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EEGS Seminar Series 2025
March 7 at 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
The Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science presents the “Glacier Climate Sensitivity Revisited: Insights from the Columbia Icefield, Canada” seminar, as part of the Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences (EEGS) Seminar Series.
About the talk
Glaciers are valuable indicators of climate change and provide key ecosystem services in headwater catchments of mountain regions. Accurate process-based models are required to simulate the response of glacier-mass balance to future climates and how it impacts hydrology and ecosystems.
In this talk, Dr. Kinnard will present results from an ongoing research program on the Columbia icefield, the largest in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, that aims to improve the modelling of glacier mass balance in a context of sparse observations. The so-called concept of “glacier climate sensitivity” is revisited by disentangling the different processes and feedbacks contributing to this sensitivity. It will also be discussed how simple, empirical glacier models are able (or not!) to simulate future glacier mass-balance, and finally show preliminary findings on mapping glacier roughness to improve the modelling of energy fluxes at the glacier surface.
Speaker
Dr. Christophe Kinnard
Professor and Senior chair in Cryosphere Hydrology — Université du Québec à Trois- Rivières.
This is a free public event; no pre-registration is required.
