RADARSAT-2 Derived Glacier Velocities and Dynamic Discharge Estimates for the Canadian High Arctic: 2015–2020

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Wesley Van Wychen, David Burgess, Will Kochtitzky, Natalija Nikolic, Luke Copland, Laurence Gray
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020
• Subjects: Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Technology; T; Arctic; Belcher; Belcher Glacier; Devon Ice Cap; Heiberg; Prince of Wales Icefield; Wykeham Glacier; Ice cap; Queen Elizabeth Islands
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2020.1859359; https://doaj.org/article/026f3eeb37a3493db98368dd7b84f6e4

RADARSAT-2 imagery collected each winter from 2015/2016 to 2019/2020 is used to quantify and characterize the variability in the motion of, and the discharge from, the major marine-terminating ice masses of the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI: Devon, Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands) in the Canadian High Arctic. The majority of the glaciers did not experience significant variations in flow speeds over the observation period, and for most that did the variations are attributed to pulse and surge processes. However, there are exceptions where the velocity record indicates continued acceleration of the glaciers by processes that appear distinct from surging or pulsing, such as dynamic thinning. These include Trinity and Wykeham glaciers (Prince of Wales Icefield) and Belcher Glacier (Devon Ice Cap). The combination of surface velocities with ice thicknesses indicates that average ice discharge to the ocean for the QEI over the observation period was 2.78 ± 0.52 Gt a−1 (ranging between ∼2.37 ± 0.48 Gt a−1 and ∼3.20 ± 0.55 Gt a−1), ∼50% of which was channeled through the Trinity-Wykeham glacier basin alone. The results presented here, combined with those of previous studies, provide a comprehensive record of ice motion and discharge from the QEI between 2008 and 2020.