Learning More about the North – the Canadian Cryosphere

The Government of Canada contributed $150 million to International Polar Year (IPY), the largest ever scientific research program to study Arctic and Antarctic regions.  Of this, $4.5 million was dedicated to studying the cryosphere, the frozen water component of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Anne Walker, Manager of the Climate Processes Section of the Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, is the leader of Variability and Change in the Canadian Cryosphere, one of 44 Canadian IPY projects funded by the Government of Canada Program for International Polar Year. This large network project involves more than 30 co-investigators, with expertise in satellite remote sensing, climate analysis and modelling, from Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian universities and the private sector.

Environment Canada’s Contribution

A major goal of the project is to provide new and enhanced observations on the state of Canada’s cryosphere (terrestrial snow cover, sea ice, lake and river ice, frozen ground, glaciers and ice caps) as a contribution to the IPY “snapshot.” Other scientific goals include developing metrics on the magnitude of change in the cryosphere compared to the historical records, characterizing variability and change in the cryosphere in relation to changes in the climate system, and understanding and improving the current climate model predictions of changes in the cryosphere.

Several scientists from the Climate Processes Section involved in the IPY project are carrying out research to enhance the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) to improve parameterization of cryospheric processes. Essential to climate prediction in Canada, CLASS is a state-of-the-art tool developed in the Climate Processes Section that focusses on the land surface and its interaction with the atmosphere in climate modelling.

The IPY project led by Anne Walker involved several major field measurement campaigns employing on-ground, aircraft and satellite measurements taken over the course of the two-year study. In a series of expeditions, team members conducted snow, lake and ice surveys throughout Canada’s North, including areas near Inuvik, NWT, and Puvirnituq, Quebec. They took tens-of-thousands of depth measurements of the snowpack and lake ice cover, collected thousands of ice cores, and completed hundreds of hours of airborne microwave radiometer flights, all to assess the current state of snow and ice in the Canadian cryosphere. In April 2007, two scientists from the Climate Processes Section participated in a 4200-km snowmobile trek from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Baker Lake, Nunavut, to collect data on the snow properties across the sub-arctic tundra of North America.

Increased Understanding of the Canadian North

The IPY cryosphere project will enhance Canadian expertise in remote sensing, climate analysis and modelling. It also advances training of the next generation of scientists through participation of students and postdoctoral fellows hired by the government and university co-investigators.

The project is already producing beneficial results: for example, one sophisticated new tool developed for measuring terrestrial snow cover employs aircraft- and satellite-based microwave radiometer measurements to evaluate the water equivalent of the snowpack (SWE) over the sub-Arctic tundra. Through monitoring and assessing changes in snow cover accumulation patterns, this measurement technique will be beneficial over time for ongoing study of the changing climate of the Canadian Arctic.

Climate Processes

The IPY cryosphere project is just one part of the research on cold climate processes coordinated by Anne Walker in her position as Manager of the Climate Processes Section, one of five sections within the Climate Research Division of Environment Canada’s Science and Technology Branch. The Section is made up of 22 staff members with a variety of expertise including remote sensing, cryosphere and climate interactions, land surface process modelling, and climate measurement techniques, located in facilities across the country. Their focus is on learning more about how climate processes respond to the changing climate, and then using these parameters to make improvements to the climate models used in describing climate change.

More on Variability and Change in the Canadian Cryosphere

Changing Earth – Examining the State of our Cryosphere.  EnviroZine, Issue 80, March 10, 2008.

Environment Canada's International Polar Year website.

Visit the profiles of some of the researchers working in the Climate Processes Section:

• Tom A. Agnew: Research Meteorologist - Research on Canadian Arctic Climate especially satellite monitoring of Arctic sea ice
• Paul A. Bartlett: Research Scientist - Surface process modelling and measurement
• Ross Brown: Cryosphere Scientist
• Chris Derksen: Research Scientist - Cryosphere and Climate Interaction
• Murray D. MacKay: Research Scientist - Regional and land-surface climate modeller
• Craig D. Smith: Research Climatologist - Precipitation processes and measurement science, land surface-atmosphere interactions