Beaufort Regional Environmental Assessment (BREA) - Marine Observatories

This ArcticNet/IMG-Golder Southern and Northeastern Beaufort Sea Marine Observatories project was developed to support the key goals of BREA, which include advancing knowledge of physical oceanographic processes in the Beaufort Sea at local and regional scales and addressing issues that will be prominent during environmental assessments related to exploration drilling in the Beaufort Sea. The project is designed to provide regional and multi-annual ocean circulation, biogeochemical flux and sea ice data time series, in order to address the BREA priority areas. The main objectives are to: quantify the along shelf and across shelf seasonal and annual variability in oceanic circulation; quantify the annual movement and thickness distribution of sea-ice, with a special emphasis on heavy, thick multi-year ice features; quantify the seasonal and annual variability of vertical biogeochemical fluxes of organic and inorganic matter; and maintain existing time-series and fill important data gaps in the northeastern Beaufort Sea.