Jason Mercer, an MSc student with CH Prof. Cherie Westbrook, is participating in Expedition Arguk, which will see a small team of five scientists and media experts hike and packraft 300 miles, from the Gates of the Arctic to the Arctic Ocean. There are no trails and no roads, only a few towns scattered through a vast wilderness area eight times the size of Switzerland.
Despite the remoteness of the region, however, profound changes are underway. Petroleum exploration and drilling, and the effects of climate change itself, are having a profound impact on the landscape. The expedition’s goal is to implement the most creative and effective ways to spread awareness and understanding of this rapidly-changing corner of the world.
More information is available from the expedition’s website – expeditionarguk.com.

CH Research Technician Angus Duncan shot a series of time-lapse sequences over two days in July 2013, during the construction of a new hydrometeorological and snow observing station which forms part of the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory, just off the toe of the Peyto Glacier in Banff National Park.
The station will measure air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solid and liquid precipitation, snow depth, soil temperature, soil moisture, snow temperature at 20cm and 150cm depth, and incoming and outgoing longwave and shortwave radiation. Before the onset of winter the solar panel and rain gauge will be moved higher, so that they’re above the snow surface, and a dielectric device will be installed to measure snow density and wetness. A time-lapse camera is also directed at the glacier taking 2 photos per day.
The video is available on Vimeo.