
Sea ice Environmental Research Facility

SERF is the first experimental sea-ice facility in Canada
Located on the campus of the University of Manitoba, the main feature of the SERF facility is an outdoor seawater pool (60 feet long, 30 feet wide and 8 feet deep). It is equipped with a movable roof to control snow cover and ice growth, and various sensors and instruments to allow real-time monitoring. The SERF facility also includes a trailer laboratory and a storage building.
By fabricating and growing sea ice under various controlled conditions, mesocosm-scale studies will be carried out at SERF to enhance our fundamental understanding of how sea ice forms and melts on polar oceans, and to gain insight into the processes that regulate the exchange of energy and matter between the ocean and atmosphere. Along with the concurrent field studies, experimental studies at SERF will improve our ability to predict the impact of the rapid sea-ice loss on the marine ecosystem, on Arctic and global climates, on transport and biogeochemical cycles of greenhouse gases and contaminants, and on the human use of sea ice.
Research Projects
Scientific objectives
Experiments are guided by two core scientific objectives:
- To grow sea ice under controlled conditions and with various tracers for the study of its growth, properties, and roles in biogeochemical cycling of contaminants and greenhouse gases
- To integrate such process-oriented mesocosm-scale studies with field-based studies in support of modeling and scaling initiatives to better understand and predict the sea ice environment under a changing climate
Instrumentation and sensors
- Meteorological sensors at various heights (e.g T, P, RH, wind speed/direction, PAR)
- L- and C-band polarimetric scatterometers and LiDAR
- Real-time and high resolution T, S, SO, pCO2 sensors across ocean-sea ice-atmosphere interface
- Real-time measurements of tropospheric mercury speciation (GEM, RGM, and HgP)
- On-site trailer laboratory for pH, alkalinity, DIC, DOC, TC/TN measurements
- On-campus laboratories with cold rooms, Class 100 clean rooms, LA/LC-ICP-MS, CVAFS, LC/GC, XRD, and SEM, among many other instruments and field equipment
Principal Investigators
- Dr. Fei Wang
- Dr. David Barber
- Dr. Tim Papakyriakou
- Dr. Søren Rysgaard
- Dr. Gary Stern
- Dr. Dustin Isleifson
Funding and support
SERF is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Manitoba Research and Innovation Fund, the University of Manitoba, ArcticNet and the Canada Excellence Research Chair Program. Projects are led by Drs. Fei Wang, Tim Papakyriakou, David Barber, and Soren Rysgaard.




Contact Us
Centre for Earth Observation Science
#30 Service Road 2 S.W.
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M6 Canada