Establishing the Atlantic-Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory (A-DBO)

NEWS

Thank you for showing interest and getting involved in shaping a strong A-DBO and pan-Arctic DBO framework!

📢 Our annual A-DBO meeting is taking place 10–11 December 2025 in Tromsø, Norway. We work to boost collaboration within the Atlantic-Arctic domain, across biological, chemical, physical marine observing or modelling efforts. The focus of our 2-day program is to share recent findings and plans ahead. See the agenda outline under 'Upcoming events', or catch the detailed agenda as pdf (updated). 


BACKGROUND

During 2022–2025, Arctic PASSION provides the means for increased coordination capabilities to establish the Atlantic-Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory (A-DBO) network and the common practices for sampling, analysis and data sharing. The establishment process is open to scientists and institutions with interest to collaborate in this region, as well as to end-users who will benefit from results from the A-DBO. This webpage serves as our main hub of information during the pilot implementation phase. From here you will be able to find contact info, access common documents, and get the latest information about our events. The opportunities for getting involved are listed in 'Upcoming Events' below.

The A-DBO is envisioned as a comprehensive marine observing network for climate and environment in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean – one of the key gateway areas of the Arctic, currently experiencing rapid environmental, climate and ecosystem changes. Together with the pioneering observatory in the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean (DBO), and developing DBOs in Davis Strait/Baffin Bay and the Siberian seas, the Atlantic DBO contributes to the pan-Arctic network of DBOs (PAN-DBO).

The current four Distributed Biological Observatories overlaid on a bathymetric map of the Arctic Ocean.
Coloured dots indicate key sites (standard stations) while bounding boxes outline hot spots (focal areas) of each DBO.


The fundamental motivation for the DBO sampling concept is to work across disciplines in dedicated geographical areas toward better integrated and available observations. The DBOs are shaped to:

  • Cover key ocean phenomena and processes under rapid change
  • Bring together all disciplines needed to understand the marine ecosystem functioning
  • Increase the data coverage within the focal areas
  • Utilize common, harmonized procedures for data sampling and sharing
  • Facilitate both dedicated (long-term) and opportunistic sampling
  • Encourage technological development for improved multidisciplinary coupling
  • Be sustainable and overarch shorter observational efforts

The implementation work is carried through based on the DBO annual cycle with seasonal activities:

The DBO annual cycle. The regional community meetings take place in autumn,
while the main event for the pan-Arctic scope is the joint workshop at the annual Arctic Science Summit Week in spring.


FURTHER READING


A-DBO PLANNING AND REPORTING TOOLS

In our A-DBO Cruise Package you will find our current information on cruise plans for the region, the positions for the A-DBO key sampling sites and a template of the metadata file to be used for reporting back your observations.

The metadata sheet is established as our common living document on data availability to be shared rather swiftly after each field season. We welcome any parameters describing biological, chemical, or physical sea-ice, water-column or seabed properties (these can be selected from a given list, or added manually). Please note that the framework for collaborations extend geographically beyond the pronounced key sites, and is open to all actors within our region who identify an added value to or from our observational network. The metadata reports are currently sent to us, or brought to the A-DBO fall meetings. Please contact us for further information.

For improved comparability of data, and methodological agreement between various research groups, the A-DBO will work to formalize its best practices for sampling and analysis of our observations. For now, we warmly recommend the extensive collection of protocols by The Nansen Legacy project (https://doi.org/10.7557/nlrs.6684).


UPCOMING EVENTS

  • A-DBO 2025 Autumn meeting: 10 – 11 December 2025, Tromsø, Norway
    The autumn meetings are an opportunity to present summaries from your latest marine observations and share observation-related plans onward to explore possible synergies. We welcome presentations of biological, chemical, physical marine observations within the Atlantic-Arctic sector with focus on activities in 2022-2025. We are also eager to hear more on modelling aspects to improve the obs-model interactions within our region. Download the full meeting agenda, and register for online participation until 8 December!


PAST ACTIVITIES

  • ASSW 2025 – 3rd Community meeting for the pan-Arctic network of DBOs
    23 March 2025, Boulder, Colorado, USA
    The four DBO:s organized a joint, full-day DBO community meeting at ASSW2025, for overviews of the 2024 activities and for evolving common aims and initiatives ahead. For further info see the meeting description and agenda.

  • A-DBO 2024 Autumn meeting
    10 – 12 December 2024, Bremen, Germany
    We were inspired of a long list of talks setting the 2024 perspectives for our Arctic sector, see the agenda. We also dedicated time to discuss what A-DBO is and is not, and how it should evolve onward: In what aspects do we wish, and are able, to harmonize our practices to strengthen our scientific outcomes? Both the scientific and organizational aspects conveyed through this meeting will be brought to the pan-Arctic scope, and our community meeting at ASSW2025.

  • ASSW 2024 – 2nd Community meeting for the pan-Arctic network of DBOs
    21 March 2024, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
    Our second pan-Arctic DBO community meeting at ASSW2024, with presentations of the 2023 sampling activities and discussions about common aims and initiatives ahead, see the agenda.

  • A-DBO 2023 Autumn meeting
    28 – 30 November 2023, Sopot, Poland
    The main objective for this annual meeting was to give our members the opportunity to share experiences and outcomes of their 2023 activities and to summarize the observed status for the A-DBO sector. We also looked at the sampling plans for 2024 and discussed how to collectively strengthen our work onward – in terms of results, sampling plans, and common routines. As a tangible output from the meeting, we work on an overview of the 2023 conditions in the Fram Strait. This scope was agreed upon since several the harsh ice conditions north of Svalbard in early summer brought several cruises to this region, leading to a monthly coverage of some parameters between May and September. The overview was first presented at the all-DBO community meeting at ASSW2024 in Edinburgh, UK. For more information, see the agenda and meeting summary.

  • ASSW 2023 Joint DBO Sessions
    17 – 24 February 2023, Vienna, Austria
    The Pacific, Davis Strait and Atlantic DBOs jointly organized two sessions at the Arctic Science Summit Week 2023, in both the community and science parts of the conference:
  • A-DBO 2022 Autumn Meeting
    31 October – 1 November 2022, Bergen, Norway
    The first A-DBO dedicated meeting was held with focus on defining the fundamental spatio-temporal characteristics of the A-DBO and the associated core parameters to sample. We also took the opportunity to share news about our recent sampling activities and about our planned cruise activities. For more information, see the agenda and meeting minutes.

  • ASSW 2022 - Session on Establishing the Distributed Biological Observatory system in the Atlantic Sector of the Arctic Ocean
    27 March 2022, Tromsø, Norway
    In this workshop we initiated the process to implement a comprehensive marine observing system for climate and environment in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean. Inspired by the Pacific DBO system and based on existing long term observational programmes on the Atlantic side, discussions were initiated about priorities for sampling locations, variables, and methods as well as means of collaboration. A steering group was established to support the work of the executive team. For a summary of the workshop, see the meeting minutes.

CONTACTS

  • Executive team: Arild Sundfjord (NPI), Marit Reigstad and Anna Nikolopoulos (UiT).
  • Steering group: Agnieszka Beszczyńska-Möller (IOPAN), Michael Karcher (AWI), Monika Kedra (IOPAN), Angelika Renner (IMR), Mikael Sejr (AU), Thomas Soltwedel (AWI), and Laura de Steur (NPI).

  • Email: AtlanticDBO[at]npolar.no