“Hypothesis is a great word that has so much in it. A researcher's task is to develop a question, formulate a hypothesis and then test whether it is true or false. It is the most glorious word in science”, says Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm, Professor of Marine Ecology at Stockholm University. Soon she will go on her fourth research expedition with the icebreaker Oden, where she will have the role of Chief Scientist.
Greenland’s melting ice sheet has in recent years contributed with about 26 percent to the global sea-level rise according to published calculations, but how different glaciers are affected by climate change differs. Research from the Ryder Expedition with the icebreaker Oden in 2019, shows that a relatively shallow formation in the seabed in front of one of North Greenland’s largest glaciers, reduces the amount of warmer Atlantic waters that reach the glacier and melt it from below.
Pauline Snoeijs Leijonmalm, Professor of Marine Ecology at Stockholm University, participated in the first leg of five during the polar expedition MOSAiC. A strong memory is when the German research icebreaker RV Polarstern anchored to an ice floe to drift with the pack ice in the Arctic Ocean for a year.
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.
