About
ARKTIS is an international research initiative studying how rapid environmental change is reshaping ecosystems and climate processes in the Central Arctic Ocean.
In the coming decades, the Central Arctic Ocean is expected to experience its first ice-free summers, leading to longer open-water seasons and enhanced exchanges between the ocean and atmosphere. How this transition from a predominantly ice-covered to a seasonally open ocean will affect Arctic ecosystems, climate processes, and biodiversity remains largely unknown.
These knowledge gaps persist because the Central Arctic Ocean is remote and difficult to access, and long-term, seasonal observations are extremely limited. This lack of data makes it challenging to predict future changes in climate, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem functioning.
The ARKTIS Flagship Initiative addresses this challenge by providing collaborative access to the Tara Polar Station, a unique drifting observatory designed for longitudinal year-round research in the Arctic Ocean. By bringing together an international network of experts, ARKTIS promotes interdisciplinary research across microbial ecology, atmospheric science, biodiversity, biogeochemistry, and sustainable robotics.
Through two consecutive transpolar drifts (TARA POLARIS I – 2026/2027 and TARA POLARIS II – 2028/2029), ARKTIS will generate an unprecedented multi-year dataset, establishing a critical baseline for understanding interactions at the ocean–ice–atmosphere interface. These insights will support improved predictive models, inform future research, and highlight the global importance of the Central Arctic Ocean.
The principal investigator of ARKTIS is Shinichi Sunagawa (ssunagawa@ethz.ch) and the programme coordinator is James O’Brien (jobrien@ethz.ch).
This project is a consortium effort between ETH Zürich, EPFL, Eawag and Empa.
