The Barrow Strait flow observational program started in 1998 and continued for 13 years to 2012. This was followed by the Barrow Strait Real Time Observatory Project until 2016, afterwards the project is a combination of both projects and called Maritimes Region Barrow Strait Monitoring Program.
Barrow Strait is the widest of the 4 passages through the Canadian Archipelago making it an important monitoring location. The program explores the magnitude and variability of freshwater, heat and volume transports through the eastern Northwest Passage. The data measured included: profile CTD and time series temperature, salinity, density, currents, ice draft and ice drift velocity. The time series data collected was used to quantify the freshwater discharge from the Arctic Ocean through Barrow Strait into the northwest Atlantic, and link variability in this freshwater outflow to large scale weather patterns. Annual analysis performed on the collected data include: low-pass filtering, power spectra, progressive vector diagram, tidal analyses, seasonal and monthly averaged stats, mean flow, and ice velocities. Data from the program, along with a description of the methods used, have been published annually up to 2015 in the Canadian Data Report of Hydrography and Ocean Sciences report number 190 to 195, 173, 167, 166, 165, 161, and 157.
An ocean observatory was installed at the eastern end of the Northwest Passage in 2009 to provide hourly ocean and ice conditions for use by mariners and climate modellers. Data from instrumented moorings are acoustically transmitted to a "data hub" at the offshore end of an underwater cable, sent through the cable, and then transmitted from the shore station by Iridium satellite for access on the web (https://www.bio.gc.ca/science/newtech-technouvelles/observatory-observatoire-en.php)
