Sea ice is exchanged between the Arctic Ocean and Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) but has not been quantified over long time periods. The corresponding mechanisms responsible for recent variability and change also remain unidentified. To address this, we estimated the sea ice area flux between the Arctic Ocean and the M'Clure Strait and Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI) from 1997 to 2012 for the months of May to November. Over the period, there was a mean flux of −1 × 103 km2 (±21 × 103 km2) at the M'Clure Strait and mean flux of +8 × 103 km2 (±8 × 103 km2) at the QEI (positive and negative flux signs correspond to Arctic Ocean ice inflow and outflow, respectively). The M'Clure Strait had a mean flux of +5 × 103 km2 from May to September and a mean flux of −7 × 103 km2 from October to November. The QEI gates had a mean flux of +4 × 103 km2 from August to September with negligible ice exchange from May to July and October to November. More frequent high sea level pressure anomalies over the Beaufort Sea and Canadian Basin since 2007 have reduced Arctic Ocean multiyear ice (MYI) inflow into the M'Clure Strait. The presence of MYI in the CAA originating from the Arctic Ocean has been maintained by inflow at the QEI, which has increased since 2005. These recent increases in Arctic Ocean MYI inflow into the QEI can be attributed to increased open water area within the CAA that have provided more leeway for inflow to occur.

On 4 August 2010, about one fifth of the floating ice tongue of Petermann Glacier (also known as “Petermann Gletscher”) in northwestern Greenland calved (Figure 1). The resulting “ice island” had an area approximately 4 times that of Manhattan Island (about 253±17 square kilometers). The ice island garnered much attention from the media, politicians, and the public, who raised concerns about downstream implications for shipping, offshore oil and gas operations, and possible connections to Arctic and global warming. Does this event signal a change in the glacier's dynamics? Or can it be characterized as part of the glacier's natural variability? Understanding the known historical context of this event allows scientists and the public to judge its significance.

A number of glaciers in the Canadian High Arctic are composed primarily of cold ice, but the ice at or near their beds reaches the pressure-melting point (PMP) in the ablation zone. Past modelling studies have suggested that the basal temperatures of some of these glaciers reach the PMP where they should not, indicating that they are not in thermal equilibrium with present-day surface air temperatures. To investigate the possible reasons for thermal disequilibria in such glaciers, a two-dimensional ice temperature model was used to simulate the inferred thermal characteristics of John Evans Glacier, Ellesmere Island. Results indicate that while surface refreezing and historical ice-thickness changes have had a warming effect upon basal ice temperatures, supraglacial meltwater reaching the glacier bed provides the single most critical heat source for explaining the apparent thermal disequilibrium between present-day inferred ice–bed temperatures and those modelled under present-day boundary conditions.

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The mapping and measurement of glaciers and their changes are useful in predicting sea‐level and regional water supply, studying hazards and climate change [Haeberli et al., 1998],and in the hydropower industry Existing inventories cover only about 67,000 of the world's estimated 160,000 glaciers and are based on data collected over 50 years or more [e.g.,Haeberli et al., 1998]. The data available have proven that small ice bodies are disappearing at an accelerating rate and that the Antarctic ice sheet and its fringing ice shelves are undergoing unexpected, rapid change. According to many glaciologists, much larger fluctuations in land ice—with vast implications for society—are possible in the coming decades and centuries due to natural and anthropogenic climate change [Oppenheimer, 1998].