News archive

There are a lot of great research facilities in Tromsø. As a way to help young researchers from various institutions in Tromsø to meet each other the 1st Tromsø Young Researchers Symposium is arranged this week.

Centre for Ice, Climate and Ecosystems (ICE) at the Norwegian Polar Institute invites applications for a 2-year postdoctoral position, with possibility of extension for 2 additional years, as researcher/post doc. in marine biology within the research field of marine algae (ice algae/phytoplankton) and primary production. The application deadline is 22 March 2010.

This publication describes the education and research in polar studies carried out by institutions in Tromsø during the last year.

A kick-off workshop for the new project AMORA was recently arranged in Shanghai at the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC). AMORA stands for "Advancing Modelling and Observing solar Radiation of Arctic sea-ice - understanding changes and processes" and is funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Former Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented their global report on melting ice at a side event of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15) 14 December.

Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) have investigated the amount of pesticides in the snow in Svalbard. Read about their findings here.

In March 2009, Norway hosted a meeting in Tromsø for the Contracting Parties to the 1973 Polar Bear Agreement. The final report from the meeting is now available.

A British tourist visiting Svalbard made an uncommon observation and managed to take a picture of it; a polar bear cub riding on its mother's back.

The International Polar Year (IPY) is over, but the activity continues. An international polar week is arranged in early October, focusing on recruiting new individual and institutional partners, stimulating increased engagement by polar partners, and highlighting classroom activities developed for the new IPY Polar Resource Book.

The book Ecosystem Barents Sea has now been published in English on Tapir Academic Press, Trondheim, Norway. Many researchers and managers at the Norwegian Polar Institute have contributed to the chapters in this book.

The current climate models do not predict an ice-free Arctic for another 50 to 100 years, but observations show that melting of the sea ice is accelerating. Why are none of the models able to describe this rapid change? Melt ponds on the sea ice in summer may be part of the explanation.

The outlook for arctic sea ice in September 2009, based on July data, indicates a continuation of low pan-arctic sea ice extent and no indication that a return to historical levels will occur.

It was recently organized a seminar in Tromsø on Black Carbon in snow sampling, albedo effects and climate impact.

In 20 years, central parts of the Arctic Ocean might be ice-free for the first time in 14-15 million years.

The 15th meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG), hosted by the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, was held at the Greenland Representation in Copenhagen Denmark , June 29-July 3, 2009.

A team of scientists lead by Elisabeth Isaksson from the Norwegian Polar Institute and Margit Schwikowski from Paul Scherrer Institut (Switzerland) have together successfully recovered a 149 m deep ice core from Lomonosovfonna at 1200 m elevation.

A spectacularly illustrated article in the April issue of National Geographic Magazine takes an intimate look at Svalbard. The Norwegian Polar Institutes (NPI) Research Department and Environmental Management Department helped out, giving input to the text and captions, and contributing data used to create the map.

The meeting of the parties to the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears in Tromsø has established that climate change has a negative impact on polar bears and their habitat and is the most important long term threat facing polar bears.

The new centre ICE at the Norwegian Polar Institute was officially opened by the Minister of the Environment Erik Solheim 17 March 2009. The research focus of ICE is ice, climate and ecosystems.

Norway invites the Contracting Parties to the 1973 polar bear Agreement to a meeting of the parties in Tromsø 17 - 19 March 2009.

The Norwegian Polar Institute is hosting a climate conference 8-10 June 2009 - initiated by the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) in Tromsø, Norway, invites applications for a permanent position as research scientist in remote sensing of the cryosphere. The application deadline is 27 March 2009.

The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) in Tromsø, Norway, invites applications for a permanent position as research scientist in processes in snow and ice and their interactions with the climate system, in particular the Earth’s albedo. The position is made available through the Centre for Ice, Climate & Ecosystems (ICE). The application deadline is 27 March 2009.

Several of the world's environment ministers and climate advisers are now on their way home after a successful vistit to Norway's Troll Research Station in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica.

February 21 at 4 pm, 1600 UTC, the Norwegian-American Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica 2007-2009 rolled in to Troll Station. The field part of this large IPY project has been successfully completed.

Recent observations of Arctic Ocean outflow in the Fram Strait suggest that freshwater is piling up in the Arctic Ocean. A change in wind direction could release the largest amount of freshwater through Fram Strait ever recorded.

Below you find a list of relevant conferences in 2010.

Norsk Polarinstitutt har, på oppdrag fra Sysselmannen, utarbeidet en rapport hvor hovedkonklusjonene er at det er umulig å forutse når en isblokk vil falle, hvor stor den vil bli og hvor den vil lande i vannet.

This week held The Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) workshop on Arctic surface-based sea ice observations:Integrated protocols and coordinated data acquisition.

40 young polar scientists and students participate in the Young Scientist Forum (YSF), which is held in conjunction with this year's Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø in January 2009.

The Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study (CFL) is a large Canadian-led international effort to understand the role of the CFL in a context of Arctic warming.

The traverse departed Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and commenced its 2300 km return journey back to Troll Station on December 23, 2008. After a week in the field everything is going fine, and the first science stop has now been completed.

First findings from the CLEOPATRA project point at a pronounced seasonal change in available quality and quantity of algal blooms. This indicate the importance of ice algae for this high-Arctic system.

There is great relif that the injured now has been successfully evacuated from Troll, Antarctica, and flown to Cape Town, South Africa, where he has had an operation.

Prof. Rudolf H. Drent (Rudi Drent) from University of Groningen died on 9 September 2008, aged 71. He was active in research to the very end.

The sea ice component of the project SWIPA (Climate Change and the Cryosphere: Snow, Water, Ice, and Permafrost in the Arctic) had its kick-off meeting at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) in Tromsø in August 2008.

Scientists working on the IPY-projects SciencePub and Norclim will collect sediment samples from the Kongsfjorden-Krossfjorden System next week.

During this summer's COPOL-cruise with the research vessel " Lance", more than 2000 marine samples were collected for analyses of new and old POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants).

In June 2010, Norway will host a large conference which is the first opportunity for direct interaction among all International Polar Year (IPY) projects after the active IPY field period in 2007-08. Scientists from all over the world are expected to visit Norway for the IPY Oslo Science Conference.

The Indian Minister of Science and Technology Kabil Sibal has recently visited Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard where he officially opened his country’s new polar research station.

NPIs wintering team at Troll likes to extend the warmest Mid-winter greetings to all their friends across the Antarctic.

Increasing sea temperatures, less ice, southern fish species and some reduction in the overfishing are some of the main points in three reports recently published on the status of the Barents Sea and the marine areas off the Lofoten Islands.

Species at the top of the Arctic food chain have higher levels of mercury than animals further down in the food chain, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Polar Institute.

On 14 May the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior, published its listing of polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim recently visited Svalbard, where he joined scientists in the field to capture and mark polar bears.

A mini-seminar on climate change and animal diseases will be held at the Polar Environmental Centre in Tromsø on 19 May, and is open to the interested public. The two-hour seminar will give a brief introduction to the current knowledge on climate change and the possible effects on infectious diseases in both terrestrial and marine animals.

The levels of new persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are increasing in polar bears, glaucous gulls and other arctic species, while the level of “old” POPs like PCBs and DDT is decreasing in the Arctic, shows a new report by the Surveillance Group for the Barents Sea.

Current knowledge on PCB pollution and PCB management status in Svalbard has been gathered by the Governor of Svalbard in a joint effort with ten other institutions. The resulting report points at knowledge gaps and lists important initiatives which should be carried out to fill in the gaps.

Rolls–Royce Marine AS in Ålesund has accepted the contract to design the new, Norwegian icegoing research vessel. In the Fiscal Budget for 2008, five million NOK are granted to pre-engineering of this vessel to replace existing icegoing vessels, among those FF Lance, which belongs to the Norwegian Polar Institute.

In summer 2007, scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute participated in the excavation of a 240 million years old fossil of an Ichthyosaur in Svalbard. The fossil is part of an exhibition at the Tromsø Museum, where the general public may have a closer look at the old giant.

On Tuesday afternoon, a giant iceberg of more than 400 square kilometres broke off from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica and collapsed into the sea. Both natural and human induced climate changes may provide explanations for the event.

The thickness of landfast sea ice during winter around the island of Hopen in Svalbard has decreased by more than 40 cm over the last 40 years.

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale was registered early morning 21st February at 3:46 a.m. (local time) in Storfjorden, about 140 km south-east of Longyearbyen. This is the strongest quake in Norwegian history.

Do you know that the origin of the name Antarctica is "anti-Arctic"? Or that Svalbard is the name for the whole archipelago, including Bjørnøya (Bear Island), Hopen and Kvitøya? The Name Committee for Norwegian Polar Regions is the formal body that approves names in Norwegian polar areas.

Three mountains were named when Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg recently visited the Norwegian research station Troll in Dronning Maud Land.

The area where the Norwegian Polar Institute’s field station was located on Bouvetøya (Bouvet Island) has been taken by a landslide, report NPI scientists currently working on the island. Read their report from the most remote island on Earth.

After recovering from our initial shock of seeing large chunks of Nyrøysa gone since the last expedition in 2001-2002, we got going with the work we're actually here to do!

Whaling at the end of the last century excepted, Norwegian activity in Antarctica has never been as high as today. Currently the Norwegian Polar Institute has people in five different parts of the continent. “The current high Norwegian presence in Antarctica is due to heavy scientific activity”, says Bjørn Fossli Johansen, head of Environmental Management and Mapping Department at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

The celebration of World Environment Day in Tromsø has been a success, with many visitors from 35 nations.

The World Environment Day 2007 was successfully held in Tromsø June 5th. Here is the link to the web-cast.

Melting of sea ice is a hot topic generating bold titles in media all around the world. The International Polar Year highlights Sea Ice as the topic for The International Polar Day on September 21st. The Norwegian Polar Institute contributes with several experts on sea ice and the research vessel Lance, currently on mission in the Fram Strait.

The International Polar Year lasts from 1 March 2007 until 1 March 2009, ensuring the inclusion of two full seasons in both hemispheres. The Norwegian Polar Institute is actively contributing with research and information to many of the IPY projects.

It all started on 1 March 2007, when 60 nations and at least 50 000 researchers and technicians put in an extra effort for polar research. The Norwegian Polar Institute plays a central role in the Norwegian Polar Year effort and collaborates on a broad international level.

Janne E. Søreide successfully defended her Dr. scientarium at the Norwegian College of Fishery Science, University of Tromsø, on 30 March, 2007. Janne has been supervised at the Norwegian Polar Institute during both her Masters and her Doctoral studies, and has been a member og the ARCTOS Ph.D. school