Theme 4: Glacier-climate interactions, snow studies and water supply

 

• Longitudinal studies of snow cover and glacial meltwater discharge in relation to climate patterns and water supply in southern Alberta (AIWRI “Flowing to the Future” grant 06-09).
• In March 05 I appeared as a witness before the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment & Natural Resources to advice on water supply prognosis in western Canada. I explained the role of glaciers in the water budget, glacier response to climate change, and the present and projected glacial runoff from the Eastern slopes of the Canadian Cordillera (Jiskoot, 2005).
• Fluvioglacial field work on Robertson Glacier, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Kananaskis country. Measurements of diurnal variations in discharge and electrical conductivity. Supervision of student field work in Summers 04 and 05. Paper in preparation.
• Improvement of ablation modelling of the Greenland ice sheet peripheral zone through a subgrid hypsometric parameterisation to be incorporated into numerical thermo-dynamical ice sheet models (Jiskoot & Marshall, 2003).
• Analysis of snow distribution and characteristics in the southern Canadian Rockies (Pigeon & Jiskoot, 2008) in order to fill a geographical gap in the Canadian snow distribution data, and to analyse the controls on the spatial distribution of snow pack properties.