AMUNDSEN GULF, N.W.T. -- If you think walking out on thin ice on the Assiniboine River is crazy, imagine creeping to the edge of a newly formed Arctic ice floe in -35 C weather above waters more than 350 metres deep.
That's what a Belgian climate-change researcher does in the name of learning more about the way sea ice enables the exchange of greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and ocean.
Yup, it’s cold. Frederic Brabant risks getting a dunking as he checks temperature of the water during climate-change research.
The research has profound implications for global climate-change projections -- but also places Frederic Brabant in some precarious positions.
On a gorgeously sunny but frigid afternoon, the 24-year-old Brussels glaciologist is standing behind the stern of the Canadian Coast Guard research vessel Amundsen, preparing to walk out on thin ice that formed in the wake of the now-stationary icebreaker.
He's wearing a waterproof survival suit and restrained by a rope and harness. But his work, which requires him to get as close to new ice as possible, still makes people nervous.
"The captain wants to know how far out you want to go," asks his research partner Brent Else, a University of Manitoba PhD student talking to the ship's bridge over a radio.
"As far as I can get," says Brabant.
Frederic Brabant uses an analyzer to check CO2 levels for the surrounding area.
"The captain's not going to like that," Else deadpans.
On this afternoon, the concern is not warranted, as the new ice behind the ship is easily thick enough to support a grown man.
But the very next day, when Else is spotting Brabant near a much more remote edge of the same ice floe, the Belgian loses his balance while holding an instrument and gets dunked up to his waist in the frigid seawater.
There is no harm done, beyond the loss of a replaceable ice-coring tool. But the brief dip drives home the hazardous nature of all research on Arctic ice.
What Brabant is trying to do is measure carbon dioxide at the surface of the ice to see how the greenhouse gas is flowing between the Arctic ocean and the atmosphere.
Current climate-change projections, he says, do not factor in the way thin ice allows the polar oceans to "breathe," so to speak.
Up until the 1970s, scientists believed the ice acted as a cork on the ocean and prevented carbon dioxide and other gases from flowing between the air and water.
But as it turns out, when new ice forms, the crystallization process forces out salt and other impurities, creating very salty little brine channels that act as conduits between the ocean and the atmosphere.
Although the theory was proven valid a decade ago, Brabant is trying to measure exactly how much carbon dioxide is getting absorbed by the ocean in an effort to fill in the gaps in climate-change modelling.
His research group at Université Libre de Bruxelles believes current models vastly underestimate how much carbon dioxide the polar oceans can keep out of the atmosphere.
Brabant says sea ice can help the oceans suck up 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide created by human beings, which is fantastic for a planet beset by depressing climate-change news.
And there may be even more good news about thin ice: Algae that live in the ice produce an antifreeze that gets broken down into aerosols, which in turn serve as cloud-condensation nuclei after they too make their way into the atmosphere.
And that too could mean a cooling effect -- and slower global warming.
But there is some ominous news amid all this potential good news, notes Brabant, who works on the Amundsen under the aegis of University of Manitoba geographer Tim Papakyriakou, who's overseeing all research about greenhouse gas exchanges.
If current climate-change models underestimate the role sea ice plays in moderating the warming of the atmosphere, then the complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic -- something forecast to take place between 2013 and 2030 -- may be even more disastrous than previously believed.
"What we are trying to do is come up with a better model," says Brabant. "Of course, there are people who will say all models are (going) to be flawed."
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca
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