Ocean Sciences Division conducts research on physical and biological oceanographic processes along the east coast of Canada to provide an accurate description of the events, features and dynamics found in the nearshore, the continental shelves, and the offshore. The program can be categorized by a few key activities:

• Physical and Biological oceanographic research including environmental monitoring, process research, numerical modelling and development of instrumentation in support of managing, understanding, and describing our living resource.
  
  
• Ocean Climate studies to describe average and extreme conditions, seasonal and longer term variability, and trends or changes over time.
  
  
• Environmental descriptions to provide advice on marine activity and operations, such as advection and dispersion of toxins or contaminants, wave impact on structures, transportation and coastal infrastructure, oil spill and search and rescue trajectory models, and assessments of development impacts.

Program Structure

Ocean Sciences Division conducts research on the physical and biological oceanography of marine systems on the Canadian east coast. Its mandate is to provide an accurate description of the processes, events, and features in the nearshore, on the continental shelves, and in the offshore. The research within the Division is sub-divided into eight distinct program areas:

1.  Ocean Circulation and Variability
The primary objective of the program is to determine the strength and variability of the ocean circulation system to understand the global and regional climate system and to improve our ability to predict climate variability and climate change. Projects have a strong focus on the Northwest Atlantic and Labrador Sea. They are strongly collaborative, internationally through the international climate research programs such as the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), bilaterally with leading US and European institutions, and nationally with scientists in Canadian Universities and other Government Departments. Research includes ocean modelling and data assimilation studies, regional physical oceanographic observational programs in the Labrador and Irminger Seas and the Newfoundland Basin of the Northwest Atlantic, air-sea flux measurements, models and analysis and process studies on oceanic mixing in the deep sea and on the shelves.

2.  Arctic Ocean Circulation
The Arctic Ocean Circulation program seeks to determine the role that the circulation of the Arctic Ocean plays in the global climate system and the regional climate of the Arctic Archipelago and Atlantic Canada. The program must also maintain an expertise on the water masses, currents and ice conditions in the various passages of the Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. Such expertise will enable us to provide advice when dealing with environmental issues, emergencies and climate change issues.

3.  Coastal Ocean Climate
Detection and interpretation of climatic variability in Canada's coastal ocean is of vital importance to the protection and wise use of its resources. Significant long-term fluctuations with broad spatial patterns have emerged from recent investigations of hydrographic variability over the past several decades and some linkages have been established with global climates of both the ocean and atmosphere. The coastal ocean climate also has important impacts on shelf ecosystems, fisheries, circulation, sea ice, sediments, and environmental quality. The goals of the program are to develop economical means to detect and monitor climate variability in the coastal ocean, to understand the causes of this variability as a basis for predicting future changes, and to assess its impact on sensitive areas of the marine environment. Project activities include studies of ice-ocean processes, collection and retrospective analysis of oceanographic data, circulation modelling, and development of specialized instrumentation for monitoring the physical aspects of the environment.

4.  Fisheries Oceanography
Recent studies have indicated there are connections between the spatial and temporal patterns in oceanographic variables and the population structure, distribution, abundance, growth, availability, catchability, and food supplies of harvestable fish and invertebrate species. Thus, changes in oceanographic conditions can (potentially) influence all of these attributes as well as the sustainability of the region's harvest fisheries and the accuracy of the resource projections. These connections are being quantified, validated and incorporated into the resource assessment, conservation, and management processes. Such knowledge may improve efficiency and hence profitability and competitiveness of fish harvesting. The specific goals of the program are to identify and assess the linkages between oceanographic conditions, the fisheries and their supporting ecosystems. Activities include analysis of associations between fisheries and the environment, monitoring of that variability in key areas, and the development of models and specialized instruments to study the ecological linkages between fish and the environment.

5.  Coastal Habitat Studies
Knowledge of our commercially important coastal zones and offshore regions is imperative for safe and sustainable utilization of our marine resources. Research activities include classification of coastal inlets and embayments, nearshore circulation and habitat studies, monitoring at key sites, modelling shelf circulation and mixing, and the development of specialized instruments for benthic measurements. Nearshore studies focus on defining important physical attributes, such as circulation and flushing rate, and on monitoring of critical properties, such as temperature, salinity, and pollution levels, in selected areas. Support is also provided to offshore industries and regulatory agencies through participation in multidisciplinary impact studies of sediment transport, waste disposal, and bottom trawls. These studies generally involve the development of circulation or transport models and field measurements conducted with specialized or unique instrumentation.

6.  Operational Oceanography
The operational oceanography program involves application of oceanographic tools and techniques to solving practical problems associated with marine transportation and safety, marine pollution, and coastal zone management. Important clients for this work include Canadian Coast Guard Operations, Rescue Coordination Centre, DOE (Atmospheric Environment Service) Ice Centre, National Energy Board and industrial partners. Activities range from ice-ocean process studies and development of operational forecast models to surface drift analysis and modelling associated with oil spill trajectories and search and rescue applications.

7.  Ocean Data Information Services
Oceanographic data and data products are only useful if clients both within the region and outside can locate and access them. This also pertains to products that are needed or produced by the regions modellers. This program is responsible for developing, maintaining and disseminating the inventories and data bases of physical and biological oceanographic and ancillary data required for the ocean sciences programs of the Region.

8.  Marine Ecosystem Productivity
This program deals with the biological oceanographic or ecological description required to account for the spatial structure and temporal variability in the pelagic ecosystem of the Atlantic seaboard from the Gulf of Maine to the Arctic, and out beyond Flemish Cap. One of the principal motivations is to understand the contribution of ecosystem variability to fluctuations in the recruitment of exploited species. A related element of the project is to provide an integrated understanding of phytoplankton blooms as an oceanographic phenomenon. The program also includes a bio-optical oceanographic study of the coastal areas of the Maritimes Region to provide a context of understanding for the prosecution of both harvest and aquaculture fisheries. Another objective is to determine the role of the pelagic marine biota in the ocean carbon cycle as a basis for understanding the way this role might be affected by the general suite of processes referred to as climate change. Extensive use is made of remotely-sensed imagery, especially imagery of ocean colour, to examine the distribution of phytoplankton and primary production.