This will take place as part of the Arctic Century Expedition, which will last more than a month and has been jointly organised by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), the Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR).
On 5 August, within the frame of the Arctic Century Expedition, the oceanographic vessel Akademik Tryoshnikov will depart from the port of Murmansk (Russia) with researchers from the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) on board to study rarely accessible and remote areas in the Kara and Laptev Sea, as well as on Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya, settled in the western Russian Arctic.
The scientific program of the Arctic Century Expedition, which will last more than a month, focuses on diverse aspects of the atmosphere, cryosphere –the portion of Earth's surface where water is in solid form-, marine and terrestrial environment in a rapidly changing Arctic climate with the aim of understanding why this system is more sensitive to changes than others.
The study of marine aerosols
The ICM will participate in this expedition by studying the production of marine aerosols in remote areas and islands of the Russian Arctic. “Due to the lack of contamination and pollution sources, the Arctic this is the best environment to study such a sensitive topic”, explains Arianna Rocchi, a PhD student at the ICM and one of the campaign participants.
Under the supervision of the ICM researcher Manuel Dall’Osto, who will follow the campaign from the ground, Rocchi will take superficial ocean samples and will simulate natural water bubbling through the use of a temperature controlled-bubble tank to generate marine aerosols.
They are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the largest single contributor to uncertainty in predicting climate change, but are still not fully characterized, especially in pristine environments. Thanks to this experiment, ICM researchers will be able to identify the atmospheric aerosols -enriched in organic material derived from marine microorganisms and different water salinities- emitted in the Russian Arctic and their biological origin.
This will help the scientific community understand the chemical properties of the atmosphere that determine the production of clouds that keep the planet cool. “For this reason, this expedition could be of great importance in understanding the dynamics of the ocean-atmosphere interface to clarify the role of aerosols in cloud production and climate change”, exposes Dall’Osto.
This investigation is now relevant since over the past few decades, the Arctic Ocean’s freshwater content has increased considerably with melting snow and sea ice, leading to reduced salinity in the upper layer of the Arctic Ocean and, thus a change in the marine aerosols composition and formation, whose consequences to the regional Arctic climate have not been calculated yet.
This expedition has been organized jointly by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), the Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR).