Current Projects
Canada Excellence Research Chairs
CERC, funded by the Government of Canada, is a program to support ambitious research programs at Canadian universities, making our country a global leader in research and innovation. The program began in May 2010, and Søren Rysgaard, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Arctic Geomicrobiology and Climate Change, joined CEOS in spring 2011. Visit the CERC website.
SERF: Sea-ice Environmental Research Facility
Click here to read about the SERF project.
IPY-CFL: International Polar Year - Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study
Click here to read about the IPY-CFL project.
ArcticNet
Based out of Université Laval, ArcticNet brings together scientists, northern communities, government agencies, and private industries in a series of ongoing research phases. This research examines the impacts of climate change on Canada's coastal Arctic, a body of knowledge that will be crucial in the development of climate change adaptation strategies and national policies. ArcticNet also uses the CCGS Amundsen for field work, and emphasizes the importance of exchanging knowledge with Inuit communities and training the next generation of Arctic scientists. Visit the ArcticNet website.
Arctic-ICE: Arctic Marine Ice-associated Ecosystems in a Changing Enviroment
The connection of the ice-covered marine system to the warming Arctic environment is readily apparent, but the extent of these changes and future changes on the ecosystem and associated climate feedback processes are not well understood. Landfast research near Resolute Bay, NU, will consider the following:
- changes to bottom-ice transmitted irradiance associated with changes to snow depth, ice thickness and timing of melt onset;
- changes in nutrient supply associated with changes to water mass characteristics and distribution;
- relative contribution of ice algae and under-ice phytoplankton to total primary production;
- timing of ice algae release into the water column;
- role of biological processes on air-sea ice-ocean exchanges of climate active gases.
It is hypothesized that the timing of primary production will dictate the extent of ice-pelagic-benthic coupling in the ice-covered ecosystem and therefore will provide a sensitive indicator of directional change for the system as a whole. The underlying objective of this project will be to determine the physical-biological processes controlling the timing of primary production and their influence on the drawdown/release of climatically active gases. Visit the ARCTIC-ICE website.
The Manitoba Great Lakes Project
Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg form an important triumvirate in terms of water resources for the province of Manitoba. This project examines water quality issues which give rise to eutrophication in the great lakes and the downstream effects of this water quality of marine processes in Hudson Bay, particularly through the Churchill-Nelson River diversion. Sampling is done on tributaries of the various rivers emptying into these lakes, autonomous monitoring of water quality variables through the open water season, and satellite remote sensing of water leaving radiances as a means of estimating the temporal and spatial variability in biotic and abiotic elements of these lakes.
Past Projects
STAR: Storm Studies in the Arctic
STAR was a collaborative research project that aimed to improve our understanding of Arctic storms, our knowledge of their hazards, and our ability to predict them. Field work was based out of Iqaluit, Nunavut and took place during the winter of 2007-08. STAR hopes to leave behind comprehensive datasets and new techniques that can be used by the scientific community for years to come. Visit the STAR website.
DRI: Drought Research Initiative
From 1999 to 2004/05, the Canadian Prairies experienced a severe drought. DRI was subsequently created as
a research network for coordinating and integrating drought research in Canada. By studying this recent drought,
DRI hopes to better understand the features, processes and feedbacks of drought formation in the Canadian Prairies,
and to improve our ability to predict them.
Visit the DRI website.
NOW: North Water Polynya
Between the Canadian islands of Ellesmere and Devon and the coast of Greenland lies a vast expanse of ice-free sea: a polynya. It is known as the North Water, and the heat coming off the ocean makes it one of the most productive ecosystems north of the Arctic Circle. Organisms as diverse as birds, mammals, and plankton take advantage of this microclimate for feeding, spawning, mating, and overwintering. However, until recently, the North Water was poorly understood. Therefore, NOW was created, an international research project to study and model the polynya. The research paid particular attention to the climatic and oceanographic processes that led to the North Water's formation, the biological production it supports, and its potential fate as climate change continues.
CASES: Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study
30% of the Arctic basin is made up of shallow coastal shelf regions. These are the areas in which the extent, thickness,
and duration of sea ice is most variable, and where food webs are most vulnerable. Until recently, they were also areas
that lacked sufficient data and understanding. In 2001, CASES, an international project run by Canadians, was created
in hopes to better understand sea ice variability and change on the Mackenzie Shelf, and the subsequent ecological and
biogeochemical consequences.
Visit the CASES website.
C-ICE: Collaborative Interdisciplinary Cryospheric Experiment
In the 1990s, the effects of climate change were not yet obvious in the Arctic, but they were expected to begin at any time. C-ICE was created as a field program to collect accurate, precise, long-term data so that any changes in sea ice, snow cover, climate, or Arctic ecosystems could be detected.
Manitoba Agriculture
Manitoba Agriculture was a joint project between CEOS, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Canadian Space Agency, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, and Westco. It examined crop variables such as soil fertility, topography, soil chemistry, and microwave backscatter, as well as their effects on crop yields.
Brazil
From 1996-2003, CEOS collaborated with Natural Resources Canada's GlobeSAR-2 Program to assess drought in northeastern Brazil, particularly how SAR radar and optical wavelength data could be integrated to better identify salt-affected soil.
Indonesia Land Use Change
This joint project between CEOS and the Center for International Forestry Research researched temporal changes in Indonesian land-cover while establishing a classification protocol for Historic LandSat imagery and assessing the benefit of RadarSat imagery in this protocol.
Lake Malawi/Nyasa Biodiversity Conservation Project
CEOS, together with the Freshwater Institute of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, prepared a water quality report and biotic risk assessment for Lake Malawi, used GIS modelling to map biodiversity levels, and trained graduate students from the surrounding countries in aquatic sciences.