Master Project Example - The evolution of sea ice and warm water inflow in the Arctic during warm climates of the Quaternary

Motivation (background): The Arctic Ocean is changing rapidly and an ocean that we know to be “white” is rapidly turning “blue”. It is projected that by 2050 there will no longer be sea ice in the Arctic during the summer. While this rapid change is mainly driven by increasing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, another major player influencing Arctic sea ice, is the West Spitsbergen Current. Today this current brings warm, salty waters into the Arctic Ocean, but we know very little about this current and the dynamic history of ocean-ice interactions. This knowledge we can gather from investigating previous warm periods in the Arctic. Was the Arctic free of sea ice during past interglacials? Was the West Spitsbergen Current more or less active compared to today, and how did this influence the “Atlantification” of the Arctic? These questions can be answered by investigating high-resolution climate records from offshore Svalbard that have been collected during IODP Expedition 403 (2024) and RV Kronprins Haakon expeditions, with new sediment cores being collected in 2025 and 2026. The sediment records we have in our lab document the evolution of the West Spitsbergen Current and the Svalbard Ice Sheet over the past ca. 1.5 million years, covering several warm interglacial periods of the Late Quaternary (e.g. MIS 5, 9, 11, 19, 31).

Project description

Hypothesis (scientific problem):
The West Spitsbergen Current brings warm waters northwards during past warm periods in the Quaternary, influencing the sea ice cover in the Fram strait and Arctic Ocean.

Test (work):
Arctic palaeoceanography is challenging, and only few proxies can be used to reconstruct the surface ocean conditions and sea ice cover. In this MSc project, you will use dinoflagellate cyst assemblages – a well-established Arctic paleo-proxy – to reconstruct sea surface conditions and sea ice evolution in the Fram Strait/Arctic Ocean.Tasks include literature review on the selected interglacial, microscopy to identify dinoflagellate cysts, and data analysis to reconstruct the sea ice and surface ocean conditions (e.g. via transfer functions). The thesis work will be integrated in the ERC Synergy project i2B (www.in2blue.eu (external link))and there may be an opportunity to join a research cruise to the Arctic in 2026.

**More than one project is available**
The interglacial period of focus will be decided together by the prospective candidate and the supervisors.

Proposed course plan during the master's degree (60 ECTS)
GEOV222 (10P) Paleoklimatologi
GEOV225 (10P) Feltkurs i kvartærgeologi og pleoklima
GEOV231 (10P) Maringeologisk felt- og laboratoriekurs
BIO250 (10P) Palaeoøkologi
GEOV300 (5P) Akademisk skriving og kommunikasjon i geovitenskap
GEOV322 (5P) Masterekskursjon i kvartærgeologi
GEOV324 (5P) Paleoklima i polare strok
GEOV331 (5P) Utvalgte emner i paleoseanografi

Prerequisites
GEOV110

Field-, lab- and analysis work
Tasks include literature review on the selected interglacial, microscopy to identify dinoflagellate cysts, and data analysis to reconstruct the sea ice and surface ocean conditions (e.g. via transfer functions).
The thesis work will be integrated in the ERC Synergy project i2B (www.in2blue.eu (external link))and there may be an opportunity to join a research cruise to the Arctic in 2026.

The project will be funded through the i2B project.

Supervisors

Stijn De Schepper (main supervisor)

Sina Longman, University of Tromsø

Ulysses Ninnemann, UiB-GEO

Last updated: 16.12.2025