Top Danish expert recruited for CERC in Arctic microbiology and climate change

The arrival of Dr Soren Rysgaard at the Univ of Manitoba to assume a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Arctic Geomicrobiology and Climate Change is spurring the formation a bi-national research institute between Canada and Denmark to examine the impact of climate change on glacial and sea ice.

Rysgaard's CERC leverages $38 million in addition funding from the U of M, the province of Manitoba, a private donor and industry for a total of $48 million over seven years, one of the largest concentrations of funding stemming from the CERC awards. It will also serve to marshal Canada's Arctic research resources through the U of M's participation in ArcticNet, which has received $45.9 million since its formation in 2003. ArcticNet is based at Laval Univ, which was also awarded a CERC for the Remote Sensing of Canada's New Arctic Frontier.

"This is a major enhancement to our programs here," says Dr Dave Barber, a Canada Research Chair holder at U of M in Arctic System Science. "We are merging our geoscience and environmental research groups here and they will merge with the Greenland Climate Research Centre (GCRC). We signed off on an MOU one week ago and the merged centre will be fully functional by April 2011."

The combined research institute will have a nearly 200 research personnel.

Rysgaard founded the GCRC in 2005 and sees the CERC chair position as an ideal way to bridge the pioneering research efforts of the two countries with a focus on the waters that separate them.

"There's so much energy flowing in Canada," says Rysgaard. "We want to merge Arctic research and make the program stronger across Canada. It's the way to go for the future."

Rysgaard plans to utilize CERC funding to further his research into microbial activity and chemical transformations within sea ice and ocean sediments.

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