Description of the organisation
Dalhousie University, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2018, is located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is Canada’s most research-intensive university east of Quebec. With annual research funding of $140 million per year, it is a member of the U15 (the top 15 research-intensive Universities in Canada). It is also the largest teaching University in Atlantic Canada. Dalhousie’s research excellence is concentrated in four Priority Research Areas, which include Ocean Studies. Dalhousie has world-leading expertise in almost all fields relating to the ocean, including oceanography, marine geology and geophysics, marine biology and genomics, marine conservation, ocean governance and management, engineering, risk management, and aquaculture.
The concentrated expertise in Ocean Studies has made it a national and international centre for major research initiatives. Building, in part, on the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Ocean Science and Technology (www.dal.ca/diff/cerc.html), the University together with Memorial University received $94 million from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund to establish the Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI) (www.oceanfrontierinstitute.com). The OFI is partnered with a number of European and US institutions and dedicated to documenting and understanding changes underway within the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and to developing safe and sustainable solutions for strengthening the ocean economy in Canada. Dalhousie University is host to two additional research networks: the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN; www.oceantrackingnetwork.org/) which pioneers international development of animal telemetry, and the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response (MEOPAR) Network of Centres of Excellence (www.meopar.ca), which is a national research network focussed on marine environmental risk.
Expertise particularly relevant to the project
Dalhousie investigators conduct a broad program of research examining carbon uptake and cycling as well as studies of ocean acidification in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic. This includes field work from research vessels and long-term measurements of inorganic carbon in the Northwest Atlantic from moored sensors and volunteer observing ships.
Special expertise and capacity exists at Dalhousie in relation to studies of the sensitivity of Arctic waters and the Arctic outflow to ocean acidification, including impacts of freshwater inputs, and the impacts of changes in deep- water formation in the Labrador Sea on carbon, oxygen and nutrient budgets including air-sea exchange.
The Northwest Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of Canada is a major region of deep-water formation and anthropogenic carbon uptake. Due to the deep-water formation, the continental slope waters off eastern Canada are one of the first deep ocean habitats to be experiencing ocean acidification. The changes in biogeochemical cycling associated with Arctic environmental change as well as the impacts of climate change on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation are focused in this region where Dalhousie University and the Ocean Frontier Institute conducts its research.
For more information please visit Dalhousie website.