Tributary-trunk interaction and glacier response to climate change in western Canada

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Glaciers play an important role in the global environment. They are storage systems of most of the world's fresh water, they dramatically alter the landscape, they affect ecosystems and provide us with direct records of climatic and atmospheric conditions and changes. Glaciers are also situated in one of the most pristine and beautiful landscapes. In response to global warming, glaciers worldwide have been retreating and losing mass in the past 100-150 years, which has contributed significantly to global sealevel rise. One notable effect of glacier retreat is the overall disintegration of the glacier system: tributaries that were once attached to their trunk glaciers can become detached and cease feeding ice into these main glacier bodies. This research program quantifies these tributary-trunk interactions in western Canada using a suite of approaches, and will contribute to the advancement of our knowledge of glacier systems in order to improve the prediction of glacier and ice sheet dynamics and their response to climate change. Knowledge of the processes related to the presence and nature of tributaries will also hold tools for prediction of glacier recession rates, changes in flow regime and glacier surging.