Subarctic coastal oceanography

北极海冰的变化及其减少的预测在过去十年中激发了加拿大北极和相关海域冰盖海洋生态系统的大型研究计划。相比之下，加拿大冰雪覆盖的海洋生态系统与北极无关，如圣劳伦斯湾和加拿大东部峡湾，尽管这些亚北极系统受到类似的年际和气候海冰变化的影响，但几乎没有受到研究的关注。 在加拿大北极地区进行海洋学研究的许多问题也可以通过在亚北极冰层覆盖的环境中进行研究来解决。例如，圣劳伦斯河口和海湾以及萨格奈峡湾与北极沿海海洋生态系统有许多共同特点：它们季节性地被冰雪覆盖，它们从河流中获得大量的淡水，（即即使在冬季中心的开放水域），它们拥有丰富多样的生态系统，对加拿大人和当地社区发挥着重要的经济和社会作用（如渔业、石油和天然气勘探潜力、旅游等） 亚北极沿海海洋系统海洋学研究计划的建立是由加拿大亚北极东部海冰的负面气候趋势，研究亚北极冰覆盖的海洋生态系统以解决与北方海洋有关的基本海洋学问题的相关性，有限的冬季观测以及加拿大亚北极沃茨对渔业，旅游业，航运和石油和天然气勘探的潜力。该计划旨在进行广泛的实地采样在亚北极加拿大，以更好地了解分布和水的性质，如温度，盐度，营养，冰等的演变。这项研究应有助于作出未来的决定，我们的海洋环境与潜在的直接影响社会和经济。

The variability of Arctic sea ice and predictions of its reduction have motivated in the last decade large research programs of ice-covered marine ecosystems in the Canadian Arctic and related seas. In comparison, Canadian ice-covered marine ecosystems unconnected to the Arctic, such as the Gulf of St. Lawrence and eastern Canadian fjords, have received little research attention despite that these subarctic systems are subject to comparable interannual and climatic sea ice variabilities. Many questions motivating oceanographic research in the Canadian Arctic could also be addressed through research in subarctic ice-covered environments. For example, the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence as well as the Saguenay Fjord share many characteristics with coastal Arctic marine ecosystems: they are seasonally ice-covered, they receive important amount of freshwater from rivers, they host polynias (i.e. regions of open water even at the heart of winter), they host a rich and diverse ecosystem and they play important economic and social roles for Canadians and local communities (e.g. fishing, potential for oil and gas exploration, tourisms, etc.) The establishment of this research program on the oceanography of subarctic coastal marine systems is motivated by the negative climatic trend of sea ice in subarctic Eastern Canada, by the relevance of studying subarctic ice-covered marine ecosystems to address fundamental oceanographic questions related to boreal seas, by the limited wintertime observations available and, by the importance of Canadian subarctic waters for fisheries, tourism industry, shipping and potential for oil and gas exploration. The program is intended to carry out extensive field samplings in subarctic Canada to better understand the distribution and evolution of water properties such as temperature, salinity, nutrients, ice, etc.This research should help make future decisions about our marine environment with potential direct impacts to society and economy.