Land-Atmosphere-Ice and Snow Interactions in the High Arctic: the Hazen Plateau, Ellesmore Island

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ABSTRACTOPP-9819362BRADLEY, RAYMONDUNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTSThis project will be conducted on a glacier on an arctic upland on Ellesmere Island, Canada that extends down to an elevation approximately equivalent to the elevation of the average snow line. That relationship makes this glacier very sensitive to climate change and critical to the onset or retreat of the glacier. Even a small warming would affect the position of the grounding line of the glacier under these conditions. Therefore this study will be able to identify the critical conditions necessary for the onset of widespread retreat of glaciers under predicted global change scenarios. The project involves an extensive field program and utilization of existing climate stations on Ellesmere Island to determine the important climate variables and feedbacks of the air-land-ice system that drives glacial retreat and advance. This project could determine both the dynamics of the climate-glacier system and possibly detect ongoing glacial response to observed arctic warming.