Graduate studies opportunity

There could be exciting upcoming opportunities! If you are a scientist with strong technical computer skills interested in bridging oceanography and fisheries, please contact me directly.




Some recent research projects


The influence of climate on ecosystems
(Many collaborators)


Sustainable fisheries management requires understanding of the links between environmental conditions and fish stock populations, especially in the context of climate change. Since I joined DFO in 2017 as a physical oceanographer, a large part of my work was naturally oriented towards this challenge. Examples of work and topics in fisheries-environment includes (in inverse chronological order): the Long-Term Decline of Atlantic Salmon in Canada, the recovery of fish communities following system collapse, models for ecosystem-informed fisheries advice, the effect of stratification as a nursery for fish, Short- and long-term global-scale prospects for snow crab under global warming, seabird dynamics in the Northwest Atlantic, predictors of capelin spawning timing, etc.

I am also involved in the NAFO Standing Committee on Fisheries Environment (STACFEN) where I develop, among other things, environmental indices for fisheries management.

My main ongoing project is on the Environmental Control on the Productivity of a Heavily Fished Ecosystem in the NW Atlantic (see Figure on the right).

Maps of the sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies over the North Atlantic for 6 different climate phases periods (1948-1971, 1971-1976, 1976-1982, 1982-1998, 1998-2014 and 2014-2017). These are recalled in a side panel showing the cummulative sum of the NL Climate Index (NLCI Cumsum; black curve) with green/red shades showing the period of interest. Anomalies in the annual primary production above the NW Atlantic and Calanus finmarchicus density on the NL shelves are shown in the top of each SLP panel (where available). The trends in capelin biomass, multi-species bottom trawl survey biomass density, and groundfish biomass are indicated in the bottom of SLP panels (see legend). The anomalies and trends have been highlighted in green and red for positive and negative, respectively. Figure from Cyr et al. (2024).




Physical Biogeochemical interactions in the NW Atlantic
(Cyr, Bélanger, Gibb, Lewis, et al.)


As a physical oceanographer, I have always been committed to develop an overall understanding of the physical-biogeochemical interactions in the NW Atlantic and elsewhere in the world. In times where anthropogenic climate change brings uncertainties on how the ocean will react to multi-stressors (e.g., increase in temperature and stratification, and decrease in salinity, pH and oxygen concentrations), such an approach is sometimes key to understand the changes undergoing by the ecosystems. Examples of recents studies on this include the role of large-scale circulation changes in ocean deoxygenation (Jutras et al., 2020) and phytoplankton and nutrients dynamics (Barcelo-Llull et al., 2021; Tzortzis et al., 2021; Barillon et al., 2023).

Two larger projects however retained my attention in recent years:

1. Since the industrial revolution, the ocean has taken up approximately 40% of the total anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere, causing what is known as Ocean Acidification (OA), a major threat to the world’s ecosystems. In Atlantic Canada, OA parameters are collected by DFO as part of the AZMP since 2014. We develop an open access dataset of historical OA data and a baseline of the ocean carbonate system. This OA initiative is now used annually to report the state of OA in Departmental reports and as part of the State of the Ocean Report.

2. Large phytoplankton blooms occur every spring in mid- and high-latitude oceans. Many high trophic-level species are adapted to benefit from these blooms at crucial stages of their life cycle. Substantial changes in the timing of the bloom may impact the energy transfer to higher trophic levels and, in turn, ecosystem productivity. In a study on the Physical controls and ecological implications of the timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom, we demonstrate that the ocean climate influences the timing of the bloom on the NL shelf and the abundance of a key zooplankton species. This work was presented in an outreach article in The Conversation.

Maps of surface and bottom pH and saturation state of aragonite (Ωarg) and calcite (Ωcal) for fall 2017. Figure from Gibb et al. (2023)..




Newfoundland and Labrador ocean climate
(Cyr, Galbraith, Coyne et al.)



The Newfoundland and Labrador climate index (NLCI) aims to give an overall state of the climate system. It is built of 10 normalized anomaly time series, where positive values representing warm-salty conditions with less sea-ice and conversely negative values representing cold-fresh conditions. This climate index highlights the different regimes prevailing since 1950. For example, the 1960s stand stand out as sustained warm periods, while the late 1980s and early 1990s as a very cold one. The warming trend from the early 1990s that peaked in 2010 was followed by recent cooling centered between 2014 and 2017. Since 2020, one of the warmest period on record is emerging.

The NLCI and its subindices are available at https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0301.

Newfoundland and Labrador climate index derived by summing, in a stacked bar plot, the normalized anomalies of various time series presented in this report. The time series (which start in 1950 unless specified) used for the climate index are as follows: winter NAO index, the air temperature at 5 sites (St. John's, Bonavista, Cartwright, Iqluit and Nuuk), the sea ice season duration and total volume on the Labrador and Newfoundland shelves (starts in 1969), the number of icebergs, SSTs of the NW Atlantic (starts in 1982), vertically-averaged temperature and salinity at Station 27, CIL mean temperature and core temperature at Station 27, the summer CIL volume along hydrographic sections Seal Island, Bonavista and Flemish, and the spring and fall bottom temperature in NAFO divisions 3LNOPs and 2J3KLNO, respectively (both start in 1980).




Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program
(NAFC-Oceanography)


An important task of my actual position at Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Newfoundland (DFO-NL) is to study the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and produce scientific advise in partial support to fisheries. The main data provider for this is the Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program (AZMP), a series of lines and oceanographic stations established in 1999 and maintain with as much as three times 3-week long oceanographic surveys per year. Since summer 2017, an oceanographic buoy is also transmitting in real-time at Station 27. Because the region under the radar of our department is one of the key area for the world ocean circulation, I expect very interesting results to come over the next years. I also welcome any collaboration ideas related to the region.

A map of the Northwest Atlantic ocean (A), including some of the hydrographic sections under the responsability of DFO-NL. The grey lines show the NAFO Divisions, black arrows show the movement of ocean currents, and the red dots indicate three transects presented on the right panels. The average summer temperature over the period 1995-2018 is shown for each transect (B) Seal Island (SI), (C) Bonavista Bay (BB), and (D) Southeast Grand Banks (SEGB). A thick black line shows the 0°C isotherm delimiting the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL) for each transect. The CIL is a key element of the NL ecosystem influencing multiple fish populations. Figure from Aune et al. (2024).




MiniFluo-UV and SeaExplorer glider
(Cyr, Tedetti, Goutx, et al.)


During the whole year 2016 I was working at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography in Marseille on the EU project NeXOS. My role was to test and validate a new glider-compatible optical sensor (the MiniFluo-UV) for measurements of dissolved organic matter. Two research papers were published in Frontiers in Marine Science : A New Glider-Compatible Optical Sensor for Dissolved Organic Matter Measurements: Test Case from the NW Mediterranean Sea and A Glider-Compatible Optical Sensor for the Detection of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Marine Environment.

Poster presented at the European Geoscience Union conference in Vienna (April 2017).




Trapped diurnal tides - Rockall Bank
(Cyr, van Haren, et al.)


The Rockall Bank is located in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. It is known for hosting topographically-trapped internal waves causing an important diurnal internal swash on the slopes the bank. This internal swash is described in Observations of Small-Scale Secondary Instabilities during the Shoaling of Internal Bores on a Deep-Ocean Slope published in Journal of Physical Oceanography. Up to a certain extent, these intense hydrodynamics conditions control the distribution of cold-water corals (CWC) in the area. A paper On the influence of cold-water coral mound size on flow hydrodynamics, and vice versa is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Arrival of a deep bore shoaling on the slopes of Rockall bank (sequence from a moored thermistor chain, 12-h period).




Turbulent mixing in the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary
(Cyr, Bourgault & Galbraith)


My PhD thesis was entitled Turbulent mixing in the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary. As part of this work, I first quantified the mixing ocurring in the interior vs boundary of the basin. Then I was interested in the mechanisms driving the mixing, especially the mixing near the sloping boundary. Overall, this work led to the first quantification of the mixing in the St. Lawrence. This work also led to a better understanding of the effect of mixing on turbulent diapycnal fluxes of nitrates and oxygen and on their effect on the ecosytem.

Turbulent mixing and turbulent vertical nitrate fluxes at a sill. The shear (S2, top) from an ADCP and the dissipation rates of TKE (middle) are presented. Enlargement of the middle plot where nitrate fluxes are presented in the bottom panel over the ADCP echogram. Note that for a better visualization, the bottom plot is scaled differently from other plots and only one cast out of two is presented.