Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is partnering to support the global delivery of research data that was collected by an interdisciplinary team of 15 scientists as part of the first all-Canadian research expedition to the Southern Ocean.
The Canadian Antarctic Research Expedition (CARE 2025) in February and March 2025 aboard the Royal Canadian Navy vessel HMCS Margaret Brooke was a milestone oceanographic scientific research mission to the Southern Ocean and Antarctic coast that brought together government, academia and industry.
A map shows the locations of the 22 water column profiles that were sampled within the South Shetland Islands in the Drake Passage. The data will be made available through ONC’s data management portal, Oceans 3.0. Map credit: ONC
A Major Research Facility and an initiative of the University of Victoria (UVic), ONC's expertise in data stewardship played a critical role throughout and after the expedition.
The ingestion and parsing of the collected data will provide valuable ocean intelligence and help scientists better understand the rapidly changing conditions in this polar region, including at ONC's partner coastal observatory with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in the Southern Ocean.
Data, the window to a changing world
In the coming months, ONC’s data specialists will convert this raw data to a more readable format and curate the metadata to include the location and type of instrumentation, among other searchable features.
Altogether, ONC is processing approximately 200,000 data points from 35 deployments of a conductivity (salinity), temperature, and depth (CTD) instrument deployed on a rosette sampler performed by the science team in the Southern Ocean.
The CTD rosette was deployed by lowering it from the ship through the water column where the instrument measures water properties and water samples are collected. These water column profiles were sampled at 22 locations spanning an area within the South Shetland Islands in the Drake Passage, north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and measure eight distinct variables that encompass both physical and chemical properties of the water.
"This first all-Canadian research expedition to the Southern Ocean, supported by ONC's data management expertise, marks a significant step in enhancing our understanding of climate change impacts in this critical region,” says ONC president and CEO Kate Moran. “The dedication of our data specialists ensures these valuable findings will be accessible to the global research community, contributing to a more resilient future."
ONC will apply the same data validation and quality monitoring methods used for our two major subsea cabled observatories (NEPTUNE and VENUS), coastal observatories, and programs such as Community Fishers.
The CTD rosette and deployment equipment used during the mission is a component of the Modular Ocean Research Infrastructure owned and operated by the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR). MEOPAR played a central role in assembling the non-governmental research team for CARE 2025 supported with funding from Polar Knowledge Canada.
All the data from the CARE 2025 expedition will be available through ONC’s data management system, Oceans 3.0, as well as the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System, both of which are openly accessible to the global research community and the public.
The science program of CARE 2025 includes three broad disciplines of oceanography, geoscience, and contaminants research. Dr. Thomas James, Natural Resources Canada chief scientist, designed the program to encompass these disciplines to capture a range of environmental responses to climate change and human-generated chemicals. The influence of melting glaciers on ocean waters and the marine and coastal geological record was a common element of much of the sampling and surveying.
Seafloor mapping
A primary goal of the expedition was to map the seafloor in this largely unexplored region, including the bay surrounding ONC’s partner subsea cabled observatory with the Spanish National Research Council, first deployed in January 2024 offshore of Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, near the Spanish Juan Carlos I station.
Research scientist Dr. Kevin Wilcox with the University of New Brunswick's Ocean Mapping Group led this effort onboard the HMCS Margaret Brooke. He utilized a small, remotely controlled, uncrewed surface vessel equipped with Canadian-made GNSS technology to conduct multiple transects while mapping the seafloor terrain using a multibeam system.
Other sites surveyed include Admiralty Bay and Deception Island, the site of an underwater volcanic caldera.
Video: A map created by Dr. Kevin Wilcox from the University of New Brunswick shows the seafloor in the bay where ONC’s partner observatory is located. Credit: Dr. Kevin Wilcox
Wilcox anticipates the high-accuracy maps will help contribute to the larger story of how the ocean waters around the southern continent are changing.
“For the ONC partner observatory location, my hope is it provides some context to what is being monitored there. It's unique to have sensors in the Southern Ocean that continually monitor ocean properties and a big part of that is how that mixing of glacier melt with ocean water is taking place,” says Wilcox. “If you know what the seafloor in that area looks like through mapping, you can understand what you’re seeing with the sensors and how that relates to other properties.”
Currently, just over 25% of the global seafloor has been mapped and these efforts are helping contribute to efforts in a part of the world that is both extreme in its environment and rapid change.
Melting glaciers
Dr. Tia Anderlini, a UVic researcher in chemical oceanography, was also aboard the HMCS Margaret Brooke. Her research focuses on how tidewater glaciers contribute to the region's chemical distributions.
Prior research indicates that the warming ocean waters and atmosphere are causing accelerated melting of Antarctic tidewater glaciers and contributing to sea level rise.
“The goal of our sampling was to profile the water properties in transects moving away from glacier fronts in bays of the South Shetland Islands, allowing us to investigate the contribution of tidewater glaciers to the chemical distributions of the region. From this, we may be able to draw conclusions about the future impact of glacial melt,” says Anderlini.
The chemical properties of interest to Anderlini include trace metal micronutrients (e.g. iron and manganese) which are required by phytoplankton, and toxins (e.g. lead and cadmium) which can interfere with the normal functioning of organisms and ultimately limit their growth.
From the edge of a multi-role rescue boat near the ONC observatory, Anderlini and the team deployed a CTD as well as a 12L sampling bottle at three locations within the bay. The CTD data will be available as part of the expedition data available on Ocean’s 3.0.
MEOPAR played a central role in assembling the non-governmental research team for CARE 2025 supported with funding from Polar Knowledge Canada. Credit: CARE 2025
“By looking at the distributions of metals at various distances from glaciers and by pairing this data with other sampled variables and with ONC data, we can start to understand the quantity of metals being added to the water column and transported towards the open ocean, how this may change over time with glacial retreat, and the biological implications of this addition,” says Anderlini.
“The expedition was a great opportunity to work with other researchers from across Canada, to form new collaborations, and to draw connections to our work in the Canadian Arctic. But it was also amazing to have this sense of Canadian pride - particularly given the current global political climate – as we took on this expedition and research as a fully Canadian team.”
CARE 2025 was part of Canada’s engagement in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean to learn about this polar region with strong parallels to the Canadian Arctic and to support global environmental standards.
