Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Northern Research Supplement

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes carbon transfer across the land-ocean aquatic continuum (LOAC) as a key component of the global carbon cycle. This construct lacks however components of the current global carbon budget: the costal ocean capacity to transform and store carbon must be included in the science-based development of sustainable climate-change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The coastal ocean is especially vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change, with warming, acidification, and deoxygenation set to yield a vast and poorly understood array of negative impacts on biogeochemical feedbacks and carbon processes. More accurate estimates of changing coastal carbon fluxes are critical to accurately predict and quantify future changes in the global carbon cycle. This is also a key diagnostic of the efficiency of climate policies and ocean-based carbon dioxide remediation solutions. My long-term vision is to develop a predictive understanding of multiscale biogeochemical processes along the LOAC, with a specific focus on the biogeochemical functions of nearshore and coastal waters. Specifically, my research program includes (objective 1) the quantification of fluxes and impacts of terrestrial organic matter on the chemistry of nearshore waters and its role in the atmospheric carbon (CO2) budget, and (objective 2) the feedback between coastal ocean deoxygenation, acidification, and nutrient cycles, with a focus on the production and accumulation of greenhouse gases (CO2, N2O). This new program, at the forefront of geo- and environmental chemistry, will support a unique and robust scientific expertise in coastal sciences. These research activities will involve the training of three PhD, one MSc, five undergraduate students and one research assistant. The program implies cutting-edge issues, technologies, skills and international collaborations that will be transferred to HQPs as part of their training. The results will contribute to the sustainable planning and management of coastal ocean subjected to climate changes by (1) developing mechanistic studies and uncovering fundamental knowledge in the coastal ocean; (2) gathering and augmenting observation-based studies, specifically in the Canadian Arctic region, to better constrain the spatiotemporal variability in carbon processes; (3) consolidating an understanding of processes that occur along the LOAC; (4) anticipating future impacts of coastal ocean deoxygenation and acidification; (5) training a new generation of HQPs with the capacity to meet tomorrow's societal challenges; (6) contributing to support the Ocean Protection Plan of the Government of Canada in coastal systems; (7) contributing to the international effort on ocean deoxygenation network; (8) contributing to the UN Ocean Decade Outcomes; and (9) transferring empirical and theoretical knowledge to local, regional, and provincial decision makers.