Our Next Speaker

553rd Meeting

11 January 2022

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

1. Minutes of the 2021 Annual General Meeting.
2. Report of the Treasurer.
3. Report of the Nominating Committee and Election of Officers.
4. Other business.
5. Adjournment.

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Will Kochtitzky

THE RETREAT 0F GLACIERS FROM THE OCEAN: CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT (SOLELY) TO BLAME

In the Northern Hemisphere, 28% of glacier area outside the Greenland Ice Sheet and 87% of glacier area of the Greenland Ice Sheet drains to the ocean. Marine-terminating glaciers are unique because they have an interface with the ocean, which can make them even more sensitive to climate change. This is the first study to map the terminus changes of every glacier touching the ocean in the Northern Hemisphere to better understand how and why the glaciers have changed over the last 20 years. We document examples of ice shelf collapse and glacier instabilities that have been responsible for some of the biggest changes since 2000.

After growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, Will Kochtitzky completed his B.S. degree in Earth Sciences at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There he completed a thesis which improved the record of ice cap change at Nevada Coropuna, Peru, to help better forecast future changes in tropical water supply. He went on to the University of Maine as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, where he worked with Dr. Gordon Hamilton and Dr. Karl Kreutz. Will’s Master’s research focused on understanding surges of Donjek Glacier, Yukon, since the 1930s. In September 2019 Will began PhD study as a Vanier Scholar at the University of Ottawa’s Laboratory for Cryospheric Research, supervised by Dr. Luke Copland. Will’s research interests are in combining field and satellite observations to better understand glacier change around the world. He has participated in research expeditions to Yukon, Alaska, Nunavut, Svalbard, Greenland, Peru, Iceland, Nepal, and Norway.

Will Kochtitzky has kindly agreed to host this meeting on Zoom, beginning at 7.30 pm. The meeting will start at 8.00 pm with the AGM, which will be followed by the talk. Access is via https://bit.ly/3qDrhdR. Pre-registration is not necessary but Will will approve each person’s entry manually as he or she connects. The minutes of the 2021 AGM will be circulated to the members of The Arctic Circle prior to January 11..

Next meeting:
Feb 8    Lisa Hodgetts: The Inuvialuit living history project

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thomas Frisch
Secretary
613-725-2221; tfrisch@sympatico.ca