By Laura Cummings
For many people, the winter months are never a welcome time. But for Dr. Chris Burn, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) Northern Research Chair, winter weather – and frozen ground – means a chance for research.
In particular, Burn looks at the characteristics of northern Canada’s terrain. A large part of his studies examines the impacts of climate change of the permafrost environment.
“Global climate change is one of the few major international challenges that we have substantial lead time to prepare for,” Burn, who also teaches in Carleton University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, said in a previous interview.
To collect his data, Burn investigates adjustments in ground temperature and how the ground freezes, caused by changes in atmospheric conditions.
Burn has been conducting this brand of research for just over two decades, dividing his time in the field between two separate spots. He travels to the Mackenzie Delta area several times a year, while spending every summer in Mayo, located in central Yukon.
“(There), the permafrost is nowhere as responsive to climate change as in the Western Arctic,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “In the Western Arctic.we have detected a clear warming of the ground over the last 30 years or so. In central Yukon, we haven’t noticed it the same way.”
Temperatures in the north are rising slowly but surely, Burn said. Decades of global warming and climate increase could affect northern development plans, especially major construction projects like a proposed pipeline that would carry gas from the Mackenzie Delta to more southern areas.
“We have observed that the freezing of rivers now occurs in late November or December rather than late October or November,” Burn said. “In 2001, the Yukon River at Dawson remained open all year and they could not build the normal ice bridge for traffic across it.”
FUNDING SUMMARY:
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
The Polar Continental Shelf Project (PCSP)
The Aurora Research Institute
Yukon College