If you want to understand climate change, look to Svalbard

– Arctic has experienced rapid climate changes in recent years, more significant than the global average. Record temperatures and early spring have led to melting ice, glaciers and permafrost, among other things. Climate change happens faster here than any other place in the world. This makes it extremely important to observe greenhouse gas fluxes here, Siv Kari Lauvset explains.

Lauvset, a chemical oceanographer in NORCE and the Bjerknes Centre, leads the Norwegian node of the Integrated Carbon Observing System (ICOS). ICOS is a research infrastructure which has observed greenhouse gas fluxes between the atmosphere, land and ocean.

Now, Lauvset is leading a new proposal that, if funded by the Research Council of Norway, will secure the operation of ICOS-Norway and the Ocean Thematic Centre until the end of 2029.

The proposal will, among other things, secure an increase in observations in the Arctic regions of Norway.

– In addition, we propose to upgrade the ocean stations with the newest instrumentation, add two new ecosystem stations so that we can measure fluxes in more landscape types, and add atmospheric measurements on two of the ocean stations, Lauvset explains.

– Combined these upgrades will make the data we produce more relevant for Norwegian policy makers. The added focus on the Arctic will also better align ICOS Norway with Norwegian strategies in the Arctic.

Richard Sanders, a colleague of Lauvset at NORCE and the Bjerknes Centre leads the OTC Ocean Thematic Centre within ICOS.

The OTC Ocean Thematic Centre is responsible for assisting stations in making observations to calculate ocean CO2 uptake – a crucial task since the ocean serve as the Earth's largest carbon sink, absorbing about 25 % of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions.

– The reason the marine stations are important is because this is where the storage occurs. The absorption takes place on the surface of all oceans in the world, but the ocean uptake has greatest effect in our areas, especially in the ocean between Norway and Greenland, because this is where the excess carbon is transported into the deep ocean, Sanders explains.

Sanders shares Lauvset’s call to increase observation in the Arctic – but also other key regions.

– Data and model estimates are diverging from each other when it comes to the ocean’s ability to store CO2. We need more stations in the high latitudes in the Nordic countries, and we need to maintain the stations we have.

2025 marks the 10th year anniversary for ICOS. Having provided data on greenhouse gas fluxes over land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere since 2015 with 178 measurement stations spread across 16 countries, Lauvset truly believes the work of the Norwegian node of ICOS is key.

– We make observations where no other countries do both in the atmosphere and in ocean. If we don’t do it, no one will, says Lauvset.

In the Paris Agreement, the world's countries agreed to keep global warming well below 2 degrees, ideally down to 1.5 degrees.

– Facilitating and implementing emission reduction is a national responsibility. As is facilitating efforts to verify that the efforts have the desired effect. Monitoring greenhouse gases, and fluxes between atmosphere, land and ocean, including how these change in time and space, necessitates a well-designed and well-funded national monitoring program. We believe ICOS-Norway can fill that role, Lauvset says.

The stations in the 16 member countries are run and funded by national institutes, universities and funding agencies. The European part of ICOS in other Eurpean countries is funded by ministries, research councils and departments of climate changes to mention a few. It is different funding from different countries. ICOS-Norway has been renewed twice by the Research Council, latest in 2024.

– Ultimately the goal is to get on the Norwegian national budget, Lauvset states.