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Penny Ice Cap shrinking like the rest?

Glacier researcher begins ice study

JOHN THOMPSON

A scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada plans to study how quickly the Penny Ice Cap is shrinking.

This month, Christian Zdanorwicz will visit the sprawling glacier, which covers 5,100 square kilometres inside Auyuittuq National Park, between Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq.

Most glacier studies are done in the High Arctic, at sites such as the Devon Ice Cap. This means that in the world of glaciology, not much is known about the big hunks of ice found in the lower reaches of the Arctic, such as in the South Baffin. Zdanorwicz wants to compare the rate of change between the two regions.

“We need more geographic coverage,” he said.

His method of studying the glacier’s shrinking mass is decidedly low tech: he plans to stick aluminum rods into the glacier.

These rods will serve as measuring sticks, revealing to researchers how much of the glacier shrinks each year.

The researcher will also dig a pit in the surface of the ice beside each pole to measure the density of the surrounding ice. Using those two bits of information, scientists should be able to create a profile of how quickly the glacier is shrinking, he said.

“We only get a snapshot of what’s going on over the entire year,” he said.

Over the last few years Zdanorwicz has studied the Grinnell glacier, about 100 kilometres south of Iqaluit, on the western shore of Frobisher Bay. At about 860 metres above the sea, it’s also at a lower altitude than the Penny Ice Gap, in an area where storms off the coast cause heavy melts during the summer, and heavy snows during the winter.

“The weather is atrocious,” he said.

A more high-tech approach was used: weather-reading instruments were stored inside a metal post that’s drilled into the ice and supported by guide cables.

But when researchers returned the following year, there was no sign of their gear.

“It completely vanished.”

Eventually they spotted the edge of a metal post, poking out from the snow. The pipe had broken in high winds, and then became buried in snow.

Because the instruments were buried, they only provided bits and pieces of information, rather than a full picture.

More recently he walked along the edge of glacier, measuring his progress with a GPS locator, and comparing the results with aerial photos taken during the 1950s.

The results all point to the same dramatic shrinking found in other parts of the Arctic, he said. The greatest melting occurs at the edges of the glaciers, while the least occurs at the highest altitudes near the centre.

“It’s very much fitting the picture of what we’re getting throughout the Canadian Arctic.”

Canadian researchers last studied the Penny Ice Cap during the mid-1990s, by drilling ice core samples from the glacier to study the patterns of freezing and thawing over centuries.

Zdanowicz’s research is done under the umbrella of the Canadian Glacier-Climate Observing Station, a network of glacier studies done across Canada’s north.

He will be joined during his research this summer by a Parks Canada warden. “They want to know what’s going on up there,” he said.

Canadian glacier research is run on a tight budget, with a only $20,000 to cover the costs of studying the entire Arctic this year, Zdanowicz said.

Predictably, most of that money is gobbled up by the cost of airline tickets. During some summers, Zdanowicz said, he paid his fare himself.

What’s more, the 10-foot aluminum poles he shipped up to Pangnirtung during the sealift season seem to have gone missing.

“People cannibalize them for all kinds of uses,” he said, explaining they’re often taken for construction work.

The poles also sometimes disappear on the glacier. He said fellow researcher Roy Koerner suspects curious polar bears may be the culprits, and that they rub themselves against the poles and dislodge them.

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