Trondheim: We had arranged a meeting with the Norwegian Research Foundation for Applied Research SINTEF on 22 August. The contact had already been established through colleagues from the Ocean Decade and GMT:

Firstly, some members of the crew attended a lecture event on the use of small plankton organisms to produce fish feed for Norwegian aquaculture. The Norwegian salmon industry has a huge demand for fish feed, which is still largely met from fishmeal. A SINTEF working group is investigating the utilisation of small plankton crustaceans (Calanus finmarchicus) up to 3 mm in size, which can be used as an alternative to fishmeal as a feed source for salmon farming. To this end, various scientists are analysing the development of Calanus stocks using computer models and developing special nets to enable these small animals to be fished efficiently. The fishing quotas are limited to 3% of the Calanus stock, which is intended to prevent negative effects on the ecosystem.

We then visited the aquaculture laboratories, where other SINTEF working groups are working on the cultivation of macroalgae such as sugar kelp or the extraction of valuable substances from microalgae.

Following the lab tour, we presented our mission with the Ocean Change Expedition 2024 and the importance of using non-scientific ships (so-called Ships of Opportunity) to improve ocean observation. Our Norwegian colleagues from the SINTEF Ocean Lab then introduced us to the development of a ‘digital twin’ in the Trondheim Fjord. This digitally merges observation data and models in order to describe the state of the sea area and predict changes. While SINTEF colleagues inspected the ‘Dagmar Aaen’, three crew members travelled in an open boat to the large measuring buoy in the Strindfjorden.

As part of the European joint project Climarest, SINTEF is involved in investigating and sensitising the population and tourists to the issue of environmental pollution in Svalbard.

All in all, it was a day of intensive exchange, which could potentially lead to joint projects between SINTEF and German marine research centres and possibly an internship.