1 00:00:07,900 --> 00:00:14,233 [Narrator] The far North. 2 00:00:14,233 --> 00:00:22,200 A storied place of daring exploration and untamed wilderness. 3 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:31,466 But the high Arctic is also a place of rapid change. 4 00:00:31,466 --> 00:00:37,100 [Ingrid] The temperature in the Arctic is rising at a faster rate than the rest of the 5 00:00:37,100 --> 00:00:38,833 world. 6 00:00:38,833 --> 00:00:41,800 [Signe Maria] Up here we see the changes most. 7 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:45,000 The glacier fronts are literally disappearing in front of our eyes here. 8 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:49,200 It goes very fast. 9 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:53,900 [Narrator] These changes are taking place at a time when modern science doesn'’’t have 10 00:00:53,900 --> 00:01:00,566 a full understanding of how Arctic ecosystems work during all times of the year. 11 00:01:00,566 --> 00:01:05,200 [Jorgen] The polar night, that's defined as the period when the sun is below the horizon, 12 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,133 24hours a day. 13 00:01:08,133 --> 00:01:11,166 The length of the polar night varies according to latitude. 14 00:01:11,166 --> 00:01:14,666 At the pole it lasts for 185 days. 15 00:01:14,666 --> 00:01:18,366 So, at the pole, there's only one night and one day. 16 00:01:18,366 --> 00:01:21,166 At the Arctic Circle, it lasts for one day. 17 00:01:21,166 --> 00:01:23,600 Then there is everything inbetween. 18 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:28,266 [Kirstin] It's basically dark 24/7. 19 00:01:28,266 --> 00:01:33,600 And so that has a huge impact on the fjord ecosystem. 20 00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:37,300 If there's no light, then there's no primary production. 21 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:42,233 [Kharis] There are algae in the ocean that are phytoplankton that photosynthesize to 22 00:01:42,233 --> 00:01:47,133 create energy and all other organisms are reliant on that energy. 23 00:01:47,133 --> 00:01:52,933 [Kirstin] During the polar night when the base of the food web is basically cut out, 24 00:01:52,933 --> 00:01:58,033 for decades it was just kind of assumed that everything else stops. 25 00:01:58,033 --> 00:02:00,400 There's no food. 26 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:06,300 [Jorgen] So this period when it's dark had remained completely unsampled and studied 27 00:02:06,300 --> 00:02:10,500 for many, many years. 28 00:02:10,500 --> 00:02:17,500 [Narrator] Targeted research into polar night ecology didn'’’t begin until 2009, after an 29 00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:22,566 accidental discovery made scientists realize this wasn'’’t a dormant period in the ocean 30 00:02:22,566 --> 00:02:24,233 after all. 31 00:02:24,233 --> 00:02:29,400 [Jorgen] It came as a massive surprise. 32 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:34,000 [Kirstin] And the more you look into it, the more you find that there's actually high activity 33 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:37,133 during the polar night. 34 00:02:37,133 --> 00:02:42,466 [Kharis] It's an important piece of the overall ecology of the ecosystem to understand, to 35 00:02:42,466 --> 00:02:45,100 tie it in with what's going on in the summer. 36 00:02:45,100 --> 00:02:50,933 [Kirstin] Looking at the seasonal patterns in the polar regions is a huge knowledge gap. 37 00:02:50,933 --> 00:02:54,466 So, filling that in is important for that very base level, fundamental understanding 38 00:02:54,466 --> 00:02:58,233 of how does the earth work. 39 00:02:58,233 --> 00:03:03,600 And then the second layer is that the Arctic is very rapidly changing. 40 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:09,733 We have warming water, receding sea ice, melting glaciers, things like that happening. 41 00:03:09,733 --> 00:03:16,166 So, understanding the consequences of that change is a major question for the scientific 42 00:03:16,166 --> 00:03:20,966 community right now. 43 00:03:20,966 --> 00:03:28,366 [Narrator] What tiny animals are active in the ocean during the polar night? 44 00:03:28,366 --> 00:03:45,000 And how are they able to survive without their main food source? 45 00:03:45,000 --> 00:04:01,700 [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by The Batchelor Foundation encouraging 46 00:04:01,700 --> 00:04:07,600 people to preserve and protect America'’’s underwater resources. 47 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:13,000 Additional funding was provided by Trish & Dan Bell and by The Parrot Family Endowment for 48 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:16,800 Environmental Education. 49 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:23,166 [Narrator] January. 50 00:04:23,166 --> 00:04:31,666 A time when the northernmost latitudes are wrapped in perpetual darkness. 51 00:04:31,666 --> 00:04:35,766 [Ingrid] So we are in the what we call the high Arctic. 52 00:04:35,766 --> 00:04:38,700 It's 79 degrees north. 53 00:04:38,700 --> 00:04:42,300 It's the northernmost settlement in the world. 54 00:04:42,300 --> 00:04:48,000 [Jorgen] Here the polar night lasts for approximately four months. 55 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,833 [Signe Maria] It's like you're tucked into a blanket of darkness. 56 00:04:53,833 --> 00:04:58,366 It'’’s quite spectacular. 57 00:04:58,366 --> 00:05:05,800 [Jorgen] When the solar light becomes dimmer, then the lunar light becomes much more important. 58 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:14,600 The stars, the aurora, the light climate simply changes quite a lot. 59 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:20,666 I think the, the polar night is the most beautiful time of year. 60 00:05:20,666 --> 00:05:25,433 [Kirstin] We are in NyAlesund, Svalbard. 61 00:05:25,433 --> 00:05:31,266 Svalbard is an archipelago halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. 62 00:05:31,266 --> 00:05:36,033 [Narrator] The small Norwegian community of NyAlesund is home to the world'’’s northernmost 63 00:05:36,033 --> 00:05:39,433 yearround research station. 64 00:05:39,433 --> 00:05:44,566 NyAlesund has a storied history. 65 00:05:44,566 --> 00:05:50,833 Whalers were the first in the area, followed by coal miners more than a hundred years ago. 66 00:05:50,833 --> 00:05:58,566 [Ingrid] And it started in the early nineteen hundreds with the Kings Bay Coal Company. 67 00:05:58,566 --> 00:06:03,166 [Narrator] Given its close proximity to the North Pole, NyAlesund has also served as an 68 00:06:03,166 --> 00:06:06,633 expedition base. 69 00:06:06,633 --> 00:06:14,633 Famous Norwegian Polar Explorer Roald Amundsen and his team departed from here when in 1926 70 00:06:14,633 --> 00:06:25,466 they became the first to fly over the North Pole in an airship. 71 00:06:25,466 --> 00:06:30,066 In later years, the coal mines were shut down, and the community transitioned to a research 72 00:06:30,066 --> 00:06:32,633 base. 73 00:06:32,633 --> 00:06:37,600 [Ingrid] Because there was a big accident in 1962 and that was the end of the mining 74 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:40,166 period. 75 00:06:40,166 --> 00:06:46,933 But as NyAlesund had a very good infrastructure, it was in a very good position here at this 76 00:06:46,933 --> 00:06:51,100 peninsula to use it for research. 77 00:06:51,100 --> 00:07:00,100 [Narrator] On location yearround since 1968, today the Norwegian Polar Institute, or NPI 78 00:07:00,100 --> 00:07:07,533 for short, implements the research strategy on site, which focuses on four flagship disciplines. 79 00:07:07,533 --> 00:07:16,633 [Ingrid] It's atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems, marine biology and oceanography and glaciology. 80 00:07:16,633 --> 00:07:22,333 [Narrator] Kings Bay, meanwhile, still owns NyAlesund and maintains all the infrastructure. 81 00:07:22,333 --> 00:07:28,166 [Signe Maria] Kings Bay is basically the facilitator for the station. 82 00:07:28,166 --> 00:07:34,200 We organize transportation, we provide logistics solutions for all the institutions. 83 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:39,166 [Narrator] Ten institutions run by eleven countries have a permanent or semipermanent 84 00:07:39,166 --> 00:07:44,333 presence in NyAlesund. 85 00:07:44,333 --> 00:07:49,766 Despite its remote location, the community not only boasts stateoftheart research facilities, 86 00:07:49,766 --> 00:07:52,400 but also a lot of creature comforts. 87 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:55,533 [Signe Maria] The food is, you know, beyond everything. 88 00:07:55,533 --> 00:07:59,133 And it's a lot of treats that we have up here. 89 00:07:59,133 --> 00:08:03,666 You can feel quite at home I think even if you're here for a longer time. 90 00:08:03,666 --> 00:08:08,400 You can have dogs, there's a gym, there's a sauna, there's a jacuzzi. 91 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:10,666 So, it's very up to date living wise. 92 00:08:10,666 --> 00:08:13,066 [Kirstin] It's a great place to come to. 93 00:08:13,066 --> 00:08:17,200 It's very well set up. 94 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:22,933 [Narrator] Dr. Kirstin MeyerKaiser is based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 95 00:08:22,933 --> 00:08:25,900 or WHOI, in Massachusetts. 96 00:08:25,900 --> 00:08:30,700 [Kirstin] The United States does not have a research station here, but nevertheless 97 00:08:30,700 --> 00:08:38,333 we came here because it is such a logistically easy place to do research in the polar night 98 00:08:38,333 --> 00:08:43,966 and in the high Arctic because of the support from NPI and from Kings Bay. 99 00:08:43,966 --> 00:08:48,733 [Ingrid] The Norwegian Polar Institute hosts scientists from countries that do not have 100 00:08:48,733 --> 00:08:54,166 an institution from their own country to represent them. 101 00:08:54,166 --> 00:09:00,200 [Narrator] Kirstin and her Ph.D. student Kharis Shrage are studying some of the tiniest animals 102 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:03,600 that are active during the polar night. 103 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:08,700 [Kharis] Our specific interest is in the early life history stages of all of the organisms 104 00:09:08,700 --> 00:09:15,100 that are living on the sea floor that do not have a backbone. 105 00:09:15,100 --> 00:09:23,066 [Narrator] To find out what larvae are present this time of year, the researchers brave the 106 00:09:23,066 --> 00:09:29,666 arctic cold to collect plankton samples in Kongsfjorden the local fjord. 107 00:09:29,666 --> 00:09:37,900 [Kharis] So, to understand the larvae, we are towing nets behind a small boat and the 108 00:09:37,900 --> 00:09:42,266 net has a mesh of 150 microns, which is incredibly fine. 109 00:09:42,266 --> 00:09:46,033 Almost like a tshirt. 110 00:09:46,033 --> 00:09:49,866 You're letting water through, but most animals will be caught in it. 111 00:09:49,866 --> 00:09:52,533 And with that, we can find really small larvae. 112 00:09:52,533 --> 00:09:57,200 So, we take those up from the net, and in the lab we sort through them all. 113 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:00,200 [Kirstin] Plankton are things that drift around in the water column and have no power to swim 114 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:02,566 against the current. 115 00:10:02,566 --> 00:10:06,900 So, these basically come in a couple of types. 116 00:10:06,900 --> 00:10:11,066 You think of phytoplankton, which are algae, they use sunlight to make food. 117 00:10:11,066 --> 00:10:14,233 Zooplankton are animallike plankton. 118 00:10:14,233 --> 00:10:17,500 And these are animals that I'm looking at. 119 00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:22,433 So, I'm interested in things that only live in the water for part of their life cycle. 120 00:10:22,433 --> 00:10:25,166 These are called meroplankton in contrast to holoplankton, which spend their whole life 121 00:10:25,166 --> 00:10:28,566 in the water column. 122 00:10:28,566 --> 00:10:31,366 I am sorting out all of the things that are the meroplankton, the larvae that I'm interested 123 00:10:31,366 --> 00:10:33,933 in. 124 00:10:33,933 --> 00:10:37,000 Larvae are small enough that most of them you can't see with the naked eye, so you have 125 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,266 to have the microscope. 126 00:10:40,266 --> 00:10:46,433 [Narrator] Prior to preserving specimens in ethanol, Kharis films and photographs the 127 00:10:46,433 --> 00:10:49,000 larvae. 128 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:50,166 [Kirstin] Because as soon as you preserve them in ethanol, they're gonna get contorted, 129 00:10:50,166 --> 00:10:52,966 they're gonna shrink. 130 00:10:52,966 --> 00:10:57,733 So having that live photo before you preserve them or do anything else with them is really, 131 00:10:57,733 --> 00:11:01,533 really helpful to identify them later. 132 00:11:01,533 --> 00:11:05,400 [Narrator] Larvae look very different from their adult counterparts, and many larval 133 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:10,100 forms have yet to be identified. 134 00:11:10,100 --> 00:11:16,033 DNA analysis of the preserved specimens helps to determine the species, which can then be 135 00:11:16,033 --> 00:11:20,033 matched to the known adults. 136 00:11:20,033 --> 00:11:26,666 [Kharis] Most of the organisms in Kongsfjorden are on genetics databases online. 137 00:11:26,666 --> 00:11:31,433 There's been extensive studies in Kongsfjorden. 138 00:11:31,433 --> 00:11:37,233 [Narrator] The scientists are also trying to find out if the larvae are capable of eating 139 00:11:37,233 --> 00:11:39,666 this time of year. 140 00:11:39,666 --> 00:11:44,100 [Kirstin] Larvae can rely on yolk from their mothers for food. 141 00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:48,733 You know, like Mom's packed you a lunch and you're good to go, or you can get kicked out 142 00:11:48,733 --> 00:11:52,266 the front door with no packed lunch and have to find food on your own. 143 00:11:52,266 --> 00:11:56,433 And I was finding those types of larvae in the middle of the polar night in 2020, and 144 00:11:56,433 --> 00:12:01,433 I was really confused because there's no sunlight, so there's no algae for them to be eating. 145 00:12:01,433 --> 00:12:04,266 So how in the world do they survive? 146 00:12:04,266 --> 00:12:07,233 Maybe they're not feeding at all. 147 00:12:07,233 --> 00:12:11,433 Maybe they're just kind of like holding on, white knuckling it, you know, until lunchtime 148 00:12:11,433 --> 00:12:15,400 when the spring bloom arrives. 149 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:21,900 [Narrator] The spring bloom occurs when the light returns and phytoplankton can grow again. 150 00:12:21,900 --> 00:12:26,933 This fuels an explosion of activity from the bottom of the food chain up. 151 00:12:26,933 --> 00:12:34,066 [Kharis] Many organisms time their reproduction to this burst of food. 152 00:12:34,066 --> 00:12:37,266 That way their larvae get the best chance of having enough food to grow up enough and 153 00:12:37,266 --> 00:12:40,166 settle to the sea floor. 154 00:12:40,166 --> 00:12:44,100 [Narrator] To test if the different types of larvae can eat, Kirstin provided them with 155 00:12:44,100 --> 00:12:45,933 phytoplankton. 156 00:12:45,933 --> 00:12:50,766 [Kirstin] I actually bought feed from an aquaculture company. 157 00:12:50,766 --> 00:12:55,266 This is what you can like give oysters if you're culturing them. 158 00:12:55,266 --> 00:13:00,433 [Narrator] The bodies of the larvae are clear, making it easy to tell if they have eaten. 159 00:13:00,433 --> 00:13:03,833 [Kharis] If the gut was clear before we put them in with phytoplankton, and it was green 160 00:13:03,833 --> 00:13:07,600 after the phytoplankton, that means they can eat. 161 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:10,933 [Narrator] The scientists discovered that one of their two test subjects was able to 162 00:13:10,933 --> 00:13:14,600 eat. 163 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:20,166 But what might these larvae be eating in the wild in the absence of phytoplankton this 164 00:13:20,166 --> 00:13:22,033 time of year? 165 00:13:22,033 --> 00:13:26,200 [Kirstin] And so for this, I've planned an isotope experiment. 166 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:28,900 They might be eating bacteria. 167 00:13:28,900 --> 00:13:32,666 Bacteria can continue to exist in the water column. 168 00:13:32,666 --> 00:13:37,366 There'’’s also dissolved organic matter in the water column. 169 00:13:37,366 --> 00:13:39,766 This is just like organic molecules. 170 00:13:39,766 --> 00:13:43,366 Amino acids are one example. 171 00:13:43,366 --> 00:13:48,600 [Narrator] To test this theory the team provided different sets of larvae with isotopically 172 00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:53,466 labeled amino acids and bacteria. 173 00:13:53,466 --> 00:13:57,700 If the larvae ate either, follow up lab tests will be able to pick up on those traceable 174 00:13:57,700 --> 00:14:00,233 isotopes. 175 00:14:00,233 --> 00:14:05,800 [Kirstin] So doing those lab experiments, it's not a perfect indicator of what's happening 176 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:13,200 in the wild, but it can give us the first step in trying to figure this out. 177 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:20,366 [Narrator] The researchers also want to find out if larvae are able to settle on the seafloor 178 00:14:20,366 --> 00:14:25,433 this time of year to begin their adult life. 179 00:14:25,433 --> 00:14:30,800 To do so, they need to undergo an energetically costly metamorphosis, which is similar to 180 00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:34,733 how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. 181 00:14:34,733 --> 00:14:39,200 [Kirstin] They completely change their body plan. 182 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:44,566 They look like a pile of goo for a second and then they look like the adult. 183 00:14:44,566 --> 00:14:48,733 [Narrator] Some larvae use chemical cues to find a good place to settle, often near adults 184 00:14:48,733 --> 00:14:51,400 of the same species. 185 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,433 [Kharis] So for the settlement experiment, we're offering them kelp as a cue that we 186 00:14:55,433 --> 00:14:59,233 have pulled from the dock. 187 00:14:59,233 --> 00:15:01,033 The organisms that we're working with, we found them either attached to kelp or crawling 188 00:15:01,033 --> 00:15:03,966 on kelp as adults. 189 00:15:03,966 --> 00:15:09,600 And so, we know that that would be a reasonable settlement location for them. 190 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:14,133 We see a lot of competition as one of the main factors influencing mortality, especially 191 00:15:14,133 --> 00:15:16,733 during the early settlement period. 192 00:15:16,733 --> 00:15:22,133 And so, by having your larvae survive through this harsh period of the polar night and settle 193 00:15:22,133 --> 00:15:27,133 before everybody else comes and spawns in the spring, maybe lets them grow big enough 194 00:15:27,133 --> 00:15:31,866 to give them a chance at outcompeting their neighbors when they get to the sea floor. 195 00:15:31,866 --> 00:15:41,433 [Narrator] Several of the organisms decided to settle as part of the experiment. 196 00:15:41,433 --> 00:15:45,966 Studying settlement in the wild is much more challenging. 197 00:15:45,966 --> 00:15:50,400 [Kirstin] Because we don't know what's happening when we're not there. 198 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:55,500 [Narrator] To monitor a settlement surface in the fjord, Kirstin worked closely with 199 00:15:55,500 --> 00:16:01,400 the engineers at WHOI to invent a camera system that can record settlement in real time. 200 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:05,133 [Kirstin] I call it CATAIN, which is an acronym. 201 00:16:05,133 --> 00:16:10,166 It stands for camera to analyze invertebrates, but what it really photographs is settlers, 202 00:16:10,166 --> 00:16:13,566 and that's actually why it's called CATAIN. 203 00:16:13,566 --> 00:16:15,833 Because when I asked my husband what should I name a camera system that photographs settlers, 204 00:16:15,833 --> 00:16:18,633 his answer was Catan. 205 00:16:18,633 --> 00:16:22,766 So, we wanted to come up with something that was similar to the name of that board game. 206 00:16:22,766 --> 00:16:27,966 It's a camera system that photographs its own end cap. 207 00:16:27,966 --> 00:16:32,900 And you can see there's a macro lens and this little machine vision camera focused on the 208 00:16:32,900 --> 00:16:37,400 endcap and then, you know, all of the hardware and the batteries and everything. 209 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:41,433 This is the brains of the camera. 210 00:16:41,433 --> 00:16:45,400 We've got a raspberry pie computer and we have a sleepy pie, which allows you to put 211 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:48,733 the computer to sleep. 212 00:16:48,733 --> 00:16:53,966 [Narrator] This will save battery power during months of deployment in near freezing waters. 213 00:16:53,966 --> 00:16:59,566 [Kirstin] So the only thing pulling power constantly is the clock. 214 00:16:59,566 --> 00:17:02,833 And when it reaches the time that it knows it's supposed to have a photo again, then 215 00:17:02,833 --> 00:17:05,866 it wakes itself up. 216 00:17:05,866 --> 00:17:11,233 Under this electrical tape here, there's actually a string of LED lights. 217 00:17:11,233 --> 00:17:15,066 The lights had to be on the outside so that it could flash through the end cap. 218 00:17:15,066 --> 00:17:17,200 It kind of functions like a ring light. 219 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:20,233 Our settlement surface is vertical. 220 00:17:20,233 --> 00:17:24,400 So, organisms are gonna settle on there and then the camera is facing out, and it's gonna 221 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:28,600 photograph the organisms from underneath. 222 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:32,733 Using this, we are able to deploy the camera for long periods. 223 00:17:32,733 --> 00:17:38,733 I have it programmed to record an image every 24 hours. 224 00:17:38,733 --> 00:17:44,400 The reason that we wanna do every 24 hours is because there's a lot of things that settle 225 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:51,266 down to the sea floor but then end up dying within that first really short period. 226 00:17:51,266 --> 00:17:57,133 So, most researchers actually study recruitment, which is so poorly defined. 227 00:17:57,133 --> 00:18:00,333 It's basically an operational definition. 228 00:18:00,333 --> 00:18:05,600 Recruitment is surviving until the researcher comes back to count you. 229 00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:10,166 Prior to us coming up with this camera system, it was really only possible to study settlement 230 00:18:10,166 --> 00:18:15,466 in environments where a researcher could be present every day because you would put out 231 00:18:15,466 --> 00:18:21,800 panels and pull them back up 24 hours later, you know, to see those first arrivals. 232 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:25,666 Whereas with this, we can actually get a photographic record of everybody who was there without 233 00:18:25,666 --> 00:18:28,900 having to stay up here, you know, all year. 234 00:18:28,900 --> 00:18:34,700 So, I'm actually really excited about deploying this. 235 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:41,366 [Narrator] After years of planning and field trials back at home, the time has come to 236 00:18:41,366 --> 00:18:44,966 deploy CATAIN in Kongsfjorden. 237 00:18:44,966 --> 00:18:50,466 [Kharis] To get it all set up, we had to create a heavy box for it to actually sit on the 238 00:18:50,466 --> 00:18:54,166 sea floor and not be jostled around by waves or whisked away. 239 00:18:54,166 --> 00:19:00,533 [Kirstin] We deployed this camera system at 15 meters deep, close to the old pier. 240 00:19:00,533 --> 00:19:06,400 [Kharis] For hard bottom organisms, the highest abundance and the highest diversity is generally 241 00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:09,366 around 15 meters in Kongsfjorden. 242 00:19:09,366 --> 00:19:14,933 We marked a lot of GPS locations to make sure we know exactly where it is. 243 00:19:14,933 --> 00:19:19,700 We're gonna have to send divers down to attach a rope to it to bring it back up. 244 00:19:19,700 --> 00:19:24,633 When we finally got it to the sea floor, we were really excited because it's been a really 245 00:19:24,633 --> 00:19:26,866 long time coming. 246 00:19:26,866 --> 00:19:31,133 [Kirstin] We're gonna get so much data that was never before possible to obtain. 247 00:19:31,133 --> 00:19:43,066 I am so excited about this camera system. 248 00:19:43,066 --> 00:19:55,833 [Narrator] While CATAIN will gather information about organisms that settle and live on hard 249 00:19:55,833 --> 00:20:02,833 bottom surfaces, the researchers also wanted to learn about species living in mud. 250 00:20:02,833 --> 00:20:09,500 To do so, they collected samples at five stations ranging between 5 to 30 meters in depth. 251 00:20:09,500 --> 00:20:13,033 [Kharis] So we've been sending a sediment grab to the sea floor off the back of the 252 00:20:13,033 --> 00:20:15,533 boat. 253 00:20:15,533 --> 00:20:19,400 It scoops up the first couple centimeters of sediment, brings it back up to the boat 254 00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,433 and then back in the lab we sieve through it at two different levels. 255 00:20:22,433 --> 00:20:28,200 One is 500 microns and one is 150 microns. 256 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:32,600 And then we're left with a sample that is some sediment, but mostly organisms. 257 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,800 And we'll take that back to the lab at Woods Hole and sort through them under the microscope 258 00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:38,666 and identify the species. 259 00:20:38,666 --> 00:20:43,866 We're mostly looking for things like clams and snails. 260 00:20:43,866 --> 00:20:45,700 Essentially we're trying to understand if the distribution of juveniles matches the 261 00:20:45,700 --> 00:20:49,600 distribution of adults. 262 00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:55,966 [Narrator] In Arctic fjords, ice scour from sea ice or icebergs calving off the glaciers 263 00:20:55,966 --> 00:20:58,366 can scrape up the sea floor. 264 00:20:58,366 --> 00:21:04,300 [Kirstin] It's like a meteor landing on earth. 265 00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:07,233 If you're a worm in your happy little tube in the mud and an iceberg comes by, you're 266 00:21:07,233 --> 00:21:10,000 not surviving that. 267 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:14,866 [Narrator] Past research has shown that the diversity of adult invertebrates that live 268 00:21:14,866 --> 00:21:21,266 on the seafloor increases as it gets deeper and ice scour occurs less frequently. 269 00:21:21,266 --> 00:21:25,866 [Kirstin] Kharis' question is at what point in the life history does that gradient get 270 00:21:25,866 --> 00:21:28,766 set up? 271 00:21:28,766 --> 00:21:36,566 The hypothesis is that the larvae settle uniformly in any environment where they can survive. 272 00:21:36,566 --> 00:21:40,566 The temperature is right, the salinity is right, there's food for them, et cetera. 273 00:21:40,566 --> 00:21:45,100 And then the gradient in the adults happens because you have those shallow ones get scraped 274 00:21:45,100 --> 00:21:49,333 away. 275 00:21:49,333 --> 00:21:55,433 And also the top layer, on top of all of that, is the climate change. 276 00:21:55,433 --> 00:22:01,500 Going from a high sea ice cover in the fjord to now we've got open water pretty much allyearround, 277 00:22:01,500 --> 00:22:04,833 that's probably indicating less ice scour. 278 00:22:04,833 --> 00:22:07,333 But the glacier is also melting. 279 00:22:07,333 --> 00:22:11,166 So, then the icebergs calving off are more likely to impact the sea floor. 280 00:22:11,166 --> 00:22:13,400 And so which one of those is more important? 281 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:19,500 Are we gonna see more ice effect, less ice effect? 282 00:22:19,500 --> 00:22:26,900 [Narrator] Longterm data collected in NyAlesund is crucial to understanding our changing climate. 283 00:22:26,900 --> 00:22:32,466 [Ingrid] For example, on glaciers there has been a study on the ice thickness. 284 00:22:32,466 --> 00:22:39,200 Between 1936 and 2010, the scientists saw that the thickness was reduced by 25 meters 285 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:41,833 within that time span. 286 00:22:41,833 --> 00:22:48,000 So that is a very drastic reduction in the coverage of the glaciers. 287 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:53,533 [Jorgen] The last winter that really had sea ice here on the west coast of Svalbard, I 288 00:22:53,533 --> 00:23:00,300 think it was the winter, 2004, 2005. 289 00:23:00,300 --> 00:23:05,166 [Narrator] These increased water temperatures are caused by a rise of greenhouse gases in 290 00:23:05,166 --> 00:23:10,933 the atmosphere. 291 00:23:10,933 --> 00:23:17,133 The Norwegian Institute for Air Research, in partnership with NPI and others, has been 292 00:23:17,133 --> 00:23:23,666 continuously taking measurements at the Zeppelin Air Observatory on the mountain above NyAlesund. 293 00:23:23,666 --> 00:23:29,800 [Ove] We started the greenhouse gas measurements here in the eighties. 294 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,700 First it was like CO2 and methane together with hydrocarbons. 295 00:23:32,700 --> 00:23:39,600 And then later we got the CFCs and CFC replacement compounds. 296 00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:44,366 If you measure greenhouse gases down on the continent, you will see a lot of fluctuations 297 00:23:44,366 --> 00:23:47,566 because you have a lot of emissions very close by. 298 00:23:47,566 --> 00:23:51,966 Up here, you don't have these big emissions so what you measure is the, what you call 299 00:23:51,966 --> 00:23:55,300 the atmospheric background. 300 00:23:55,300 --> 00:24:01,166 It's a good place to see how the atmosphere changes over time and how the greenhouse gas 301 00:24:01,166 --> 00:24:04,066 is built up in the atmosphere. 302 00:24:04,066 --> 00:24:09,800 [Narrator] The Zeppelin Air Observatory is part of a global network of stations that 303 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:13,533 all take longterm measurements. 304 00:24:13,533 --> 00:24:21,400 [Ove] You need this big network of stations to get a really good global average to say 305 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,233 when you look at the trends on how much it increases. 306 00:24:24,233 --> 00:24:32,366 The trends tell us that greenhouse gases like methane, CO2 it's not slowing down and it's 307 00:24:32,366 --> 00:24:39,200 increasing every year. 308 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:47,966 [Narrator] Knowing these changes are occurring adds a level of urgency to the research conducted 309 00:24:47,966 --> 00:24:51,266 during the polar night. 310 00:24:51,266 --> 00:24:54,966 [Kharis] It's really important that we kind of play catch up and try to really get an 311 00:24:54,966 --> 00:24:59,766 understanding of the overall ecosystem, the simple basic biology of what's going on here 312 00:24:59,766 --> 00:25:03,300 so that we can better understand how it's changing. 313 00:25:03,300 --> 00:25:09,233 [Kirstin] If you understand the fundamental process and the mechanisms by which things 314 00:25:09,233 --> 00:25:15,000 happen, then you can make better predictions of how is this going to look in the future. 315 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:21,866 [Jorgen] It's one of the few sort of wildernesses remaining on the planet. 316 00:25:21,866 --> 00:25:27,633 It's like a natural wonder to be able to see this region. 317 00:25:27,633 --> 00:25:35,333 And I, I can only hope that my children and grandchildren will be able to experience some 318 00:25:35,333 --> 00:26:27,866 of what I have experienced, and in order for them to do that, we have to make sure that 319 00:26:27,866 --> 00:26:36,133 we take care of our planet.