IceEco focuses on ecosystems within and around coastal Greenland. Our research is built with a collaborative spirit, and through NASA support, we work with tour companies and their guests, remote sensing and marine ecology scientists, and with the local Greenland communities through outreach and participation.
Where we work
Our work is conducted along the coasts of Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), by the gracious allowance of the Greenlandic people. Kalaallit Nunaat is a 2 million square km island in the Arctic and has been a self-governing country within the Danish Realm since 1979. We acknowledge that we are guests on these lands and surrounding waters, and honor their independence, rich culture, and stewardship of this place by its people, including the Inughuit, Tunumiit, and Kalaallit.
IceEco Project
We combine satellite-derived data with physical and biological data collected by guests on tour ships to investigate the impacts of melting glaciers and icebergs on Coastal Greenland Ecosystems.
We are using these data to validate a new remote sensing model on meltwater, investigate how phytoplankton biodiversity is affected by iceberg abundance and meltwater, and overall ecosystem effects from melting ice sheets.
Research Goals
What is the variability in space and time of icebergs and meltwater at the ice-ocean boundary?
What is the impact of icebergs and meltwater on phytoplankton abundance and community composition?
What broader impact do the dynamics between icebergs, meltwater, and phytoplankton have on these coastal ecosystems?
Data Collection
The use of tour vessels allows us to sample all summer, and remote-sensing observations are used to expand the spatial and temporal scales of data collection in this remote region.
Citizen Science
Tour ships and their guests visiting coastal Greenland provide valuable access to this remote region. We work with tour companies and provide training and equipment to expedition guides which enables them to assist guests, our citizen scientists, with collecting the scientific data.
Guests collect physical and biological data from small boats under the guidance of a field guide, including phytoplankton and iceberg meltwater samples and the density of surrounding icebergs. These data are then sent to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and their collaborators for analysis.
We also use satellite-derived data of chlorophyll-a estimates to compare to our ship-board measurements and expand the spatial extent of our research. Chlorophyll-a is a photosynthetic pigment present in phytoplankton, and using this characteristic, we can understand patterns of plankton abundance. This work results in a broader understanding of phytoplankton abundance trends among seasons and with different environmental conditions.
Remote Sensing
Community & Outreach
While our researchers are in Greenland to train expedition leaders and/or participate in cruises, they conduct outreach with the local community.
During an expedition with collaborators in 2024, we participated in many different activities to engage and get feedback from the community. We invited a Greenlandic teacher to join our science party for the duration of the cruise, and hosted several other teachers onboard to share the work we were doing. We also worked with an outreach program, Greenland Rising Project, and collaborated to organize several activities with local school children (grades 8-10), including hosting them onboard and visiting their school to share our research.
