On the evening of 9 September 2013, while doing routine ice operations from the Canadian Research Icebreaker Amundsen, a tragic helicopter crash occurred over the Arctic Ocean. The accident claimed the lives of University of Manitoba researcher Klaus Hochheim (Ph.D.) and two Canadian Coast Guard officers: Captain Marc Thibault and Pilot Daniel Dubé. Klaus had worked with the Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS) since 2005. During both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, Klaus, 55, contributed to our collective understanding of sea ice climatology and microwave and optical remote sensing of ocean-sea ice-atmosphere coupled processes.
Intellectually, Klaus had a well-developed sense of what it means to be a scientist. He retained the curiosity of his childhood and this drove his scientific passion. Simply stated, he wanted to know how things worked. He was adept at using various environmental technologies, which allowed him to look at sea ice through a cascade of scales from micro to hemispheric. He took as much interest in precisely characterizing the microstructure of the brine pockets in sea ice as he did in understanding how sea ice growth, decay, and motion in Hudson Bay responded to changing global teleconnections.
To all in our lab, Klaus was both friend and mentor. As we gathered to remember him in the days following the crash, we all recalled his laugh, his willingness to help, and his ability to problemsolve. Almost without exception, our pictures of Klaus in the field show him working alongside graduate students and other research associates—helping them to achieve their goals.
Klaus was also very committed to aspects of social justice, and he felt that science was an absolute requirement to make honest and equitable policy decisions affecting people. He was concerned that climate change disproportionately affects the poor of our planet, and he died trying to provide the world with scientific data needed to make choices about our collective future. Some of his final work (including that in this special issue) will supply policy makers with scientific information as to how Hudson Bay is changing, what the relative impacts of hydroelectric regulation and climate change have on the system, and how this can act as a harbinger for what we can expect in temperate and tropical parts of our planet in the decades ahead.
I will miss my friend very much, and the world will miss his science; our ability to clearly see our collective future has just become a little dimmer with his passing. We share in the sorrow and offer our deepest condolences to his wife (Martha), three adult children (Karl, Laura, and Kerstin), and two grandchildren (Elizabeth and Stella). Thanks to the editors of this AAAR special issue for suggesting this dedication to show the camaraderie of what it means to be an Arctic Scientist.
