vessel Polarstern.
The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic and the faster melting of Greenland’s ice cover are two prominent environmental changes that could accelerate sea level rise in the future. Researchers are therefore working on a broad front to better understand the mechanisms behind the melting ice and what consequences it will have.
