| Summary: | This study is part of ARCA (Arctic: present Climatic change and pAst extreme events) Project, an interdisciplinary project funded by the Italian Minister of Education and Research (MIUR), aiming to cross-different area and intervention to gain a wider overview on the climate change. The thesis concerns the analysis of a 6-year time series of particle fluxes in a small Arctic fjord of Svalbard (Kongsfjorden). Such information will be processed, and the data observed to date back to the sources. The nature of the particle supply allows us to understand the physical and biogeochemical dynamics of the inner fjord through which it will be possible to detect a potential correlation with the global change. To improve the knowledge about this extreme environment, a mooring array (Mooring Dirigibile Italia) and long-term sediment traps were installed in the inner bay, since 2010. A brief description of the study area and the framework of the thesis in terms of related research projects will be reported in Chapter 1, 2, 3. The methodologies for the preliminary treatment of the sediment trap samples and the processing of the dataset will be discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 will summarize the thesis structure, and the results will be showed and discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 in the form of two main topics: the major source of particles and the mesozooplankton abundance, respectively. Finally, chapter 8 will report a final discussion highlighting the concluding remarks emerged by this research. Chapter 6. The Arctic Kongsfjorden, as many Svalbard’s fjords, experienced the climate warming with the ice-free and the retreat of glacier front. These phenomena lead to an increase in sediment supply. Continuous investigations for a long time series data collection are fundamental to understand the meteorological, biogeochemical and thermohaline dynamics inside the fjord. In 2010, the National Research Council, Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR – ISMAR) installed Mooring Dirigibile Italia in the inner fjord. An automatic sediment ...
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