06 - IO PAN

IOPAN was established in 1951 and with nearly 200 employees (with 31 professors in the staff) is the largest marine research institute in Poland. Its mission is focussed on basic marine research. One of the IOPAN strategic directions is to study the role of oceans in the climate change and its effects on European seas. The main areas of IOPAN research activity are the European Arctic Seas and the Baltic Sea. IOPAN is divided into five departments (Physical Oceanography, Marine Chemistry, Marine Physics, Marine Ecology, Genetics and Marine Biotechnology) with extensive expertise both in collecting and analysis of environmental observations, and running state-of-the-art numerical models. IOPAN operates its own research vessel, Oceania, well suited for longer expeditions and multidisciplinary measurements in the subpolar areas. Since 1987 IOPAS has conducted extensive field campaigns, each summer covering the eastern regions of the Nordic Seas, Fram Strait, west Spitsbergen fjords and the open water area north of Svalbard. For year-round observations IOPAN maintains arrays of oceanographic moorings in Fram Strait and northeast of Svalbard. The institute is strongly involved in international collaboration, and multidisciplinary research activities and field campaigns have been carried out in the frames of numerous national and international projects.

Role in the project

In INTAROS IOPAN is mainly involved in WP3 (as a co-leader) with several activities focused on filling the gaps in the ocean observing system by integration of new technology into with existing infrastructure. IOPAN will be responsible for deployment of the novel Ice-tethered Platforms (ITPs) with CTD/O2 and biooptical sensors (potentially also ocean current sensor), which in combination with Sea Ice Mass Balance Buoys will establish the Ice Based Observatories (IBOs). IOPAN will also contribute to WP3 with moorings north of Svalbard (equipped with profiling instrumentation, MMPs and ADCPs, and new BGC sensors), autonomous measurements at the ocean-glacier interface in Svalbard fjords and Lagrangian measurements with Arctic Argo floats.  Data collected by IOPAN during field campaigns will be processed under WP3 and delivered to WP5 to integrated with other data sets and to WP6 for demonstration cases. IOPAN will also contribute to WP2 with existing data streams from on-going observations (repeated hydrography and mooring data from the Nordic Seas, Fram Strait and Svalbard fjords). IOPAN will also be involved in WP1 with evaluation of the existing and future new technologies for ocean observations for the purpose of the future sustained iAOS in INTAROS.