Project: Transport of iron, manganese, and phosphorus in northern Greenland’s glacial fjords during a melting season: phases, drivers, pathways, and ecological impacts
This project, building on unique sample sets and shipboard data obtained during the GEOEO 2024 expedition, will for the first time reveal how iron, manganese, phosphorus, and carbon are transported, transformed, and recycled within the glacier-fjord-shelf systems of northern Greenland, one of the most remote and fastest-warming regions on Earth.
Project information
Project manager
Changxun Yu (research) and Mats Åström (funding)
Other project members
Marcelo Ketzer, Hanna Farnelid, Linnaeus University
Christian Stranne, Stockholm University
Viktor Sjöberg, Örebro University
Joonas Virtasalo, Geological Survey of Finland
Participating organisations
Linnaeus University, Stockholm University, Örebro University, Geological Survey of Finland
Funding
The Swedish Research Council, the annual open call 2025
Timetable
1 Jan 2026–31 Dec 2029
Subject
Environmental Science (Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Research group
Environmental Geochemistry
Linnaeus University Centre (Lnuc)
Linnaeus University Centre for the Environment (CENWIN)
Knowledge Environment
Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Water
More about the project
Greenland’s glaciers are melting at accelerating rates, discharging large volumes of glacial meltwater into downstream fjords and coastal seas. The meltwater is enriched not only in dissolved mineral nutrients—notably iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and phosphorus (P) that can directly fuel biological activity—but also in fine mineral particles (“glacial flour”) that can release additional nutrients and interact with, transform, or sequester organic matter. As a result, meltwater from Greenland’s glaciers has great potential to stimulate biological productivity, alter marine food webs, and regulate the efficiency of the biological carbon pump and associated carbon burial within downstream fjord-shelf systems.
During the GEOEO North of Greenland 2024 expedition, we have obtained over 1000 samples from (i) 26 conductivity–temperature–depth stations, with a primary focus on Victoria Fjord (where a huge subglacial meltwater plume was observed) and its interconnected Nordenskjöld Fjord and surrounding shelf areas; and (ii) glacial meltwater streams, creeks, and lakes in nearby catchments. Building on this unique sample set and relevant shipboard/auxiliary data, our project will combine traditional geochemical analyses with synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy, stable isotope analysis, and water-mass modeling, in order to:
- determine the spatial distribution of dissolved and acid-dissolvable particulate fractions of Fe, Mn, and P in the water column across the fjord-shelf systems in northern Greenland
- identify the dominant particulate phases of meltwater-derived Fe, Mn, and P, and how these phases are transformed down-fjord by abiotic and biotic processes
- assess how glacial meltwater and associated down-fjord fluxes of Fe, Mn, and P impact nutrient-acquisition and carbon fixation by primary producers, thereby affecting the biological carbon pump and carbon burial in northern Greenland’s fjord-shelf ecosystems
- construct a landscape-scale conceptual model delineating how subglacial meltwater discharge and associated biogeochemical processes will reshape the fjord-shelf ecosystems in northern Greenland with increasing Arctic warming
The results will provide new insights into how meltwater from northern Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers reshapes ecosystem productivity/structure and drive the sequestration and long-term storage of organic carbon in downstream fjords and coastal seas. The project will also contribute to global efforts to understand and protect marine ecosystems in the face of rapid climate change.
The project is part of the research in the research group Environmental Geochemistry, the Linnaeus University Centre for the Environment (CENWIN), and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Water.