Over 20 scientists from Norway, Canada and Germany are coming to the second annual meeting of the research project KONGHAU on June 15 and 16 at the HWK. Two representatives of the Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro will also be participating in this conference. The multidisciplinary work of this project, which is carried out west of Spitsbergen in the Arctic is integrated in the EU-funded project HERMES (Hotspot Ecosystem Research along the Margins of European Seas). StatoilHydro is involved in this large-scale project not only in terms of content, but financially as well.
The extreme sensitivity of the arctic region to the results of climate change have been known for several years. Only recently have we learned of the tremendous speed with which climate change and the corresponding rise in temperature are taking place. In the past 50 years alone, the average annual temperature in the Arctic has risen by four degrees. By the end of this century, the temperature of the Arctic is expected to rise by a further 3 to 5 °C over land and 4 to 7 °C over the sea. In this context, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) has been operating a deep see observatory - the AWI-Hausgarten - in the eastern Fram Strait for almost ten years. Its monitoring area of approx. 70 x 110 km distinguishes this long-term deep sea station from other - significantly smaller - long-term stations in the world’s oceans. The AWI-Hausgarten comprises a central experimental zone at 2500 m water depth and 16 individual stations at depths of 1200 to 5500 m. These stations are visited regularly at least once a year to carry out biological, geochemical and sedimentological experiments and to assess changes in the water columns and on the ocean floor. The work at AWI-Hausgarten has been linked with similar activities at Norwegian partner institutions (Norsk Polar Institutt, Universität Tromsø, Akvaplan-Niva A/S) since June 2008. The Norwegians have been investigating the Kongs Fjord northwest of Spitsbergen, a comparatively shallow area with a water depth of up to 1200 m, since the mid-1990’s. The westernmost station of this study area lies barely 30 kilometers from the shallowest station of the AWI-Hausgarten. The long-term goal of these operations, both of which are bound to large-scale European projects, is to develop instruments and techniques to improve our ability to predict future developments in arctic marine ecosystems.
At this workshop, supported financially by the HWK, the first collective results will be presented, plans for future operations during the ship’s expeditions in the Arctic will be fleshed out and possible sources of further financial support will be discussed.