BOND2.0 — Deploying light-based sensing technologies to monitor climate active gases in a mutating Arctic
Principal investigators
Martin Bernier (Physics, physical engineering and optics), Daniel Nadeau (Civil and water engineering)
Co-investigators
Réal Vallée (Physics, physical engineering and optics), Younès Messaddeq (Physics, physical engineering and optics)
Collaborators
Warwick Vincent (Université Laval), Isabelle Laurion (INRS), Bernard Dussardier (Centre national de la recherche scientifique-UCA)
Partners
ABB, Teraxion, Photon etc., Hydro-Québec, Centre for northern studies, Centre d’optique, photonique et laser
Abstract
BOND2.0 will address the urgent need to monitor rapid changes in the northern environment and will build on and mobilize our achievements in the previous Sentinel North project 2.6 BOND: Beacons Of Northern Dynamics via new objectives, team members and approaches. The main objective of BOND2.0 consists in developing and deploying cutting-edge remote sensing technologies, built from innovative photonic engineering, to precisely detect and monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remotely in the field to assess their future impacts.
Ongoing rapid climate changes are provoking profound modifications in the climate system, most prominently within the cryosphere. These northern environments are hosts to diverse and complex ecosystems, within which biogeochemical cycles of major elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen drive the overturning and exchanges of GHGs such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Precise monitoring of these gases is paramount and requires real-time measurements of their fluxes.
Anchored in the groundbreaking development initiated during the first phase of the BOND project, various optical approaches will be demonstrated and deployed in the field to meet the challenges related to real-time and remote detection of GHG emissions in the atmospheric boundary layer over lakes and land surfaces. Atmospheric gas detection will rely on cutting-edge mid-IR coherent sources and active hyperspectral imaging techniques, both developed in close collaboration with leading industrial partners in the field of photonics (Teraxion), hyperspectral imaging (Photon etc.) and environmental monitoring (ABB). In-situ deployment of these detection systems will be first realized at the Romaine 2 hydroelectric complex, in close collaboration with Hydro-Québec, to demonstrate the concepts in a real environment and calibrate the systems with reference measurements. A second deployment phase of the qualified monitoring systems will be realized in the subarctic environment (thermokarst lake) in collaboration with the Centre for northern studies. These pioneering approaches will provide the focus for BOND2.0’s main objective: the deployment of leading-edge optical monitoring devices acting as the early warning Beacons of Northern Dynamics.