Vancouver Island Regional Library

Scientist-in-Residence: Canadian Antarctic Research Expedition 2025
2026-01-20 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Vancouver) | In Branch, British Columbia, Canada
Join our Scientist-In-Residence Dr. Sophia Johannessen for an illustrated talk about…
Science at the bottom of the world: the Canadian Antarctic Research Expedition 2025
In the spring of 2025, fifteen Canadian scientists spent a month in Antarctica, aboard the Canadian navy ship HMCS Margaret Brooke. It was an extraordinary trip: spectacular, fascinating and strange. The mission was science diplomacy. The scientists were there to investigate the effects of climate change on the coastal waters of Antarctica… but that was only part of the story.
Dr. Sophia Johannessen is a geochemical oceanographer at Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences in North Saanich. She studies the effects of climate change and other human activities on the coastal ocean. Her recent projects include studies of the change in productivity in the Salish Sea, the fate of diluted bitumen spilled in BC coastal waters, and the potential for “blue carbon” storage in seagrass meadows for climate change mitigation. She works mainly in the coastal waters of British Columbia, but she has also worked in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and most recently in the coastal waters of Antarctica.
