Terry Noah, an Inuit researcher operating from Canada’s northernmost public community of Girse Fiord in Nunavut, is collecting data on changing conditions in a critical Arctic ecosystem. Working with collaborators including Andrew Hamilton at the University of Alberta, Noah deploys submersible instruments beneath sea ice to monitor environmental shifts in Jones Sound and the surrounding waters that connect to Baffin Bay.
The focus of this scientific effort is an 85,000-square-kilometer area of year-round open water known by multiple names: the North Water to historical whalers, Pikialasorsuaq to Greenlandic Inuit meaning “the great upwelling,” and Sarvarjuaq to Nunavut Inuit meaning “the place that never freezes.” This polynya, a naturally open stretch of Arctic Ocean, supports an extraordinary concentration of life including algae blooms, whales, seals, walruses, polar bears, and millions of seabirds that have migrated there for millennia.
The polynya’s existence depends partly on an ice arch that forms across Nares Strait, preventing Arctic sea ice from being blown southward and keeping the water open. However, this ice arch has failed to form reliably for nearly two decades, creating a counterintuitive climate change effect: instead of less ice, warming may ultimately result in more ice covering the polynya during spring months, potentially collapsing the ecosystem’s productivity.
International protection efforts have proceeded unevenly. Canada designated a marine protected area on its side of the zone in March this year, but Greenland has not yet followed through on similar commitments made following a 2017 recommendation. Sara Olsvig, a member of Greenlandic parliament, cited concerns about protecting Indigenous rights alongside conservation goals. Scientists convened in Nuuk in autumn 2025 to discuss developing an observatory to monitor the polynya, though logistical challenges including passport requirements have complicated efforts to coordinate knowledge between Inuit communities on both sides of Baffin Bay.
Researchers emphasize that combining traditional Inuit knowledge with scientific measurement is essential for understanding the region’s transformation, particularly subsurface changes occurring hundreds of meters below the ice surface where specialized instruments are required for detection.
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