NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Tags: physical sciences, air quality, climate change, glaciology, snow, ice cap

Objective(s): To measuring the changing volume of the ice cap and maintaining an Automatic weather station so as to tell how much the climate is changing.

Project Description: By measuring the changing volume of the ice cap and maintaining an Automatic weather station the research team is able to tell how much the climate is changing. The snow sampling tells how clean the snow and thus the air above it and whether it is changing. While at the Melville ice cap, the team lives in a small hut by the side of the ice cap constructed last year. There is an automatic weather station on the ice cap, which provides a year-round record of snowfall and temperature. Because of weather conditions, the team cannot predict the exact dates of this proposed work, however they expect to be there between April 16 and 22, 2012. They also collect small samples (100 grams each) of snow at several sites to check for the acid content of the snow. The team flies directly to the ice cap and stay only 3 or 4 days on a limited budget. Because there is a glacier near the settlement of Grise Fiord, the team takes the students on the glacier for the day for instructive opportunities. The research team will keep the hamlets of Sachs Harbor and Ulukhaktok informed of progress and send any TV/Radio interviews on CD and also specially designed posters about the Melville results and the other ice caps as well. The research team has posters prepared of the work done on the ice cap so far and what it has shown and have sent these to the Aurora Research Institute and the communities of Sachs Harbor and Ulukhaktok. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from April 16, 2012 to April 22, 2012.