Considering the recent losses observed in Arctic sea-ice and the anticipated
future warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions,
sea-ice retreat in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) is expected.
As most global climate models do not resolve the CAA region,
a fine-resolution regional model is developed to provide a sense of possible
changes in the CAA sea-ice. This ice-ocean coupled model is forced with
atmospheric data for two time-periods. Results from a historical run (1950-2004)are used to validate the model. The model does well in representing observed
sea-ice spatial and seasonal variability, but tends to underestimate summertime
ice cover. In the future run (2041-2060), wintertime ice concentrations change
little, but the summertime ice concentrations decrease by 45%. The ice
thickness also decreases, by 17% in the winter, and by 36% in summer.
Based on this study, a completely ice-free CAA is unlikely by the year 2050,
but the region could support some commercial shipping.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/208 |
| Date | 28 August 2007 |
| Creators | Sou, Theressa V. |
| Contributors | Flato, Gregory M., Weaver, Andrew J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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