Centre for Earth Observation Science

An Ice Core on Müller Ice Cap

We are working to recover an ice core that will contain a record of climate and sea ice in northern Canada over the last 4,000-20,000 years. This core will be about 600 m long and 10 cm thick, and will drilled on Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut before being sent back to laboratories in southern Canada and Europe for various measurements.

image of egrip radar

Background

The Arctic Ocean is undergoing dramatic changes as sea ice thins and retreats further north throughout the year. During summer 2018, the ocean even opened north of Greenland, with thousands of square kilometers of open water where thick, perennial sea ice used to be. This sea-ice retreat changes the climate of the land surrounding the Arctic Ocean. Ice caps on these islands are thus retreating as they are exposed to warmer conditions and more melt. By studying cores from these ice caps, it is possible to retrieve proxy records of past Arctic sea-ice and climate conditions.

The Müller Ice Cap core will help answer:

  • How did sea ice conditions change in the Arctic Ocean during past millennia?
  • What climatic conditions did the Arctic ice caps experience during past millennia, and what is the relationship between sea ice change and climate change?
  • How sensitive are the Arctic ice caps to changes in sea ice and climatic conditions?
  • How old is Müller Ice Cap?

Research

Projects

We are interested in the past climate of the High Arctic, so the project is taking place on Axel Heiberg Island, hundreds of kilometers north of Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay in Nunavut.

Drilling an ice core requires first selecting a good site that will allow us to obtain the climate record we seek. To find such a site, we will use ice-penetrating radar to determine the ice thickness and layering, which will show us where ice is thick and undisturbed.

Drilling an ice core happens in many short sections. The drill is on a cable; it goes down the hole, drills 2-3 m of ice, then brings that ice back up to the surface. To drill a core like this, the drill will make hundreds of runs up and down the hole.

Many of the measurements we make on ice cores are complex and can only be made in controlled conditions, so ice must be shipped back to laboratories. After drilling, the core is cut into consistently sized pieces and kept cold during transport south.

Image of Muller Map
Image of ice-penetrating radar sled
Drilling an ice core
Image of cutting ice core

Project team

  • Dorthe Dahl-Jensen (PI)
    Professor & Canada Excellence Research Chair

    Debbie Armstrong
    Technician

    David Lilien
    Research Associate

    Gary Stern
    Associate Professor

    Feiyue Wang
    Professor & Canada Research Chair

  • Partners

    University of Copenhagen

    • Grant Boeckmann - Driller, External collaborator
    • Steffen Bo Hansen - Driller, External collaborator
    • Tamara Gerber - Postdoctoral Fellow, External collaborator
    • Alak Grinsted - Associate Professor, External collaborator
    • Christine Hvidberg - Professor, External collaborator
    • Niels Nymand - PhD student, External collaborator
    • Trevor Popp - Driller, External collaborator
    • Sune Rasmussen - Associate Professor, External collaborator
    • JP Steffensen - Professor, External collaborator
    • Bo Vinther - Associate Professor, External collaborator

    Queen's University

    • Maddie Myers - Master's student, External collaborator
    • Laura Thomson - Assistant Professor, External collaborator

    University of Alberta

    • Alison Criscitiello - Assistant Professor, External collaborator

    University of British Columbia

    • Anaise Orsi - Assistant Professor, External collaborator

    University of Ottawa

    • Luke Copland - Professor, External collaborator

    Alfred Wegener Institute

    • Daniela Jansen - Research Scientist, External collaborator
    • Sepp Kipfstuhl - Professor Emeritus, External collaborator
    • Daniel Steinhage - Research Scientist, External collaborator

     

Impacts and outcomes

The Müller ice core will enhance our understanding of how the ocean, atmosphere, sea ice, and glaciers and ice caps interact with each other over thousands of years.

The project will provide unique insight into how sea ice has varied in the Arctic over long periods and will pair this information about how the climate and glaciers in the region have changed during the same period. This information is important context for understanding modern changes to the Arctic; sea ice extent is changing rapidly, and glaciers are rapidly retreating, but how these changes compare to those in the past is not fully known.

The ice recovered in this project will contain a wealth of other information, for example about contaminants and mercury concentrations in the area, and project partners and collaborators will make measurements on the core to determine how these properties have varied through time. A continuous record of the ice from the project will be archived at the Canadian Ice Core Laboratory in Edmonton, which will make further measurements possible when the development of new methods makes it possible to glean new information from the core in the future.

Related publications

Estimating the ice thickness of the Muller Ice Cap to support selection of a drill site.

Zinck, A.-S.P. & Grinsted, A. (2022). "Brief communication: Estimating the ice thickness of the Müller Ice Cap to support selection of a drill site". The Cryosphere, 16(4), 1399-1407. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1399-2022

Field stories

Read about our progress on the project.

Field updates from Müller Ice Cap

Funding and partners

This research is undertaken thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program.

Contact us

Centre for Earth Observation Science
535 Wallace Building
125 Dysart Rd.
University of Manitoba (Fort Garry campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada

ceosinfo@umanitoba.ca
204-474-7602
204-272-1532