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This international partnership is focused on developing the technologies to document and understand how changes in coastal waters impact the living resources and ecology of the Norwegian coast and Southwestern Barents Sea. Polar ecosystems have been experiencing dramatic changes over the last century. Warming air temperatures are thawing perma-frost, increasing river discharge, and thinning arctic ice. It is difficult to account for these
changes through natural variability, and human activity has been implicated; however the role of both low frequency basin scale cycles and episodic events remains an open question. Additionally, ship traffic has increased and the production and shipping of oil and gas is expanding in the sub-arctic. The Barents Sea is also exposed to pollution from large rivers (Ob, Lena and the Yenisey) and Russian military installations which have been a source of nuclear waste. All these represent complex international issues that effect coastal waters, spanning multiple temporal and spatial scales and requiring the collection of relevant spatial time series data (Fig. 1).
The challenge of collecting continuous time-series data in oceans is formidable as only the surface is accessible with space-based remote sensing or shore-based radars. Physical hydrography and biogeochemical parameters are highly variable and coupled over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales (meters to thousands of kilometers, hours to decades) that cannot be adequately sampled using traditional sampling methods. This will require the development of sub-surface robotic networks. Time-series observations are needed to resolve both the mean and variance of parameters associated with episodic events, as well as those that occur on seasonal, annual, and interdecadal scales. This partnership in the coming decade will lay the foundation for developing a comprehensive understanding of biogeochemical cycles and temporal trends that will enable the development, parameterization, initialization and validation of global coastal biogeochemical models. The goal is develop a joint undergraduate program where the international cadre of students become the implementation team for deploying cutting edge new robotic networks to study the potential climate responses in the Antarctic.
 The proposed international collaboration focused on impact of the Norwegian coastal current
(NCC) on the southern Barents Sea physical oceanography and biogeochemistry. The grey lines
indicate the major currents. The dotted black line shows mean climatological winter sea ice extent.
The solid red lines indicate cross-shore surveys that will be conducted monthly using a combination of
AUVs. The broken red lines indicate the along shore Langragian surveys (each survey is designated by
the arrow) to be conducted during spring or summer process studies. The solid blue lines indicate the
existing and funded shore-based surface Norwegian surface current radar nests.
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 Svalbard Geographic Areas
 An aerial view of the Svalbard Ground Station.
 Svalbard's glaciers are in full retreat.
PHOTO: Ole Magnus Rapp
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