Overview of Fieldwork | BREATHE Project

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The Sea Ice Environmental Research Facility (SERF) at the University of Manitoba is an outdoor seawater pool used for growing sea ice during the cold Canadian winter. In February, 2024, the BREATHE team plans to conduct controlled experiments in this seawater pool to assess how nutrients are incorporated into growing sea ice.

During the spring ice algal bloom of 2022 BREATHE scientists will visit the sea ice near the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) in the community of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Scientists will study the interactions of oxygen and nutrients with the microbial life living within the ice.

Scientists will board the Norwegian research vessel Kronprins Haakon twice during the four year project to investigate microbial life, gas and nutrient fluxes in pack ice. First, in the polar night of February, 2022, as part of the Nansen Legacy program in the Barents Sea. They will return later in late summer to the Arctic Ocean as part a cruise led by the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Satellite image of January 2019 sea ice thickness (myocean.marine.copernicus.eu)

Credit: Rosalie McKay

Winter in the Barents Sea (Video credit: Rosalie McKay)

May 2022

Spring in the Canadian Arctic

(Link to field data report)

July-August 2022

Summer in the high Arctic & North Pole on the AO2022 cruise

(Link to cruise data report)

A 10-day drift on sea ice North of Svalbard aboard the RV Kronprins Haakon. Learn more here.

(Link to cruise data report)

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