Mackenzie Delta river-ice breakup

淡水冰是北方河流的重要组成部分，是相关生物、化学和物理过程的重要调节剂。尽管人们对气候变化对冰雪覆盖系统的潜在影响表示了许多担忧，但我们的知识基础仍然相对薄弱，因此难以预测气候变化对冰雪覆盖系统影响的性质和程度。此外，即使是关于加拿大北部河冰系统的基本信息，也一直是对开发的潜在环境影响进行适当评估的一个问题，包括沿麦肯齐河和最近直接在麦肯齐河三角洲内的石油和天然气开发。虽然已知河冰破裂会造成三角洲一年中的主要水文事件，对其生态健康至关重要，但缺乏关于气候变化如何控制此类事件的时间、严重程度和三角洲内部空间维度的信息。此外，人们对未来气候会产生什么影响知之甚少。

Freshwater ice is an integral component of northern rivers and an important modifier of related biological, chemical and physical processes. Although many concerns have been expressed about the potential impacts of climate change on ice-covered systems, our knowledge base remains relatively weak thereby making it difficult to predict the nature and magnitude of the effects of a changing climate on ice-covered systems. Moreover, even basic information on river-ice systems in northern Canada has been a problem for proper assessment of the potential environmental impact of development, including oil and gas development along the Mackenzie River and most recently directly within the Mackenzie River Delta. Although river-ice breakup is known to create the dominant hydrologic event of the year in the Delta and is essential to its ecological health, there is a lack of information about how variations in climate have controlled the timing, severity and intra-delta spatial dimensions of such events. Moreover, little is know what effects future climate will produce.