Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The accurate determination of seawater carbonate chemistry parameters is a critical component of chemical oceanography and global change biology. The investigation of ocean and coastal acidification, deoxygenation, and warming require a full breakdown of the estuarine and marine waters carbonate system for the correct interpretation of chemical, geological and biological results. To provide IPCC and local management reliable seawater carbonate chemistry information on which to base their decision-making processes, as well as meet the standards of high impact journals, it is required that three seawater carbonate chemistry parameters (on four) be measured (pH, dissolved organic carbon (DIC), total alkalinity (AT), or CO2 partial pressure (pCO2)) together with temperature and salinity. From these the full carbonate chemistry system can be calculated and counter validated. Currently, the measurements of AT and DIC at UQAR, and more broadly in Eastern Canada, are generally carried out with equipment that does possess the required precision or/and sufficient throughput. This has created an extremely large institutional, and regional, backlog of samples; which cannot rely on paying services, as this would mean to incur in prohibitive extra research costs and delays: again, as even these rare facilities either do not have high throughput or/and have backlogs of their own. This reduce enormously the occurrence and impact of our discoveries; and do not enable us to provide appropriate training to our and collaborators HQP. We are unable to meet our own research needs and we are entering a negative trend in our ability to deliver on and attract research grant in fast-evolving key research areas. The present proposal aims to rectify this situation by purchasing equipment to create an integrated AT, DIC, and pH measurement platform with the high throughput we require, and the high precision demanded by our fields of research. The first requested piece of equipment is a multi-chambers high precision AT titrator. The second is a multi-chambers high precision DIC infrared light analyser. The third is a visible and UV-visible spectrophotometer, which will be used primarily for the accurate and precise measurement of the pH of waters characterised by different salinities. This equipment has the ability to be used in the laboratory or aboard a ship, to characterise the carbonate system of remote areas. This system will support a number of currently funded NSERC Grants of the PIs, as well as other grants: incl. from colleagues in the broader region. The measurement of AT, DIC, and pH are critical to the applicant research, the training of HQP and the cutting-edge research they conduct in chemical oceanography and global change biology. Supporting this application will enable us to rectify an extremely difficult situation, allowing our team and our institution at the forefront of the research fields, thus helping Canada research excellence.