Polar cod early life stage exposure to potential oil spills in the Arctic.

Arctic amplification of climate change is causing sea ice to retreat at unprecedented rates, potentially opening up large vulnerable Arctic areas for oil and gas exploration and new shipping routes. This rapid warming marginalizes sympagic species habitats making them more sensitive to other anthropogenic pressures. Here, we assess potential impacts of hypothetic oil spills from the northernmost licensed oil field Wisting and additional neighbouring spill sites in areas currently not open to oil exploitation on the key ice-associated Arctic fish species polar cod (Boreogadus saida).

A position and wave spectra dataset of Marginal Ice Zone dynamics collected around Svalbard in 2022 and 2023.

Sea ice is a key element of the global Earth system, with a major impact on global climate and regional weather. Unfortunately, accurate sea ice modeling is challenging due to the diversity and complexity of underlying physics happening there, and a relative lack of ground truth observations. This is especially true for the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ), which is the area where sea ice is affected by incoming ocean waves.