| Abstract | In Northern Canada, Inuit communities rely heavily on sea ice for commuting, hunting, fishing and other traditional activities. From their perspective, this platform may be considered an infrastructure in its own right. Over the last several decades, the extent, thickness, surface conditions and overall dynamics of sea ice have been affected by climate change. While scientists are actively studying these phenomena, the observers best able to contribute answers to key questions are the people that actually use the ice and experience that environment on a day-to-day basis, i.e. the Inuit. What is presented in this report is a method to research climate change impact, which could be conducted by members of the Northern communities. This is done through the combined use for two software platforms. The first one is the Canadian Arctic Shipping Risk Assessment System (CASRAS), a user-friendly database developed by NRC, which incorporates ice maps from the Canadian Ice Service (CIS) as well as historical datasets on climate. With Microsoft (MS) Excel, the second software, parameters such as air temperature and wind data were extracted from CASRAS and analyzed. For this exercise, the report focuses specifically on ice cover formation and break-up in Hudson Bay, over the last 30 to 40 years. Statistically significant trends were identified. The ice cover in that inland sea has required more time to develop into a fully established ice cover (an increase of 3 to 4 days per decade). Ice break-up initiation has begun earlier in the Spring/Summer, i.e. that shift is estimated at about 5 days per decade. In Arviat, an increase of about 0.3 m/s per decade in wind speed is documented in the Fall. Because these observations are for the whole of Hudson Bay, they provide a general perspective on the overall evolution of the ice cover (as opposed to local conditions). Ultimately, this type of work could be fed into climate models of future ice conditions. |
|---|
