I was told (by our outreach expert) to introduce myself to you… so here we go! You already know the basics – my name is Elin and I am an oceanographer. I live in Bergen, Norway where I moved from the flat southern Sweden as a student a long time ago. I quickly fell in love with the mountains, bought a pair of rubber boots and learnt to live with the (eternal) rain… and just before the summer, I (finally) got a permanent position as an associate professor at the University of Bergen, so I guess I’ll keep wearing those rubber boots for a while.
I went to Svalbard and UNIS at 78N as a student, and science wise I never really left the high latitudes. Snow, ice and cold water are so fascinating, so interesting and so beautiful! I now work mostly in Antarctica – which, for a sea-going oceanographer means that you every now and then disappear many weeks (or even months) at a time. That is not always easy when you’ve got two young daughters at home. Last time when I was about to go south, Sara wondered why I didn’t just put my instrument in the ocean next to our summerhouse – “There’s plenty of water there too!”
Antarctica is far away – but it is plays a key role in our climate system and we know so little about what happens there and about how it all fits together. There are so many exciting and important questions to answer! This time however, we will try to answer a few of them from Grenoble, a little bit closer to home.
