GSO Scientist Returns from Arctic Cruise
A University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography marine scientist has returned from a six-week research cruise to the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea, the first time oceanographers have studied this Arctic region in winter during modern times.
“The area is a big black box in winter; what goes on there in the marine environment is unknown,” said Robert Campbell, a marine research scientist at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. “We need to have a basic understanding of the ecosystem so we can predict how climate change may affect it.”
The expedition was conceived by Campbell and co-principal investigators Carin Ashjian (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute), an alumna of the Graduate School of Oceanography, and Steve Okkonen (University of Alaska), and funded by the National Science Foundation.
Campbell, who studies tiny zooplankton that are an important food source for fish and whales, traveled with a team of oceanographers aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, the only currently operating U.S. Arctic icebreaker, to the waters north and west of Alaska to conduct a wide range of measurements and collect plankton samples.
“I’ve been out there a number of times in spring and summer to try to understand what might happen if the ice conditions in the region change and how those changes will affect the growth and development of the zooplankton,” he said. “But before we can predict what might happen with climate change, we have to understand what is happening today. And we don’t know much about what’s happening there in winter.”
Day after day, Campbell and colleagues deployed a system of nets to collect copepods and krill to conduct studies of their physical condition and activity levels. They also used a video plankton recorder that took pictures of the plankton in their natural environment and a number of other instruments to measure various chemical and physical water properties.
According to Campbell, the Arctic is one of the regions that scientists know the least about, and it is also where the biggest changes are likely going to occur due to global warming.
“We’re already beginning to observe changes there, so it’s important to get a good understanding of the ecosystem now before the changes become too great,” he said.
The URI GSO scientist said that there is a great deal of analysis still to be done on the data he collected from the Bering and Chukchi Seas. He also will return to Barrow, Alaska this year as part of the Arctic Observing Network, an effort to conduct the same measurements year after year to monitor for signs of climate change.
For more information, please see the full press release at this link.
Photo of USCGC Healy credit: U.S. Coast Guard
