Project may reveal effects of warming on environment, marine mammals

Water, ice and climate change are the focus of a scientific project that will see the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen wintering off Banks Island with 40 researchers on board.

Last week, their study of flaw leads – the huge cracks in Arctic ice that create open bodies of water every winter – received a total of $26.5 million from the federal government.

Understanding changes in this system of leads and polynyas, which stretches from Norway to Siberia, may reveal how global warming is affecting the environment as well as ice-loving Arctic marine mammals such as polar bears, seals, walrus and whales.

Throughout the winter, researchers will remain on board the Amundsen or at nearby ice camps to explore the leads and their connection to the ocean and atmosphere.

"No one in the planet has ever studied them in the winter before," said the project leader David Barber from the University of Manitoba.

The Amundsen 7,000-kilometre journey from one end of the Arctic to the other will also boost Canada's northern sovereignty, said Treasury Board president Vic Toews at the flaw lead project's launch last week in Winnipeg.

"It's not good enough anymore simply to rely on the Arctic Rangers to do all that work and establish a Canadian presence," Toews said. "I think it's very important that we establish not only a military presence, but other presence, like this scientific one."

The $40-million international project received $20.5 million of Canadian International Polar Year money, making it Canada's largest IPY -funded project.

Toews said the federal department of national defence would likely consider the project‘s findings when determining where to put a deep water naval base in the Arctic.

"If it's relevant to the construction of the deep water port, other departments will be looking at it," Toews said.

Scientists bound for Banks Island say they expect to find larger leads than previously recorded – and a variety of impacts from more water and less ice.

Based on changes already noted in that region, they say more areas of open water in winter may contribute to warmer air, changed wind patterns and altered water currents.

More leads may also create higher productivity in the water, which could help some marine life thrive.

But the larger expanses of open water could also result in more difficult conditions for ice-dependent polar bears, walrus and seals.

The leads may also absorb more contaminants, such as mercury.

For the flaw lead project, the Amundsen will carry researchers from Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States in 10 teams who will study everything from the water to the animal life. One team, led by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, will focus on traditional knowledge.

The findings will be discussed at the Circumarctic Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Conference to be held on the Amundsen in March 2008.

The project will also produce "Two Ways of Knowing," a coffee table photography book on the use of traditional Inuvialuit knowledge and science in the study.

From July 26 though to Aug. 16, researchers involved in a separate ArcticNet project on board the Amundsen will look at Hudson Bay, where the damming of rivers for power generation means more fresh water now enters the bay during the winter.

In mid-August, the Amundsen heads off to Nunavut for the Qanuipitali survey on the health of Inuit living in Nunavut, Nunatsiavut and the Inuvialuit region.

After completing the Qanuipitali survey, Amundsen sails to its wintering-over spot near Banks Island.