U of C scientists join team studying Arctic oil spills
Three scientists from the University of Calgary are part of a team studying the effects of potential oil spills in the Arctic as it’s being eyed for more shipping and even oil exploration.
In April, the Churchill Marine Observatory was announced by the University of Manitoba, which is leading the project that includes 10 scientists from across Canada.
It was recently awarded $ 32 million in federal funding through the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
The first- of- its- kind facility, which will be located along the west coast of the Hudson Bay, will allow researchers to work in a marine observatory.
“The project is essentially about understanding sea ice and the potential for oil spills in the Arctic,” said Casey Hubert, a biology professor at the U of C.
Alongside lead researchers from the University of Manitoba, he and two U of C geography professors — John Yackel and Brent Else — will dedicate their efforts to safeguarding Arctic ecosystems as cargo shipping increases with a changing climate.
They suggest the geography of the Arctic presents some unique and under- researched challenges for extraction, oil spill detection and remediation.
Yackal, head of the geography department at the U of C, said his work will focus on detecting oil in ice- covered waters.
“My role is to use satellite remotesensing technologies to understand the oil spill in sea ice signatures,” he said. “It gets really messy and it will look and feel a lot different than a normal oil spill in the ocean.
“It will do different things within cold water and ice- covered waters than it would in the open ocean.”
As a microbiologist, Hubert said his research will look at how much natural processes such as bacteria eat the oil.
“If there were an oil spill in the Arctic, we would be scrambling to get there with our ships and our helicopters and our skimmers and it might take a while,” he explained. “It’s a long ways away and it might be winter, but the microbes are there and they would certainly be the first responders.
“So we want to understand what they are going to do if that situation arrives so we can work that into our models and our plans for emergency strategies should we ever need them.”
Others, such as Else, will study an oil spill’s impact on the ecosystem and still others will come up with technologies for cleaning up Arctic waters in the event of such a spill.
Hubert said he hopes they never need the research, but it’s important to be ready because it’s just a matter of time before an oil spill happens in the Arctic — particularly with increasing ship traffic and rumblings about oil production in the area.
“The risk doesn’t go down as industrial activity increases,” he said. “This project is getting out in front of that, rather than responding or doing the research after it happens.”