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Parrott, Claire M.

University of British Columbia

The Arctic is facing rapid environmental change including increased melt of snow, glaciers, and sea ice. Glacier melt entering the ocean can alter regional freshwater dynamics by affecting freshwater content and stratification. Furthermore, tidewater glaciers can influence the coastal marine environment in important ways, such as enhancing biological productivity by increasing nutrient delivery to surface waters through subglacial plume-induced upwelling. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) is a critical Arctic Ocean freshwater export pathway and the third most glacierized region in the world. However, the influence of tidewater glaciers on the regional-scale freshwater dynamics and the coastal ocean environment is not well characterized across this region. The goal of this thesis is to examine the influence of glaciers on a regional-scale freshwater budget, and on coastal water property variability in Jones Sound, a glacier-rich export pathway in the CAA and home to the Inuit community of Ausuittuq. To assess the role of glaciers in the changing freshwater system of Jones Sound, a freshwater budget is constructed using output from 2005–2022 from a coupled sea ice-ocean model; over the study period freshwater accumulates. The dominant freshwater sources and sink also change: the dominant source is initially oceanic freshwater import but changes to local sources of runoff, precipitation, and notably glacier melt; meanwhile the freshwater sink, sea ice refreeze, decreases. Glacier influence on the coastal marine environment is studied using in-situ physical and chemical water column observations collected across Jones Sound over 4 years in collaboration with the community of Ausuittuq. It is shown that sites with tidewater glaciers have enhanced nutrient concentrations above the nutricline, as well as increased turbidity in the upper water column. Freshwater and stratification are not systematically impacted by tidewater glacier presence, but are affected by the site’s coastline. This study demonstrates the increasingly prominent role of glaciers in freshwater dynamics in Jones Sound, and an important influence of tidewater glaciers on coastal ocean biogeochemistry. These findings aid in understanding ongoing change in the CAA, and may inform the community of Ausuittuq, who use Jones Sound for traditional practices and economic benefit, on best ways to adapt.

Text

2025-04-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90805

Oceanography

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/