The Canada Excellence Research Chair program of Dorthe Dahl-Jensen in Arctic Ice, Freshwater-Marine Coupling and Climate Change is focused on observing changes in ice (sea ice, glacial ice, and permafrost) are increasing freshwater inputs into the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. These changes are ubiquitous throughout the system, affecting all levels of ecosystem services, Inuit traditional use of marine areas, and global pressure to increase development in the Arctic. Changes in the Arctic also affect processes at lower latitudes, including connections to extreme weather, floods, droughts, and climate variability via the polar vortex, sea level rise, and global ocean circulation through export of fresh water to the deep-water convection areas of the North Atlantic. The UM CERC program will generate transformative knowledge, allowing policy makers, communities, industry, and co-management groups to create informed sustainable development, adaptation, and mitigation strategies required to address both the unprecedented challenges and opportunities of the opening of Canada’s ‘third ocean’.

The research goals beyond the term of the CERC is to have established a long term monitoring system that will be maintained in collaboration between the research groups at the University of Manitoba and the local communities in Canada and Greenland in northern Baffin Bay (i.e., the Baffin Bay Observing System or BBOS). The overarching goal will be to understand the influence of the melting ice on the ocean on all scales to the regional impact on the living conditions to the global impact of sea level rise.