Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic: On board of the research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen

The climate change caused by greenhouse gas emission within the past decades is one of the most important concerns of our time. This change could have significant effects on the physical characteristics of oceans and seas including water level, rainfall and retreat of sea ice especially in the Arctic. The importance of the Arctic is because that the global warming is most pronounced and warming rate is faster in the Arctic. The present paper is a brief overview of the current situation of the Arctic from the climate change point of view. Although the field work data in the Arctic is very scarce due to the difficult access and harsh climate, the loss of Arctic ice cover due to the climate change has recently allowed easier access to this region. A number of international research programs focused on the Arctic Ocean are reviewed. Through the analysis of the mixed layer depth using the data collected during two of these programs; it was shown that the absence of sea ice has significant effect on this particular parameter and consequently on the ocean-atmosphere exchanges

Keywords:

Climate change , Arctic , Mixed layer , Amundsen icebreaker