On the 11th of June, a virtual SSC meeting was held. It dealt with updates from planned SAS expeditions, the construction of a new SAS data portal, as well as upcoming meetings and webinars suchs as the Arctic Science Ministerial Meeting and next year’s Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW). A brief summary of relevant updates are provided in the following.
Despite the COVID-19 situation many of the SAS cruises are still going as planned in 2020, whereas others are postponed until 2021 or even 2022. The cruises going as planned in 2020 include the Korean and Japanese cruises in the Pacific Central Arctic Ocean from August 8 to September 4 (Korea) and from 13 October to 22 October (Japan), and the Norwegian/Russian contribution in the Barents Sea in August/September, the Canada/USA/EU cruise in Davis Strait from August 22 to September 17, and the Canada/USA/Japan cruise in the Beaufort Gyre from September 14 to to October 3.
SSC was also informed about two potentially new SAS cruises planned for 2021 which we were delighted to learn about. Karen Edelvang presented the Danish contribution “Polar DREAM 2021 – From glacier to glacier”, a survey consisting of three ships that will take measurements at 1) the glacier front and shelf break on the south-eastern parts of Greenland, 2) the glacier front and shelf break in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, and 3) across Fram Strait.
Vito Vitale gave a presentation on the tentative plans for the Italian 2021 summer expedition with the newly acquired icebreaker Laura Bassi. This expedition can potentially contribute with physical, biological, atmospheric, and geological/geophysical measurements outside the west coast of Svalbard which will be most valuable to SAS and the international community.
Details on these cruises in addition to plans for all SAS expeditions can be found in the cruise matrix from the “Expeditions” tab. This table has updated information on all cruises in collaboration with SAS.
