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

冰川在全球环境中扮演着重要的角色。它们是世界上大多数淡水的储存系统，它们戏剧性地改变了景观，它们影响了生态系统，并为我们提供了气候和大气条件和变化的直接记录。冰川也位于最原始和最美丽的风景之一。为了应对全球变暖，世界各地的冰川在过去100-150年里一直在退缩和质量下降，这对全球海平面上升做出了重大贡献。冰川退缩的一个显著影响是冰川系统的全面解体：曾经附着在主干冰川上的支流可能会分离，不再向这些主要冰川体内注入冰。这项研究计划使用一套方法量化了加拿大西部的这些支流-主干相互作用，并将有助于促进我们对冰川系统的了解，以改进对冰川和冰盖动力学的预测及其对气候变化的反应。对与支流的存在和性质有关的过程的了解也将成为预测冰川退缩速度、水流状况变化和冰川涌动的工具。

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.