Wetting front advance and freezing of meltwater within a snow cover: 1. Observations in the Canadian Arctic

1984 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 1853-1864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Marsh ◽  
Ming-Ko Woo
1991 ◽  
Vol 37 (126) ◽  
pp. 209-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan E. Taylor

Abstract Changes in ground-surface temperature for the past few hundred years have been derived from deep temperature profiles at three wells in the northeastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and compared with the climatic history derived from the oxygen-isotope ratio 18O/16O measured in an ice core from the Agassiz Ice Cap, about 180-260 km to the east. Analysis of the ground-temperature profiles suggests that surface temperatures in the area decreased after the Little Climatic Optimum about 1000 years ago until the Little Ice Age (LIA). About 100 years ago, ground-surface temperatures appear to have increased by 2-5K to reach today’s values, while air temperatures increased by 2-3K, according to the isotope record. Part of the larger ground-surface temperature change may be due to other paleoenvironmental effects, such as an increase in snow cover coincident with the end of the LIA. The δ18O climatic record was successful in predicting the general features of the ground-temperature profiles observed at two of the sites, but not the third. There is contemporary evidence that surface temperatures at the latter site may be substantially modified by other environmental factors such as snow cover.


2013 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Bilodeau ◽  
Gilles Gauthier ◽  
Dominique Berteaux

1961 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 909-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. O. Savile

Ellef Ringnes Island has a confirmed flora of 49 vascular plants and five parasitic fungi. The adjacent islands have less diversity of habitat and probably have even poorer floras. There are no endemics and the plants are extremely depauperate. The summer climate at Isachsen is colder than at any other station in the Canadian arctic. Although there are no convincing indications that Ellef Ringnes I. was overrun by a Wisconsin continental ice sheet, it cannot have escaped being snow-covered. The light cover of snow and ice on the outer islands was quickly lost in the postglacial xerothermic, which enabled plants to spread along the periphery of the archipelago. The numerous plants that occur south-west and northeast of these islands but not in them indicate that postglacial cold periods, probably accompanied by at least partial snow cover of the outermost islands, have driven out many species. Nearctic refugia are discussed and it is indicated, by analysis of distribution patterns, that no refugia occurred in the Canadian arctic archipelago. The region has been colonized from the Peary Land refuge, the Yukon–Alaska refugia, and from south of the retreating ice sheets.


1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry D. Williams

It has been suggested that the Laurentide Ice Sheet originated with extensive perennial snow cover, and that the snow cover affected climate so as to aid ice-sheet development. In this study, a large increase in extent of October 1st snow cover in the Canadian Arctic from 1967–1970 to 1971–1975 is compared to changes in October means of other climate variables. Over the area of snow-cover expansion, mean surface air temperature decreased by up to 3°C, mean 500-mbar height was lowered by over 60 m, and precipitation was increased by up to a factor of two. These effects, if applied to the entire summer, together with the temperature change computed by Shaw and Donn for a Northern Hemisphere summer insolation minimum (the Milankovich effect), can account for glacierization of the Central Canadian Arctic.


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