The Arctic-Atlantic gateway of the Northwest Passage: oceanic exchange, paleoceanography, paleoclimate, proxy calibration and refinement

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My research group works to determine how the marine environments of Arctic Canada have changed in response to climate change since the last Ice Age (~22,000 years ago) to the present. The focus of this research program, the Northwest Passage (NWP) – the historical route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the shallow channels of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) – is a crucial gateway for heat and water transport from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. This region has been affected by recent climate change, experiencing pronounced shifts such as decreasing seasonal sea-ice cover. Such changes urgently require Canadian stewardship to contribute to issues of growing social and economic importance. As such, my timely research program will generate new knowledge highly relevant to Arctic communities and decision makers in anticipation of expanded NWP use, as further climate change opens up this region for extensive ship traffic.***The principal objective of this research program is to significantly advance our fundamental knowledge of how and when the CAA became a gateway for Arctic-Atlantic ocean throughflow after the last demise of the great ice sheets in this region, and to improve our understanding of how polar archipelagos respond to climate change both in the past and recently. Another objective is to place recent NWP environmental changes into the long-term geological record and determine whether there are identifiable similarities. This research requires an integrated approach that uses ship-based field studies (marine sediment cores and their included biological and biogeochemical information) with oceanographic modeling to track the timing and style of establishment of oceanic throughflow and to characterize the prevailing environmental conditions (sea-ice cover, water temperatures, ecosystem productivity). These data are used to determine factors controlling Arctic-Atlantic gateway connectivity. To aid in interpreting evidence from marine cores (extending into the distant past) and provide a modern context, this program will also generate valuable data sets on biological and biogeochemical characteristics of surface seabed sediments (which represent the present day). ***This proposed program represents an innovative, integrated and timely research approach to studying the long-term oceanographic and climatic development of polar archipelagos serving as global ocean gateways. Such knowledge is a pre-requisite for an Arctic Ocean-wide understanding of polar responses to climate change. This proposed program will train 12 HQP and provide them with invaluable skills in marine geological, biogeochemical and micropaleontological techniques. Additionally, students will gain expertise in field planning, management skills and gain experience working in remote settings, preparing them to take on leadership roles in academia, industry, and government.**