VIKTOR BUYNITSKIY TRANSDRIFT XXI

The joint Russian-German research project „Laptev Sea System: The Transpolar System of the Arctic Ocean“ aims to assess how climate change will affect the highly sensitive Arctic environment and in how far the changes will be of consequence for Europe. Research areas are the Laptev Sea as the most important area of sea-ice production and the Fram Strait as the only deepwater and intermediate water connection between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean (and, therefore, the World Ocean). The Transpolar Drift Stream connects both regions. At the same time, the Russian partner institution, the State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, implements complex investigations in the Central Arctic Ocean as the key research topic of their research program „Arctic Basin Cluster“. A major concern of the joint project is to integrate young scientists through the German-Russian Master Program for Polar and Marine Sciences POMOR and the Fellowship Program of the German-Russian Otto Schmidt Laboratory for Polar and Marine Research in St. Petersburg.