Oceanography | Vol.35, No.3–4
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON
THE NEW ARCTIC OCEAN
By Thomas Weingartner, Carin Ashjian, Lawson Brigham, Thomas Haine,
Liza Mack, Don Perovich, and Benjamin Rabe
FROM THE GUEST EDITORS
One hundred and thirty years ago,
Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian polar
explorer and scientist, set off on a bold
three-year journey to investigate the
unknown Arctic Ocean. The expedition
relied on a critical technological develop-
ment: a small, strong, and maneuverable
vessel, powered by sail and an engine,
with an endurance of five years for twelve
men. His intellectual curiosity and care-
ful observations led to an early glimpse
of the Arctic Ocean’s circulation and its
unique ecosystem. Some of Nansen’s
findings on sea ice and the penetration
of Atlantic Water into the Arctic Ocean
established a benchmark against which
we have measured profound changes
over the past few decades. In contrast, lit-
tle was known about the Arctic Ocean’s
ecosystem processes prior to the onset of
anthropogenic climate change. Nansen’s
successes, which paved the way for subse-
quent research, were gained in part from
Indigenous Greenlanders who taught him
how to survive in this harsh environment.
A little over a century after Nansen’s
expedition, the scientific community
staged the fourth International Polar Year
(IPY) in 2007–20081. That IPY, motivated
by the development and persistence of
profound changes in the Arctic Ocean’s
physical environment and its ecosystems
over the preceding decades, consisted
of extensive international observational
efforts and inspired the development
of new models, technologies, and novel
approaches to entrain the insights of
Arctic residents into Arctic studies. The
changes that catalyzed the impetus for the
IPY included the dramatic shrinking in
thickness and extent of summer sea ice,
warm pulses of Atlantic water circulating
through the Arctic Ocean’s sub-basins, an
increase in the heat flux from the Pacific
to the Arctic, variations in freshwater
storage within the Arctic basin, and alter-
ations in the marine ecosystems and bio-
geochemical cycles of the Arctic Ocean
and its adjacent continental shelves. The
IPY results generated new questions con-
cerning the internal and external mecha-
nisms that control the Arctic Ocean and
its role in global climate, and its evolu-
tion toward a new, but uncertain, climatic
state. These processes span a broad spec-
trum of interconnected spatial and tem-
poral scales and entail complex but inad-
equately known interactions. Increasingly
sophisticated climate models predict
that warming of the Arctic’s atmosphere
and ocean will continue, with the Arctic
eventually becoming seasonally ice-free.
Understanding how the Arctic Ocean will
adjust to these changes and their ramifi-
cations for society poses challenges that
motivate continued national and inter-
national scientific efforts. One goal of
these studies is to try to determine how
the Arctic Ocean will evolve so that accu-
rate predictions can be made to guide
socio-economic decisions. To summa-
rize all these advances, Oceanography
devoted a special issue in 2011 to the
IPY (https://tos.org/oceanography/issue/
volume-24-issue-03).
Yet, after only one more decade of
change in the Arctic Ocean, another
special issue is due. This one—The New
Arctic Ocean—highlights some of the
scientific advances and illuminates the
considerable international investments
undertaken since the 2007–2008 IPY. The
papers comprising this issue summarize
the status and current trends of the Arctic
Ocean, explore many of the processes
and interactions controlling these trends,
assess gaps in our understanding, sug-
gest directions for future research, dis-
cuss geopolitical topics pertinent to the
potential industrial development of the
Arctic Ocean, and describe some of the
concerns and responses of the Indigenous
communities that depend upon this
unique marine ecosystem. This special
issue is constructed around seven broad,
albeit overlapping, research themes that
focus on sea ice, physical oceanography
(including ocean circulation), pan-Arctic
and global perspectives, marine ecosys-
tems and biogeochemistry, geopolitical
considerations, Indigenous perspectives,
and several recent and ongoing long-term
1 Previous IPYs occurred in 1881–1884, 1932–1933, and 1957–1958, the latter also called the International Geophysical Year (IGY) because it included
research outside the polar areas.