Dispatches...


Stories from the CFL at the top of the world...

Chronicle of a (not so) old scientist...

April, 12 - 2008

Untitled-1
Back in the Arctic again! This CFL cruise will be my 14th arctic expedition totaling 484 days in the field. I started my career in 1982 for Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute on the ice of Hudson Bay. I was working on the spreading of freshwater plumes under the sea ice. Back in that time, the instruments and techniques were less sophisticated but basically, we were relying on the same approach, drilling holes through the ice to access precious information about the underwater world. My work then consisted in hopping into a helicopter, stopping at selected stations, drilling a hole with an auger and making measurements of salinity and temperature down to the bottom. Since then, I developed an expertise in remote sensing that had me work on tracking drifting ice floes to measure surface circulation, measuring ice ridges distribution using radar images and determining the factors contributing to fast ice consolidation in Hudson Bay.

My northern odyssey went slower for a while during the late 80’s and early 90’s due to lack of funding and interest for the North until large multidisciplinary projects were put in place to study the challenging climate change impacts in the Arctic. This took me on the NOW project to study northern Baffin Bay and the North water polynya, CASES to study the Cape Bathurst polynya and the effect of the Mackenzie river on the Beaufort shelf and presently on the CFL project to study the springtime phytoplankton blooms in flaw leads.

Since the NOW project, my work focuses on the remote sensing of phytoplankton, these tiny cells that form the first level of the marine food chain. Using sophisticated equipment, I measure light interactions with suspended (including phytoplankton) and dissolved matter. By doing this, we will be able to validate and modify algorithms used to evaluate phytoplankton biomass from space and relate its distribution to the physical environment. Of course, I don’t work alone on these projects. I have the chance to supervise young scientists that are at the start of their career.

What do I retain from all these years of work in the North? The pure joy of walking on the frozen ocean, answering the many challenges of a harsh environment, and incredible sceneries. But, more important and way above all the others, the many friendships developed over these years. I will always treasure the personal relations I made during the various cruises as I met marvelous people.

Do I still have dreams? Of course I do. The North Pole is still on my list of must go places and I would like to taste the other polar environment of the Earth, the Antarctic. I still have a few years to fulfill these dreams.

So watch out you young scientists onboard the Amundsen. The North is addictive. Once you tasted it, you don’t know where your own odyssey will bring you but you can be sure it will change you forever.
|