By Simon B\u00e9langer, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Rimouski (UQAR), Qu\u00e9bec, Canada\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What an extraordinary feeling it is to witness the beauty of these icy landscapes, where the ice sheet flows down to the sea through fjords with steep, towering walls\u2014watching, in real time, as the ice sculpts this raw, mineral landscape\u2026 Breathtaking!<\/p>\n We all know that Greenland\u2019s glaciers are melting fast in response to global warming. But how that meltwater changes the surrounding ocean is still largely unknown, since field observations here are scarce and sailing among sea ice and icebergs is challenging and costly. From August 6 to September 3, 2026, I had the rare opportunity to join the CASCADES (a \u2018thematic\u2019 name, not an acronym) expedition, sailing more than 3,000 nautical miles (5,500 kilometers) to reach the Robeson Channel. This body of water runs between Ellesmere Island and Greenland at 82\u00b0N, where cold water and sea ice flow south out of the Arctic Ocean. Along the way, we collected oceanographic measurements in fjords and near settlements with names as striking as the landscapes themselves\u2014Ilulissat (Jakobshavn), Uummannaq, Kullorsuaq, Petermann, and Qaanaaq (Thule)\u2014places where ocean, ice, and meltwater interact.\u00a0<\/p>\n As an ocean-color remote-sensing specialist, my job on board was to measure how sunlight interacts with the water and its constituents\u2014the same frequency of light (wavelength) NASA\u2019s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite measures from space\u2014and to collect water samples to identify the tiny drifting algae, or phytoplankton, and non-living suspended matter that give the ocean its colorful aspect. These measurements will help validate what PACE measures from orbit. But CASCADES is much bigger than my own work: it is an international (Canada, Switzerland, France, and Greenland), multidisciplinary expedition bringing together glaciologists measuring ice thickness, marine-mammal observers, microbiologists, geologists, and biogeochemists. Together, we are trying to understand how carbon and nutrients move from the ocean\u2019s surface to the deep sea, and how glacier meltwater changes that journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n No two days aboard the CCGS Amundsen<\/em> were alike. Our operations ranged from water sampling with a CTD rosette (an instrument that measures temperature, salinity, and depth), to catching zooplankton and fish with nets, to pulling up surface sediments and six-meter-long sediment cores that let us reconstruct the history of these fjords. And, of course, I had my own work: measuring how light travels through the water column at different wavelengths across the visible spectrum and taking water color spectra at the surface. These water color spectra tell us about the abundance of biological activity and possibly about the composition of the phytoplankton communities that form the base of the marine ecosystems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nInto the Unknown\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Path to the Sea<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Ops and Opportunity\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n
International Exploration\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n
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