Congratulations to Cameron Fitzpatrick on graduating with a BSc in Geomatics and minor in Computer Science!  You have been a key WIRL member for 4 years and we can't wait so see what you will do next!

Adam Garbo (uOttawa, co-supervised by Luke Copland) defended his MSc thesis: "Validation of the North American Ice Service Iceberg Drift Model".  Great job Adam!

Congrats to Calder Patterson who just defended his MSc thesis "A statistical analysis of landfast sea ice breakout events at the northern floe edge of Admiralty Inlet, Nunavut". Well done!   You can learn more about WIRL's landfast sea ice project here

Congratulations to PhD student Jérémie Bonneau on publishing "Winter dynamics in an epishelf lake: Quantitative mixing estimates and ice shelf basal channel considerations" in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.  Well Done!!

Congratulations to former WIRL PhD student and postdoc Andrew Hamilton on publishing "Ocean modification and seasonality in a northern Ellesmere Island glacial fjord prior to ice shelf breakup: Milne Fiord" in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans!  Here is the DOI if you want to read more: 10.1029/2020JC016975

PhD candidate Ada Loewen received the George Hobson Memorial Award for Northern Physical Sciences in 2021.  This $2500 award is sponsored by the Northern Scientific Training Program at Polar Knowledge Canada.  Ada's research is on landfast sea ice deterioration and she works out of the community of Ikpiarjuk (Arctic Bay) and Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet).  Congratulations [...]

We are grieving the loss of our colleague and friend Doug King who died of cancer on May 12th, 2021. Doug was often involved in WIRL research, as co-supervisor, committee member and examiner for many of our students. Doug was also passionate about music and played drums in a band with Murray.  He was a [...]

We are saddened that our 2019 Milne Fiord (Ellesmere Island) field team member and helicopter pilot, Steve Page, was killed in an accident a few days ago near Resolute.  We had a great, but all too brief, time with him in the field.  Steve was generous, helpful, and fun-loving.  He was curious, was interested in [...]

Here is an image of the Milne Ice Shelf taken from a Twin Otter on March 30, 2021 by Troy Mckerral of Borek Air.  This is the first close up view of the ice shelf since it broke up last July.   Thanks to the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP) for arranging the flight!

Following the news of the Milne Ice Shelf calving event in July, Science just published a Perspective by Warwick Vincent and Derek Mueller that calls for enhanced conservation of vulnerable ice-dependent ecosystems in both the marine and terrestrial environment along the planet's northern-most coastline.  This region, known as the "Last Ice Area" (from northern Greenland [...]