Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

We request a portable and towable current profiler to measure near surface currents from small boats in coastal seas such as the St. Lawrence Estuary, the Saguenay Fjord and various bays surrounding the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Obtaining such current measurements in the surface layer and photic zone of the coastal ocean is central to just about all oceanographic researches carried out in coastal seas, whether it be to monitor plankton, nutrient, sediment or pollutant transports or to support fundamental research on geophysical fluid dynamics and ocean turbulence. This instrument will support applied as well as fundamental research and training programs. On the applied side, it will be used, for example, during Summer 2017 to map the currents in the Bay of Sept-îles as part of the Canadian Healthy Ocean Network initiative in order to better understand antrhopogenic environmental impacts of pollutants an sediment transport and dispersal in our coastal zones. On the fundamental side, it will be used during Summer 2017 to support an international Canada-France-Netherlands research project to study the generation and propagation of very large ( 10 m height) underwater waves recently found in the Saguenay Fjord. These researches will lead to better management of coastal seas and help protect the environment as well as improve our fundamental understanding of natural flows and increase Canada's intellectual merit and scientific creativity.