Interactions between ice, meltwater, ocean and atmosphere at Canada's northern coast

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Major transformation is currently underway in atmospheric, oceanic and cryospheric environments in the Canadian Arctic. Climate change has drastically reduced the volume of sea ice in the circum-Arctic, while in terrestrial environments glaciers are melting. Coastal environments, where watersheds, glaciers, meltwater, floating ice and ocean interact, are also changing rapidly. Climate warming has already altered the thick ice at Canada's northernmost coast. Vast ice shelves that have existed along the north coast of Ellesmere Island for thousands of years have lost 50% of their areal extent in break-up events over the last decade. My research will examine changes in thickness of these ice shelves by employing innovative remote sensing technology that will be used to better define the relationship between climate and coastal cryospheric change. My students and I will use remote sensing techniques to identify different types of ice exposed at the surface and evaluate whether changes in the motion of glaciers is implicated in the calving of certain ice shelves while modelling the stresses in other ice shelves to examine various possible mechanisms of ice break-up. Arctic fiords are a critical link between the ocean, coastal ice shelves and terrestrial glaciers. The ice shelves along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island once dammed glacial meltwater at the head of fiords, creating a layer of fresh water overlying seawater, called an epishelf lake. With recent collapse of ice shelves, and subsequent drainage of the lakes, only one such lake remains in Canada. The epishelf lake in Milne Fiord is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. My team and I will study the oceanographic influences on the stability of the Milne Ice Shelf by examining sub-ice shelf flow of epishelf lake water using current meters and oceanographic moorings. We will determine how meltwater runoff and changes in the thickness of the freshwater layer is related to ice shelf break-up events for an enhanced understanding of the processes that are now reshaping the coast of Ellesmere Island and the Arctic coastal cryosphere. My program will provide graduate training in state-of-the-art remote sensing analysis and field research in remote Arctic Canada. This research will help determine the implications of the profound environmental transformation now underway in the Arctic.