OFI research will focus on the sustainable development of the oceans, with centres at three universities.
Photo Credit: courtesy of Dal U.

Ocean Frontier Institute established on east coast

The Ocean Frontier Institute is the newly created entity combining the marine knowledge and expertise at the University of Prince Edward Island, Memorial University in Newfoundland and Dalhousie Unversity in Nova Scotia.

“Climate change is very much ocean change. The oceans contain more heat in the upper 10 metres than the entire atmosphere.

Professor Marlon Lewis is the Launch Scientific Director for the OFI. He says they’re thrilled and excited with developments. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars went into creating the institute, including a $94 million (Cdn) contribution from the federal government. Lewis says the OFI will refine their research into a variety of areas including the fisheries, aquaculture, marine technology and marine safety at sea, to name a few.

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He says much of the program will focus on the ocean and its role in global climate. “Climate change is very much ocean change. The oceans contain more heat in the upper 10 metres than the entire atmosphere.”

On the 1992 collapse of the cod fishery off the Atlantic coast, Lewis says the cause is still a bit of a mystery. It resulted in the largest lay-off in Canadian history with far-reaching social consequences that are still being felt in Atlantic Canada today. So many of Newfoundland’s outport communities closed, uprooting families that had lived there for generations.

Lewis is hopeful that the new insitute will help them understand the dynamics of the fish populations and be able to avoid a tragedy like it in the future.

 “It’s a tremendous international collaboration on one of the most important ocean areas in the world.”

International collaborations will be fortified with places such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York in the US.  “It’s a tremendous international collaboration on one of the most important ocean areas in the world.”

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