| Welcome to Sustainable Insights. This blog is a source of news and information on two of our favorite topics - data loggers and sustainability - and offers a glimpse into some real-world environmental monitoring projects happening around the globe. |
(Follow-up to Monitoring the arctic ice shelves and ecosystems posted on July 1st, 2008)
The University of Ottawa and the Onset weather station on the Serson Ice shelf captured the break up of the Serson Ice shelf. The Onset station measured temperatures unheard of at the North Coast of Ellesmere Island with a maximum of 17.46 C in early August . The Onset station also captured the wind event when the ice shelf broke away. The station is being moved to the Milne Ice shelf next spring.
This past April, a team of polar ice scientists trekked to the Canadian high Arctic for a two-week expedition near Ellesmere Island to study the condition of the ice shelves and related ecosystems in this barren region.
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Three scientists — Derek Mueller of Trent University, Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa and Andrew Hamilton of Laval University — traveled to this remote territory to continue an ongoing International Polar Year study.
Due to warmer climate conditions in the last 20 years, ice shelves along Ellesmere’s northern coast that have been attached to the shore for thousands of years have been breaking apart affecting this ecosystem.
To help shed light on why large chunks of the Arctic ice have been breaking-up; the team chose a HOBO® weather station with Iridium satellite interface to gather real-time environmental data. The system was deployed on the Serson Ice shelf and is the most northerly automated real-time weather station in the world.
As the arctic landscape continues to change, volumes of freshwater from deep sea inlets previously dammed by the ice shelves are being pumped into the ocean. These physical changes are affecting the habitat of aquatic microbial communities existing below the ice that play a significant role in the Arctic ecosystem.
It is not clear how these ecosystems will adapt to current and projected climate change as this region is difficult to access and has not been well studied. However, scientists are confident that the collected data will provide them with insight on how environmental conditions are affecting the Arctic’s ecosystem.
Related links:
: Ice sheet breaks loose off Canada http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/30/canada.arctic.ice.ap/index.html
