The average climate is like the average human. Does not exist! Every day, month, year, decade, (you see where this goes) it is unique. People have invented the average term to easily detect anomalies from what we consider as "normal". Climate scientists are fascinated by studying them to understand their origin, their pathways and how they can influence different regions. Some anomalies insist on keeping their intensity longer than others and can affect regions far from their origin. In this talk we will see how heat anomalies which are created in the exotic warm Atlantic Ocean can influence the remote and cold Arctic Ocean, despite the heroic effort of the intermediate seas to cool them down.

Ice seems to be the least favourable place to hang out, let alone live. Still, many organisms choose Arctic Sea Ice as their home and happily thrive. Especially the bottom, where the ice meets the ocean, is full of life. Every year gigantic algae blooms can be found under the ice, which produce the veggie burgers for a large number of organisms, especially for bacteria and archaea. These veggies burgers are produced in spring, when the sun comes back, and are ready to eat when the BBQ season starts. Hence, we find interesting dynamics among the bacteria and archaea especially in these days. And since this is pretty new stuff, we want to use The Nansen Legacy data to see how the BBQ party develops when fall and winter come.

Observing life under the Arctic sea ice can be challenging, particularly during the depths of winter. Acoustic instruments moored to the sea floor can be used to measure how the biomass and vertical distribution of pelagic organisms changes over time. In this talk, acoustic data recently retrieved from the depths of the Barents Sea will be used to demonstrate how the distribution of phytoplankton, zooplankton and small fish changes throughout the season in response to changing light and ice conditions. We will also discuss how longer-term changes in sea ice extent are likely to impact pelagic ecosystems in the future.