Cod in a cold climate – in pictures

Fish is Norway’s most valuable export, more so than its vast oil fields. Two-thirds of UK cod comes from the Barents Sea. As the climate changes and the sea grows warmer the fish move north, and so, too, do the fishermen


  • The Barents Sea is 500,000 sq miles of glacial ocean, bordered in the east by Russia and in the north by Svalbard and the Arctic ice shelf. That ice is retreating.
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    Fulmar gulls fly around the north tip of Prins Karls Forland island, West Svalbard, Norway


  • Knut Sunnanå is the chief scientist on board the RV Helmer Hanssen, a 63-metre converted prawn trawler, which is part laboratory, part university. He leads annual research expeditions to find out about Svalbard’s delicate ecosystems and the fish that rely on them.
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    Knut Sananna is the chief scientist leading annual research expeditions to find out about Svalbard’s delicate ecosystems


  • Good fisheries management relies on solid data and there is no substitute for sampling. Norway’s Institute of Marine Research uses test trawls to examine the Barents Sea each year.
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    Good fisheries management relies on solid data and there’s no substitute for sampling. Norway’s Institute of Marine Research uses test trawls a fraction the size of their commercial cousins to examine the Barents Sea each year.


  • Below deck, the catch is examined in microscopic detail, recorded and sorted – from giant cod to hermit crabs, starfish to tiny plankton. Arctic food webs are small, the relationships between species are tight. Plankton underpins everything. “Plankton scientists will tell you their subject isn’t sexy like whales and sharks, but it’s the most important,” says Sunnanå.
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    Students sift through fish and marine species bought up by a bottom trawl on the Helmer Hanssen Research ship. Svalbard, Norway.


  • Each trawl is followed by the CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth) device, which, as it sinks, samples the water, testing salinity, temperature, pH and CO2. These last two are important for zooplankton. Too much CO2 or too acid a pH and these creatures will be in trouble.
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    CTD measures salinity, temperature and acidity and life at regular intervals, looking for changes. Barents sea water has a different salinity to atlantic water.


  • By testing ocean salinity and temperature Sunnanå’s team can see where the water has come from. The Atlantic current, also known as the Gulf stream, used to flow to the west of Svalbard at a rate of 11.5m tonnes of water every second, but the Arctic is changing. Now the stream splits, running to the east, with warm Atlantic waters appearing in the Svalbard fjords. “We’re seeing mackerel for the first time … and the return of blue shell mussels – a species that hasn’t grown here for 2,000 years,” says Sunnanå.
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    Students sift through fish and marine species bought up by a bottom trawl on the Helmer Hanssen Research ship. Svalbard, Norway.


  • The currents that melt the ice are also bringing Atlantic plankton further north. The plankton have a third the fat content of their Arctic cousins, which is bad news for Arctic fulmars. The birds are smaller and breed later than before.
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    And with the warm water come plankton. The Atlantic zooplankton moving northwards with the warm water have far less fat than their northern cousins.


  • Atlantic cod also eat Atlantic plankton – and these fish are increasingly found further and further north.
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    Barents sea cod


  • While warming seas and Atlantic plankton spell trouble for seabirds, it is good news for Atlantic cod. These fish, beloved by Britons for our fish and chips, are thriving in the Barents Sea with 80cm to metre-long specimens now commonplace.
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    A glacier melting into the Kongsfjorden bay outside Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard


  • Norway’s fishing fleet catch some of the world’s best sustainable cod and supply the UK with more than 40,000 tonnes a year. Norwegian fisheries are well-regulated, something that helped the Barents Sea cod and haddock to win MSC certification five years ago. Each batch of fish comes with a certificate showing where it was caught and those certificates show a trend.
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    Those cod, in turn, are followed by Norway’s fishing fleet, catching some of the world’s best sustainable cod and supplying the UK with over 40,000 tonnes a year for our fish and chip shops and supermarkets.


  • While there’s evidence of occasional trawling north of Svalbard as early as the 1970s, it’s becoming increasingly common as warmer winters mean less ice and more fish.
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    While there’s evidence of occasional trawling north of Svalbard as early as the 1970s, it’s becoming increasingly common as warmer winters mean less ice and more fish.


  • A glacier calves into Kongsfjorden bay outside Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard.
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    A glacier calving into Kongsfjorden bay outside Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard.


  • Good fisheries management can only work with good will and effective enforcement.
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    Good fisheries management can only work with good will and effective enforcement. The Norwegian coastguard is the pride of the Norwegian Navy.


  • The coastguard carries out thousands of at-sea inspections of fishing boats every year – Norwegian, Russian, Spanish. Every boat gets boarded and inspected at least once a year.
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    The coastguard carries out thousands of at-sea inspections of fishing boats every year, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish. Every boat gets boarded and inspected at least once a year.


  • Fisheries inspection officers from the Norwegian coastguard (Kystvakten) carry out an inspection on a shrimp trawler in Svalbard, Norway.
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    Fisheries inspection officers from the Norwegian Coastguard (Kystvakten) carrying out a fisheries inspection on a shrimp trawler in Svalbard, Norway.


  • Fish is Norway’s most valuable export, more so than its vast oil fields. “With that importance comes responsibility,” says Jack-Robert Møller from the Norwegian Seafood Council. “We need to protect fishing as a viable industry for the future. That means looking after the fish stocks, looking after the fishermen and looking after the environment.”
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    Jack-Robert Moller - UK director of Norwegian Sea Food Council.


  • Kongsfjorden bay outside Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway.
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    Kongsfjorden bay outside Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard.