Unlocking Arctic secrets
Modern-day scientists and researchers are this century's polar explorers
A Canadian-led research campaign looks for clue
PETER CALAMAI
SCIENCE WRITER
CAMP ANGAGUK, N.W.T.—One small piece at a time, the Canadian Arctic is reluctantly yielding its secrets to the country's most ambitious mission of polar scientific research.An even bigger challenge lies ahead at the end of the seven-year campaign, which combines two separate programs (see graphic at bottom).The scientists must fit these individual pieces together into a comprehensive picture of the Arctic environment, from the tiniest marine creatures up to large-scale atmospheric patterns, and then project how all this will be affected by climate change.The $66 million effort will involve close to 100 experts from several countries using the full arsenal of modern science, including satellite images and an icebreaker enhanced with a dozen laboratories.Yet, one day recently at this remote site on the frozen surface of Franklin Bay, the chief tools for members of a research team from Quebec's Laval University were hand ice choppers, oversize tongs and thick-toothed saws that stood taller than they did.The three men and two women had to cut and bash two large holes through ice more than two metres thick. It was hard, physical work, sweaty enough that parkas were stripped off even with the thermometer at minus 25C and a wan sun. The reward for a day's hard labour was several jars of tiny marine creatures whose precise role in the Arctic's complex web of life will be clear only after months of more sampling and intricate laboratory analysis."People keep asking what discoveries we've made so far," says Louis Fortier, leader of the Laval team and chief scientist for this leg of the Arctic research mission. "That's not how science works. We make small advances that add up." Centrepiece of that mission is the CCGS Amundsen, a Coast Guard icebreaker that provides a base for a changing cast of more than 40 senior researchers, graduate students and laboratory technicians. After steaming around the Arctic for three months last year to carry out experiments, the vessel was deliberately frozen into the ice of Franklin Bay in November.This tactic let scientists make the first-ever measurements of dozens of little-understood chemical and biological processes during the dark winter months. Even more important, it meant researchers were on the spot with all their specialized apparatus when the first rays of the spring sun stirred those processes.With that spring transformation in mind, in January an advance party from Laval set up Camp Angaguk, a half-hour's snowmobile ride from the ship. The site was chosen because the Horton River empties into the bay just a few kilometres away, so measurements here could track the influence of fresh water and river sediments.No early polar adventurer would have bothered with this site but scientists are this century's Arctic explorers, trying to understand what makes the unique polar environment tick. Yet, even as they work, climate change is transforming the very processes they're studying, as Tim Papakyriakou knows all too well.A University of Manitoba professor, Papakyriakou is a micrometeorologist. He measures the smallest zephyrs of wind to discover what gases are moving between the atmosphere and the Earth's surface. In the Arctic Ocean, that surface is capped by ice and snow for more than half the year. And something odd seems to be happening with that ice."The way I understand it right now, it's a game of catch between the ice surface and the atmosphere. They're throwing carbon dioxide back and forth," Papakyriakou says.This still speculative game of catch could prove crucial in projecting how climate change will affect the Arctic, since carbon dioxide is the dominant gas in greenhouse warming. Papakyriakou's preliminary results suggest that when tiny brine channels form inside the warming spring ice, carbon dioxide is drawn down out of the air."That means a very large piece of real estate might have to be factored into the global carbon dioxide balance. The portion of the whole Arctic that's covered in seasonal ice is the size of Canada," he says.
`... it's a game of catch between the ice surface and the atmosphere. They're throwing carbon dioxide back and forth' Tim Papakyriakou, micrometeorologist
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What also isn't clear yet is what happens to that carbon dioxide. It could simply leak back into the atmosphere, or it might wind up in carbohydrates after photosynthesis by plankton. The plankton, in turn, are eaten by other marine creatures whose sinking corpses carry that carbon to the bottom.If confirmed, this complex chain of events means big revisions to existing climate change models that assume not much happens when oceans are ice-covered.That's a big if, involving many other pieces of the Arctic ecological puzzle. Investigating one of those pieces is what has Andrea Riedel busy in one of the Amundsen's cramped labs before 5 o'clock some mornings. A Manitoba native, Riedel is probing the biological processes inside the Arctic ice for her Ph.D. thesis from the University of Quebec at Rimouski. One crucial question, the amount of ammonium produced by certain algae, requires measurements every six hours over a 24-hour period. "Ammonium contains nitrogen, which can be the key nutrient in the ocean here, like phosphates in fresh water. So, understanding the nitrogen balance is vital," Riedel says. And it's not all warm lab work, either. One sunny day earlier this month, Riedel and seven others snowmobiled to a sampling site a kilometre away from the icebreaker to collect three dozen ice cores.Repeatedly lifting the gas-powered ice augers above their heads to clear the holes, the team members drilled almost all the way through the two-metre-thick ice. The final 35 centimetres, however, was finished by hand with devices that worked like giant apple corers.Yanking the ice cylinder out of this corer, Riedel would trot in a crouch, shielding the bottom of the ice from the sun. The yellow-brown stain on the bottom was ice algae, a mixture of creatures called diatoms and flagellates. The algae are so well adapted to living on the weak light that filters through the ice and snow that a stray ray of direct sun causes them to literally implode, and dead algae are of no use in Riedel's experiments.Michel Gosselin, Riedel's supervisor from the Marine Sciences Centre at Rimouski, has been investigating ice biota, the microscopic organisms that live in sea ice, for more than two decades, starting with an environmental impact study for Quebec's abortive Great Whale River hydroelectric project."Normally, we only get to focus on what happens in a few weeks in April, May or June. This opportunity to study the composition of biota from mid-February up until the end of June is unique," he says.Gosselin also has two other Ph.D. students on the Amundsen's current mission, an indication of the priority for training the next generation of Arctic researchers.Magdalena Rozanska, from Poland, is tracking how the ice algae species change over time. Thomas Juul-Pedersen, from Denmark, measures how fast dead organisms and their waste products sink beneath the ice to a depth of 50 metres. In labs wedged into every corner of the Amundsen and at different sampling sites out on the ice, yet more researchers try to understand equally key pieces of the Arctic web of life.Some sieve through buckets of mud brought out from the ocean floor. Others peer through microscopes to identify micro-organisms. Still others interpret patterns traced by a sophisticated echo sounder on a computer display. Two young men from the University of Manitoba operate two unique microwave radar devices worth $250,000 apiece.One especially fortunate researcher, however, gets to see nature's abstract beauty as part of his scientific study.Jens Ehn, a native of Finland studying at the University of Manitoba, is investigating how the optical properties of sea ice change as the Arctic warms, a key factor in deciding how much sunlight passes through to fuel photosynthesis in algae and plankton. To check the size and nature of the ice crystals, Ehn shaves thin slices from ice cores and examines them through polarizing filters.What he sees resembles a close-up view of a painting by a French impressionist, the entire spectrum of colours in a riot of irregular blotches that could pass as dabs from a paint brush.It's never been a secret, however, that the Arctic harbours much that is beautiful among its many, continuing mysteries.Additional articles by Peter Calamai
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