International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

melt from a thick winter ice cover through to complete
break-up, concluding with open water stations. The
majority of these sites were located on the south side
of the Amundsen Gulf at the entrance of two shallow
coastal bays (Franklin Bay and Darnley Bay) where a
SCUBA diving program aided sample collection (Fig.
2.2-16b). Fast ice was also sampled in the Prince of
Wales Straight and near the north end of Banks Island;
a total of 17 fast ice stations were sampled averaging
1.3 days (max. 9) in duration. Distributed open-water
sampling fully resumed at the end of June 2008.
Between this time and 7 August 2008 (the end of the
field season), a total of 96 unique sites were sampled
(Fig. 2.2-16a), many of which were long-term sampling
sites also used by the ArcticNet and CASES projects.
In July, a series of moorings were again collected and
redeployed. In 2008, transects were sampled across
the Amundsen Gulf, along the Amundsen Gulf, up
the west side of Banks Island, across McClure Strait, as
well as several transects from open water into fast ice
or mobile pack ice. A total of 295 people spent time
aboard, including 102 research scientists, 113 graduate
students and post-docs, 55 technicians and research
associates, and 76 for outreach.
The diversity of physical and biological sampling
conducted around CCGS Amundsen is illustrated in Fig.
2.2-17. This included CTD-rosette, zooplankton nets,
meteorological sensors, box coring equipment and
a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), as well as various
kinds of moorings that were deployed throughout
the project. Specialized features were the moonpool
within the ship allowing deployment of equipment
in winter conditions, the specialized labs including a
Portable Lab for Mercury Speciation (PILMS) with a
class-100 clean room allowing for trace metal analysis,
and a range of sampling vehicles including snowmobiles,
ATV, half-track and helicopter. Due to its size and
complexity, the delivery of new science from the CFL
project can be expected to take up to 3 years. Here, we
have space for just two early examples of these novel
results, one physical and one biological.
Eddies in the Amundsen Gulf. Mesoscale eddies in
the Arctic Ocean transport salt and heat and are considered
critical for the ventilation of its cold halocline
layer (Muench et al., 2000; see also Timmermans et al.,
2008; Spall et al., 2008). They are also a source of nutrients
and zooplankton for the Canada Basin (Llinas
et al., 2008), and could play the same role for the less
productive regions of the Amundsen Gulf. Three eddies
have been observed in the Amundsen Gulf, one
at the CASES winter station in Franklin Bay in December
2003 and two more – in January 2008 and March
2008 – while the CCGS Amundsen was in drift mode
in the CFL program. What make these observations
important is the suite of concurrent meteorological,
biological and chemical observations that the CFL
Study provided. The March 2008 eddy, for example,
was a subsurface feature with a core centered at 90
m. The ship-mounted ADCP captures the structure of
the eddy showing a reversal of the northward flow at
its center. The Amundsen eddies were generated by
shallow brine convection at freezing time. As the surface
water of the lead freezes, brine is rejected in the
surface layer; this then sinks and settles at mid-depth
because of the strong local stratification. The Amundsen
data set is thought to be the first complete set of
Fig. 2.2-16a.
Distributed openwater
sites sampled
in the fall of 2007 and
the summer of 2008.
b. Drift stations and
fast-ice stations
sampled in the
winter and spring of
2007–2008.
(Maps: David Barber)
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