RQM - CTD Data From the Winter Concerted Mission Aboard the CCGS Amundsen (MOH2020): Odyssée Saint-Laurent 2020

The 2020 winter collaborative mission, funded by the Réseau Québec maritime (RQM) Odyssée Saint-Laurent program, is the program's third winter oceanographic mission aboard the icebreaker CCGS Amundsen. Resulting from a strategic collaboration between the RQM, the Canadian Coast Guard and Amundsen Science, the mission's objective was to gather scientific knowledge essential to the understanding and management of the St. Lawrence River and Gulf during winter. The mission enabled 25 scientists from universities in Quebec and Ontario to acquire multidisciplinary data to document variability in the physico-chemical properties of the water column; monitor the presence of contaminants, bacteria and viruses; understand the life cycle of zooplankton (e.g., Calanus sp., and Mysis sp.) and the reproductive cycle of halibut in the Gulf; study the functional role of benthic fauna; and understand the role of pack ice in sediment dynamics and coastal erosion.

Vertical profiles of CTD data (conductivity, temperature, depth) were made in the water column at 32 stations distributed along the St. Lawrence system between west of Quebec City and the Lower Estuary, as well as in the Saguenay Fjord and Sept-Îles Bay. These profiles were conducted from around 2 m below the surface to a maximum depth of around 432 m (station G23). They incorporate direct measurements of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, irradiance, light transmission, fluorescence, pH, turbidity and nitrate concentration in seawater. Discrete water samples were taken at various stations and depths to compare CTD's direct measurements with laboratory analyses of dissolved oxygen concentration (20 samples at 6 stations - Winkler chemical titration), and chlorophyll a concentration (27 samples at 7 stations). These comparisons were used to adjust the calibration of CTD dissolved oxygen and fluorescence data.

You can consult an interactive map including all the years of expeditions and the different trajectories (LEG) associated with them.