Detecting subglacial water storage beneath an arctic polythermal glacier, Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada

With greater volumes of data being analyzed, it is becoming increasingly apparent that glacial hydrology is a fundamental component for understanding many glaciodynamic processes. From a water resource perspective, significant amounts of fresh water are being lost to the world's oceans, thus making it unavailable for human use, not to mention the potential for raising sea levels and destroying ecosystems and communities. As glacier ice constitutes the world's largest freshwater resource, it is essential that meltwater no longer be regarded as a secondary component in glacial systems. Therefore, storage gains and the hydrology of meltwater within glaciers is a critical component in understanding glacier variations. This research concentrates on the measurement and analysis of the chemical characteristics of snow, proglacial icing water and glacier meltwater streams draining a high arctic glacierized catchment on Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada. While multiple precipitation events dominated and obscured seasonal variations in the composition of the meltwater streams, subglacial water storage and drainage routes imparted distinctive influences on the hydrological data. Combined with water chemistry, GPS data, utilized to derive motion dynamics, both horizontally and vertically, provided further evidence for the suggestion that storage of meltwater was present between the glacier and the underlying bed on short and long term time scales. Water stored at the glacier bed produced a unique chemical signature on the waters draining the glacier while also providing sufficient pressure to lift sections of the glacier thus increasing the horizontal movement of the glacier. The results of this research add to the limited documentation pertaining to high arctic polythermal glaciers, and furthers our knowledge of the links between water storage, water chemistry and glacier motion.