'A wake-up call': Thick High Arctic ice flowing south thanks to climate change
After a Canadian icebreaker was diverted from a research mission in the Arctic to assist with never-before-seen levels of ice off the coast of Newfoundland, a climate-change researcher is sounding the alarm about the potential for increasingly treacherous conditions in the North Atlantic.
A team of scientists from five Canadian universities had planned to head out on the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen to study the effects of climate change.
But because of the hazardous ice conditions off the coast of Newfoundland, the vessel was diverted to assist with search-and-rescue operations in the area, helping ferries and fishing boats navigate the Strait of Belle Isle. A Canadian Coast Guard assistant commissioner told CBC News at the time the ice conditions were more severe than anything the region had seen before.
"This is ice that, if you don't have an icebreaker like the one we were on, you wouldn't be able to move through this ice," said David Barber, a University of Manitoba climate change scientist who led the Arctic expedition, called BaySys.
"It became a very dramatic period of doing two and a half weeks of doing [rescues], multiple calls per day, because the whole system is used to dealing with no ice at that location at that time of year, because that's historically what it's always been like," Barber said.
The vessel escorted oil tankers, freed ferries stuck in the ice and rescued fishers stranded on ice floes after the thick ice punctured and sometimes sank their boats, Barber said.
"It became very clear that we needed to understand what this ice was, where it came from and why it was there, because nobody was expecting it."
Their research was published in the March issue of the peer-reviewed U.S. journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
'A wake-up call': Thick High Arctic ice flowing south thanks to climate change, researcher says - Manitoba - CBC News
After a Canadian icebreaker was diverted from a research mission in the Arctic to assist with never-before-seen levels of ice off the coast of Newfoundland, a climate-change researcher is sounding the alarm about the potential for increasingly treacherous conditions in the North Atlantic.
A team of scientists from five Canadian universities had planned to head out on the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen to study the effects of climate change.
But because of the hazardous ice conditions off the coast of Newfoundland, the vessel was diverted to assist with search-and-rescue operations in the area, helping ferries and fishing boats navigate the Strait of Belle Isle. A Canadian Coast Guard assistant commissioner told CBC News at the time the ice conditions were more severe than anything the region had seen before.
"This is ice that, if you don't have an icebreaker like the one we were on, you wouldn't be able to move through this ice," said David Barber, a University of Manitoba climate change scientist who led the Arctic expedition, called BaySys.
"It became a very dramatic period of doing two and a half weeks of doing [rescues], multiple calls per day, because the whole system is used to dealing with no ice at that location at that time of year, because that's historically what it's always been like," Barber said.
The vessel escorted oil tankers, freed ferries stuck in the ice and rescued fishers stranded on ice floes after the thick ice punctured and sometimes sank their boats, Barber said.
"It became very clear that we needed to understand what this ice was, where it came from and why it was there, because nobody was expecting it."
Their research was published in the March issue of the peer-reviewed U.S. journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
'A wake-up call': Thick High Arctic ice flowing south thanks to climate change, researcher says - Manitoba - CBC News
