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Coast Guard vessel NoCGV Svalbard assisted researchers from the Nansen Center with climate research in the Arctic in September.

The expedition is conducted annually and the main goal is to measure ocean temperature in the Fram Strait, located between Svalbard and Greenland. NoCGV Svalbard, which is the Royal Norwegian Navy’s only icebreaker, has assisted Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center with the temperature measurements. The Nansen Center leads the research project, and the Norwegian Coast Guard has contributed since 2008. This year the expedition began on 29th of August and ends on 18th of September in Longyearbyen.

The research has been conducted in collaboration with several Norwegian and international partners. American Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Norwegian Geophysical Institute, Polish Institute of Oceanology and the University center in Svalbard are all part of the project. In total, ten researchers from six countries participated in this year’s expedition in the Fram Strait.

The field experiment is part of the research project “UNDER ICE: Arctic ocean under melting ice”, which is funded by the Research Council of Norway and the oil company GDF SUEZ E&P Norge AS.

Commanding Officer on board NoCGV Svalbard, Commander Charles Blålid, says the Nansen Center’s research is important to support partly because it can increase knowledge about the reported changes in climate.

Press Release, September 17, 2014; Image: Norwegian Coast Guard/Lt. Håkon Kjøllmoen