An ocean of information

Jennifer Jackson sets sail to investigate rising temperatures

When most people go on a cruise, their destination is a warm beach on a tropical island, not a frigid ocean partially covered with sheets of ice.

But when Jennifer Jackson boarded the Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent in 2006 and 2007, she didn't have a vacation in mind. She was gathering information about the Arctic Ocean, one of the least-understood bodies of water in the world.

Jennifer is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia studying something called the Near Surface Temperature Maximum (NSTM for short), a 20-metre thick layer of water that covers a large section of the Arctic Ocean. The best way to study the NSTM is to get out on the open water.

Understanding the ocean

"It's such a fascinating area. We don't know very much about it," says Jennifer, "so it's almost pure science, where we can just go out and explore and see what we come up with."

The near surface waters make up a very complicated system that involves everything from ocean currents to the air above the water. While the relationship between surface waters and the atmosphere has been studied in other oceans, things are different in the Arctic.

"In the Arctic, you add another component," says Jennifer, "and that's how the atmosphere, the ocean, and the ice interact."

What she found is that the surface waters of the Arctic are becoming warmer and less salty. When the sea ice melts in the summer, it leaves a cap of fresh water on the surface of the ocean that traps the sun's heat. Normally, this heat is released before winter. But Jennifer found the heat is now being stored all year round. This could mean the ice that reforms in the winter is thinner than it should be.

Not only does thin ice affect the habitat of animals like whales and polar bears, but it also poses a threat to people in the area who travel or hunt on the ice sheet.

So why is this change happening? Jennifer thinks it has to do with global warming. "It's the only thing that can explain how things have warmed so quickly and why the ice has melted so quickly."

A scientific adventure

In 2007, Jennifer took her second trip to the Arctic, spending five weeks aboard the Louis S. St-Laurent with some 25 other scientists working on various projects. Her team visited around 50 open water data stations. To collect information, they lowered a device called a 'rosette' into the ocean. The rosette is basically a group of bottles that collect water and sensors that measure temperature, clarity and other conditions. In some places, the water was so deep it took more than two hours to get the rosette all the way to the bottom.

While on the icebreaker, Jennifer jumped at the chance to help other scientists with their work.

"There were quite a few people working on the ice, and they would often take helpers," she says. "I got to be a helper quite a few times, so that was really fun." She even had a picnic on the open ice. "It was amazing, knowing there's nothing between you and the bottom of the ocean except this thin little piece of ice."

But she wasn't too worried. "When you're with the Coast Guard, you feel pretty confident!"

Currently, Jennifer is hard at work continuing her research. She hopes that it will help bring more attention to the effects of climate change on the Far North. "I'd like it to show how quickly global warming is affecting our natural (environment)," she says "I hope it can be used to show how those systems are changing life for the Inuit."