Predicting intense marine heatwaves in northern seas (PRIMA)

In the PRIMA project the goal is to study marine heatwaves in Norwegian and Arctic waters. The project is separated into three parts: (1) To map historical marine heatwaves, (2) To study how marine heatwaves is represented in the Norwegian Climate Prediction Model (NorCPM), and (3) To understand how marine heatwaves influence phytoplankton. So far in the project the focus has been on the waters surrounding Svalbard. Using the regional reanalysis from TOPAZ, we have studied 8 marine heatwaves west of Svalbard. These events occurred during summer and lasted longer than 10 days. Half of these events were so-called deep events, where unusual high temperatures reached deeper than 50m. This study is under review in Ocean Science: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4269/ A popular science article of the study is published on the Nansen Center's webpage: https://nersc.no/en/in-focus/exciting-research-in-progress-heatwaves-in-the-seas-around-svalbard-are-being-investigated-by-a-phd-candidate/