Visionary Manitoba Arctic researcher David Barber dies, leaving ‘massive footprint’ in field
Household and mates are mourning the lack of the visionary Arctic researcher and College of Manitoba professor David Barber.
Barber, who was a distinguished professor, the founding director of the Centre for Earth Remark Science and affiliate dean of analysis within the college of surroundings, earth and useful resource, handed away on Friday after struggling problems from cardiac arrest.
Barber, 61, is survived by his spouse Lucette, three youngsters and two grandchildren.
He loomed as giant in his household as he did in academia, says his eldest son, Jeremy Barber.
“I believe the outward going through piece that folks could know of him as form of being the Arctic man was only a piece of all the man that he was, but it surely was very symbolic of what he was in the remainder of his life,” Jeremy mentioned in an interview with CBC Information.
“He was a really fiercely passionate man and a really loyal father, husband and member of the family.”
David, who was a Canada Analysis Chair in arctic system science and local weather change, was very intentional about together with his household in his work, Jeremy mentioned.
“In 1999, I went as much as a distant camp with him a two-hour helicopter journey north of Resolute Bay and simply lived that life with him. And he did that for my whole life,” he mentioned.
“I do not understand how he managed to get a nine-year-old child onto an ice cap, but it surely was it was one thing that I am very grateful for, one thing that very a lot positioned who myself and my siblings are as folks.”
U of M climatologist Tim Papakyriakou additionally spent quite a lot of time with Barber within the excessive arctic — typically even in tents on the ocean ice.
“He was the man that you simply’d wish to be with if issues went sideways. He was a really, very intelligent particular person, very intuitive, a really large man, too … So when you get your snowmobile caught or one thing else occurs, yeah, you wish to have Dave beside you,” Papakyriakou mentioned.
Papakyriakou says Barber left a “huge footprint” on Arctic analysis, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Barber was instrumental within the improvement of many giant worldwide multidisciplinary networks, and helped safe main Arctic analysis infrastructure.
“He got here again to the College of Manitoba as a result of he needed to make a contribution right here. He was a brilliant proud Manitoban, tremendous proud Canadians and liked the Arctic. He labored tirelessly to place Canada again on the map in Arctic analysis, and he did try this,” he mentioned.
Barber was awarded the Order or Canada in 2016, being acknowledged as “considered one of our nation’s most influential Arctic researchers.”
Colleague and buddy Feiyue Wang, a professor and Canada Analysis Chair in arctic environmental chemistry at U of M, mentioned Barber’s loss as a visionary and chief within the area will probably be felt internationally.
“The affect most have felt is his management, his imaginative and prescient that we have now to handle complicated local weather change, Arctic change problem with … not simply academia, however that with trade, with communities, with governments working collectively to arrange the north of the Arctic for what is going on to occur,” Wang mentioned.
He is particularly dissatisfied Barber will not be there to see the disclosing of the Churchill Marine Observatory within the port of Churchill, one thing that he sees as a sport changer.
“It is the primary main scientific infrastructure within the Arctic for the Arctic … in order that’s considered one of my greatest regrets that David will not be going to see the grand opening and all of the analysis that can occur at the power,” Wang mentioned.
The U of M is internet hosting a celebration of life event to honour Barber within the engineering atrium on April 23 from 1-3 p.m.
