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Paper Short Abstract:

Based on fieldwork with the biologists of the Forsmark Biotest Basin in Sweden, located next to the country’s largest nuclear power plant, this paper asks what are the reflexive moments of doubt and concern of the researchers in the process of producing scientific facts on warming oceans?

Paper Abstract:

The Forsmark biotest basin is an enclosed, artificial lake on Sweden’s eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is directly fed by the discharged water that cools the reactors of the Forsmark nuclear power plant. This creates a unique environment where the water temperature is always higher than in the surroundings. The biotest basin was completed in 1980 simultaneously with the nuclear power plant, Sweden’s largest of this kind, and was initially meant to study the potential effects of radioactivity on aquatic life through regular monitoring of wildlife, especially fish populations. During the 2000’s the main research purpose was changed, focusing on research related to the response of aquatic life to ocean warming in the context of climate change. This results in over four decades of research output from the site, based on the effects of warmer, and potentially contaminated water from the nearby nuclear power plant.

The paper is a rich ethnography of research practices on site, following the tradition of ‘laboratory studies’. However, the laboratory here is industrialized nature, and, more specifically, water. The specific question I am looking at is what are the reflexive moments of doubt and concern of the researchers in the process of producing scientific facts on warming oceans? The paper is based on participant observation of several months of controlled fishing, where the fish in the basin are numbered, sampled, and fished for research, coupled with on-site interviews with the biologists doing this work and the published research outputs.