Eddy Carmack

Address
Scientist Emeritus
Ocean Sciences Division
Institute of Ocean Sciences
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 6000
9860 West Saanich Road, Sidney, B.C.
Canada, V8L 4B2

Phone: 250-363-6585

Fax: 250-363-6746

Email: Eddy.Carmack@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Research area(s):

  • Impacts of climate change
  • Physical oceanography

Area of Expertise:

Dr. Eddy Carmack is a Senior Research Scientist Emeritus for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, British Columbia. His research interests include ocean circulation, mixing and water mass formation on continental shelves in the open ocean, and their relationships to climate and marine ecosystems. With a focus on high-latitude waters, he has participated in over 80 field investigations in rivers, lakes and seas spanning from the Antarctic to the Arctic; from the Yukon to Siberia. From this he has published over 175 peer-reviewed scientific articles, over 70% of which contain ‘original’ data. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the 2007 Massey medalist of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, the 2010 Tully medalist for the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and holds the Sydney Chapman Chair at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

In the past, with Environment Canada, he studied the consequences of economic development on the physical habitat and ecology of lakes. His current research seeks to examine the signals and causes of climate variability in high-latitude lakes and oceans and repercussions to the food web and resident fish and marine mammals. He has served as Chief Canadian scientist for co-operative studies of the subarctic North Pacific with Russia, for the 1994 Canada/US expedition to the North Pole, for recent international studies in the Northwest Passage and Canada Basin, and the ‘Canada’s Three Oceans’ project for the international Polar Year; in retirement, he is ‘Captain’ of his 34’ troller conversion R/V Wicklow.

He has been involved in projects that have encouraged citizen scientist’s involvement, such as “The Drift Bottle Project”. Since 2000, he, together with citizen scientists, students, and other interested volunteers, has tossed over 5,000 bottles into waters surrounding North America and stretching from the Arctic to Antarctica. Contained inside are messages describing the drop time and place, and a request to contact the Drift Bottle research team if found. This simple and inexpensive project allows communities and students to get involved in thinking about our oceans and our environment.

He also proposed another Citizen Science program, whereby small fishing vessels could be set up as mini oceanographic sampling vessels, to be used in the Strait of Georgia to collect information that would be very costly to collect on larger vessels. This was implemented through the Salish Sea Marine Survival Program’s Citizen Science Program, where over a 3-year period (2015-2017) oceanographic data was collected in the Strait of Georgia at a spatial and temporal scale not realized or possible before.

Select Presentation(s) / Publication(s):

Chittenden, C.M. & Sweeting, R.M. & Neville, Chrys & Young, Kelly & Galbraith, Moira & Carmack, Eddy & Vagle, Svein & Dempsey, Mike & Eert, J & Beamish, R.J.. (2017). Estuarine and marine diets of out-migrating Chinook Salmon smolts in relation to local zooplankton populations, including harmful blooms. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. 200. 10.1016/j.ecss.2017.11.021.

Finke, Jan & Hunt, Brian & Winter, Christian & Carmack, Eddy & Suttle, Curtis. (2017). Nutrients and Other Environmental Factors Influence Virus Abundances across Oxic and Hypoxic Marine Environments. Viruses. 9. 152. 10.3390/v9060152.

Vagle, Svein; Carmack, Eddy; Dempsey, Mike; “Multi-Scale Ecosystem Observations in Cowichan Bay, BC” (2016). Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. 42. https://cedar.wwu.edu/ssec/2016ssec/species_food_webs/42/

Carmack, Eddy; Holling, Buzz; Vagle, Svein; Dempsey, Mike; Eert, Jane; Zimmerman, Sarah; Galbraith, Moira; Hannah, Charles; Chittenden, Cedar; and Williams, Bill, “Oceanography of Cowichan Bay: A background view for early marine survival of Chinook and Coho salmon” (2014). Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. 198. https://cedar.wwu.edu/ssec/2014ssec/Day2/198

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