Ministry of Earth Sciences has a long-term program of monitoring one of the major fjords at
Ny-Ålesund (1200km to the south of the North Pole) on the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic region to understand how it may respond to changing climate.
Main objective of the project is to establish a long-term comprehensive physical, chemical, biological and atmospheric measurement programme to study:
i) The variability in the Arctic/Atlantic climate signal.
ii) The effect of interaction between the warm Atlantic water and the cold glacial-melt
iii) fresh water on the biological productivity and phytoplankton species composition
iv) and diversity within the fjord.
v) The winter convection and its role in the biogeochemical cycling.
vi) The trigger mechanism of spring bloom and its temporal variability and biomass production.
vii) The production and export of organic carbon in the fjord.
In addition, following the understanding on February 2013 Delhi meeting of the Belmont Forum, a new multi-institutional Collaborative Research Activity has been proposed for exploring the linkage between the Arctic and Antarctic climate variability and the Monsoon as a new global initiative to be led by India and France.
Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Shri S.Jaipal Reddy gave this information in reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha today.