History of glacier investigations in Canada

Because of extensive high mountain ranges (peaks nearly 6,000 meters above sea level in western Canada) and high latitude (latitude 83° North in the High Arctic Islands), Canada has a large number of glacierized regions; the area covered by glaciers increases from south to north along the border with Alaska in the west and from Labrador to Ellesmere Island in the east. Glaciers cover an estimated 150,000 square kilometers of the Arctic Islands, three times the glacier cover in western Canada (about 50,000 square kilometers), for an approximate total area of 200,000 square kilometers. The principal glacierized regions of Canada are the mountain groups of the Coast Mountains: St. Elias Mountains, Boundary Ranges, and Pacific Ranges; Interior Ranges; Rocky Mountains; and Arctic Islands: Baffin Island, Devon Island, Ellesmere Island, Axel Heiberg Island, Meighen Island, and Melville Island. The first field observations of Canadian glaciers were made in 1861. During the past 140 years, various types of glaciological measurements, from observations in the field to airborne and satellite remote sensing, have been made, for varying periods of time, of 176 individual glaciers, including 13 glaciers in Yukon Territory (St. Elias Mountains), 63 glaciers in the Coast Mountains, 10 glaciers in the Interior Ranges, 27 glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, 41 glaciers in the High Arctic, 10 glaciers in the Low Arctic, and 5 glaciers in Labrador (Tomgat Mountains). Seven other glaciers have been studied but are outside these mountain ranges and are not discussed. Most of the studies of mass-balance, modeling, dendrochronology, climatology, ice chemistry and physics, ice-core analysis, glacier-surge mechanics, and airborne and satellite remote sensing were carried out during the past 50 years, stimulated by the need for increased knowledge of water resources in the western glacierized basins and to support scientific work during the International Geophysical Year (1945 to middle 1950's), increased knowledge of Arctic Canada, a response to security and sovereignty concerns (middle 1950's to the middle 1960's), and by the International Hydrological Decade (middle 1960's to the 1970's). During the 1990's governmental support of glacier research in Canada waned, but by the beginning of the 21st century, the Geological Survey of Canada initiated a National Glaciology Programme, including a Cryospheric Systems Research Initiative (CRYSYS), motivated by achieving a better scientific understanding of the potential impact of climate change on Canada's water resources and the Arctic region. With the increased availability of the higher spatial and spectral resolution in satellite imagery (including stereoscopic imagery), radar imagery (including InSAR), and laser altimetry, glaciologists will increasingly rely on satellite remote sensing to acquire some of the data needed to monitor changes in area and volume and glacier velocity.

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