New research program will study fjord ecosystems in Greenland

Posted date: 15 Mar 2022

In a four-year field research program led by EPFL, in association with several other Swiss institutions, scientists will aim to understand the ecosystem of Greenlandic fjords in the context of a changing climate. They plan to investigate how accelerated glacier discharge and soil erosion impact the fjords nutrient cycle, marine resources and cloud formation, and how local livelihoods are affected. The fjord region in southwest Greenland is home to nutrient-rich waters teeming with life. Fishing is the main livelihood for people in this area and has been for thousands of years. Due to climate change, the ecosystem is transforming rapidly, and this dynamic system change poses some major challenges to the local population. Greenland's glaciers are melting and releasing new types of nutrients into the water, which are feeding larger phytoplankton blooms and altering the marine ecosystem. This in turn is affecting the atmosphere's chemical composition and cloud-formation mechanisms; these clouds are what determine the surface radiation budget and glacier melt. In short, the entire ecosystem is being impacted by climate change. So what should the people of Greenland expect to see in the coming years?

This is one of the many questions that the four-year interdisciplinary research program, titled GreenFjord, will attempt to answer. It will kick off on 9 March 2022. GreenFjord is one of the Swiss Polar Institute's two Flagship Initiatives for the next four years; the other, called PAMIR, will take place in the Pamir mountain range of Central Asia. EPFL's efforts on the Greenland field work will be headed by Julia Schmale, a tenure-track assistant professor at EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) and based at the EPFL Valais Wallis campus. The research team will also include scientists from the University of Lausanne, ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), and the University of Zurich, with further support by the Swiss Data Science Center.

Reference Link:https://actu.epfl.ch/news/new-research-program-will-study-fjord-ecosystems-i/

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