Alison Cook

• PhD
• PostDoc at Scottish Association For Marine Science

Arctic sea ice has shifted from a perennial (older, thicker ice) to a seasonal (younger, thinner) ice regime, leading to the increasingly common belief that shipping through Canada’s Northwest Passage is becoming more viable. Here, we use the Risk Index Outcome values derived from the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System and anal...

Knowledge of frontal ablation from marine-terminating glaciers (i.e., mass lost at the calving face) is critical for constraining glacier mass balance, improving projections of mass change, and identifying the processes that govern frontal mass loss. Here, we discuss the challenges involved in computing frontal ablation and the unique issues pertai...

Ocean mixing around Antarctica exerts key influences on glacier dynamics and ice shelf retreats, sea ice, and marine productivity, thus affecting global sea level and climate. The conventional paradigm is that this is dominated by winds, tides, and buoyancy forcing. Direct observations from the Antarctic Peninsula demonstrate that glacier calving t...

In the Northern Hemisphere, ~1500 glaciers, accounting for 28% of glacierized area outside the Greenland Ice Sheet, terminate in the ocean. Glacier mass loss at their ice-ocean interface, known as frontal ablation, has not yet been comprehensively quantified. Here, we estimate decadal frontal ablation from measurements of ice discharge and terminus...

Climate change is impacting sea ice extent and thickness in the Canadian Arctic, creating an increase in maritime accessibility that may accentuate risks related to ship operations due to a related increase in sea ice mobility. The overall risk to ships operating in regions with mobile sea ice will vary significantly depending on the ice class (i.e...

The rapid increase in marine shipping activity in Inuit Nunangat (i.e. in settled land claim regions of Arctic Canada), propelled by climate change and international interest in Arctic maritime trade, has heightened concerns among Inuit communities about the risks that more ships could pose for sustainable and subsistence hunting, fishing, and gath...

Tourist vessels present unique risks in terms of travel through the Canadian Arctic. The purpose of this type of travel is not simply to transit through, or to find the safest and fastest route, the purpose is adventure and exploration. This means that tourist vessels often travel to areas of the Canadian Arctic that are not necessarily well servic...

There have been rapid recent reductions in sea ice age and extent in the Canadian Arctic, but little previous analysis of how this has impacted the navigability of Arctic shipping. In this study we analyze how navigability changed over the period 1972–2016 by converting Canadian Ice Service ice charts to shipping navigability charts for different h...

Documenting Inuit and local knowledge is critical to its consideration within policy discussions around Arctic shipping; especially considering the rapid increase in ship traffic due to reductions in sea ice and climate change. We present our unique community-based research approach which incorporated youth training, participatory mapping, qualitat...

In 2018, The International Maritime Organization, officially proposed consideration of a ban on heavy fuel oil (HFO) use by ships in the Arctic, because of the widely accepted understanding that HFO presents a threat to the marine environment. There is currently a lack of understanding of the scale and scope of HFO use by ships operating in Canadia...

Rising atmospheric CO2 is intensifying climate change but it is also driving global and particularly polar greening. However, most blue carbon sinks (that held by marine organisms) are shrinking, which is important as these are hotspots of genuine carbon sequestration. Polar blue carbon increases with losses of marine ice over high latitude contine...

Ship traffic has nearly tripled in the Canadian Arctic over the past decade and additional growth is expected as climate change continues to increase navigability in the region. In response, the Canadian Government is developing Low Impact Shipping Corridors as an adaptation strategy that supports safety and sustainability under rapidly changing en...

Ship traffic in the Canadian Arctic nearly tripled between 1990 and 2015.Most of that increase happened in Nunavut waters. The average annual kilometres travelled within 50 km of Resolute Bay has decreased by 1,819 km when comparing the 1990-2000 and 2011-2015 averages; a decrease largely due to the 2002 closure of the Polaris zinc mine on nearby L...

The Canadian Arctic Archipelago contains >300 glaciers that terminate in the ocean, but little is known about changes in their frontal positions in response to recent changes in the ocean-climate system. Here, we examine changes in glacier frontal positions since the 1950s and investigate the relative influence of oceanic temperature versus atmosph...

Since the 1960s, warming air and sea surface temperatures have led to decreasing sea ice extent and longer periods of open water in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA), together with changes in glacier discharge patterns. An important question, therefore, is whether there is a relationship between changing sea ice conditions, glacier dynamics, an...

The climatic conditions along the northern Antarctic Peninsula have shown significant changes within the last 50 years. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of temporally and spatially detailed observations of the changes in ice dynamics along both the east and west coastlines of the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Temporal evolutions of glacier...

The climatic conditions along the northern Antarctic Peninsula have shown significant changes within the last 50 years. Most studies have focused on the glaciers affected by the disintegration of the ice shelves along the east coast. However, temporally and spatially detailed observations of the changes in ice dynamics along both the east and west...

The glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) potentially make a large contribution to sea level rise. However, this contribution has been difficult to estimate since no complete glacier inventory (outlines, attributes, separation from the ice sheet) is available. This work fills the gap and presents a new glacier inventory of the AP north of 70∘ S,...

Rapid climatic changes in the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) have led to considerable changes in the meteoric freshwater input into the surrounding ocean, with implications for ocean circulation, the marine ecosystem and sea-level rise. In this study, we use the high-resolution Regional Atmospheric Climate Model RACMO2.3, coupled to a firn model...

The glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) potentially make a large contribution to sea level rise. However, this contribution has been difficult to estimate, as no complete glacier inventory (outlines, attributes, separation from the ice sheet) has been available. This work fills the gap and presents a new glacier inventory of the AP north of 70...

The heat is on Rising surface air temperatures are understood to cause glacial melting, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the ocean also has a strong impact. Cook et al. studied glaciers that drain the Antarctic Peninsula and found a strong correlation between mid-depth ocean temperatures and glacier-front changes along the peninsula's wes...

The latest polar version of the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO2.3) has been applied to the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). In this study, the authors present results of a climate run at 5.5 km for the period 1979-2013, in which RACMO2.3 is forced by ERA-Interim atmospheric and ocean surface fields, using an updated AP surface topography. The m...

An established rift in the Larsen C Ice Shelf, formerly constrained by a suture zone containing marine ice, grew rapidly during 2014 and is likely in the near future to generate the largest calving event since the 1980s and result in a new minimum area for the ice shelf. Here we investigate the recent development of the rift, quantify the projected...

An established rift in the Larsen C Ice Shelf, formerly constrained by a suture zone containing marine ice, grew rapidly during 2014 and is likely in the near future to generate the largest calving event since the 1980s and result in a new minimum area for the ice shelf. Here we investigate the recent development of the rift, quantify the projected...

Glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have recently shown changes in extent, velocity and thickness, yet there is little quantification of change in the mass balance of individual glaciers or the processes controlling changes in extent. Here a high-resolution digital elevation model and a semi-automated drainage basin delineation method have been use...

The northern Antarctic Peninsula (nAP, < 66° S) is one of the most rapidly changing glaciated regions on earth, yet the spatial patterns of its ice mass loss at the glacier basin scale have to date been poorly documented. We use satellite laser altimetry and satellite stereo-image topography spanning 2001–2010, but primarily 2003–2008, to map ice e...

The northern Antarctic Peninsula (nAP, < 66° S) is one of the most rapidly changing glaciated regions on earth, yet the spatial patterns of its ice mass loss at the glacier basin scale have to date been poorly documented. We use satellite laser altimetry and satellite stereo-image topography spanning 2001–2010, but primarily 2003–2008, to map ice e...

Glacier fluctuations contribute to variations in sea level and historical glacier length fluctuations are natural indicators of past climate change. To study these subjects, long-term information of glacier change is needed. In this paper we present a data set of global long-term glacier length fluctuations. The data set is a compilation of availab...

Glacier fluctuations contribute to variations in sea level and historical glacier length fluctuations are natural indicators of climate change. To study these subjects, long-term information of glacier change is needed. In this paper we present a~data set of global long-term glacier length fluctuations. The data set is a compilation of available in...

Glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) have recently shown changes in extent, velocity and thickness. Understanding the response of glaciers to warming air temperatures and ocean circulation changes in this region is critical for understanding future mass balance changes, and yet there is little quantification of change in the mass balance of ind...

We present Bedmap2, a new suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, ice-thickness and the seafloor and subglacial bed elevation of the Antarctic south of 60 S. We derived these products using data from a variety of sources, including many substantial surveys completed since the original Bedmap compilation (Bedmap1) in 2001. In particu...

We present Bedmap2, a new suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, ice-thickness and the seafloor and subglacial bed elevation of the Antarctic south of 60 • S. We derived these products using data from a variety of sources, including many substantial surveys completed since the original Bedmap compilation (Bedmap1) in 2001. In parti...

A high resolution surface topography Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is required to underpin studies of the complex glacier system on the Antarctic Peninsula. A complete DEM with better than 200 m pixel size and high positional and vertical accuracy would enable mapping of all significant glacial basins and provide a dataset for glacier morphology an...

The contribution to sea level to 2200 from the grounded, mainland Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet (APIS) was calculated using an ice sheet model initialized with a new technique computing ice fluxes based on observed surface velocities, altimetry and surface mass balance, and computing volume response using a linearised method. Volume change estimate...

A high resolution surface topography Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is required to underpin studies of the complex glacier system on the Antarctic Peninsula. A complete DEM with better than 200 m pixel size and high positional and vertical accuracy would enable mapping of all significant glacial basins and provide a dataset for glacier morphology an...

Using archival photography and satellite imagery, we have analysed the rates of advance or retreat of 103 coastal glaciers on South Georgia from the 1950s to the present. Ninety-seven percent of these glaciers have retreated over the period for which observations are available. The average rate of retreat has increased from 8 Ma-1 in the 1950s to 3...

The Antarctic climate system varies on timescales from orbital, through millennial to sub-annual, and is closely coupled to other parts of the global climate system. We review these variations from the perspective of the geological and glaciological records and the recent historical period from which we have instrumental data (the last 50 years). W...

Feedbacks on climate change so far identified are predominantly positive, enhancing the rate of change. Loss of sea-ice, increase in desert areas, water vapour increase, loss of tropical rain forest and the restriction of significant areas of marine productivity to higher latitude (thus smaller geographical zones) all lead to an enhancement of the...

In recent decades, seven out of twelve ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) have either retreated significantly or have been almost entirely lost. At least some of these retreats have been shown to be unusual within the context of the Holocene and have been widely attributed to recent atmospheric and oceanic changes. To date, measurement...

The recent episodes of collapse of Larsen-B and Wilkins ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula were dramatic, and were widely-reported as compelling examples of the impact of rapid climate change. However, to focus exclusively on just these two examples, would be to ignore a much wider catalogue of events and potential insight into the mechanisms a...

George VI Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, covering a total area of 25 000 km2. The northern ice front of George VI Ice Shelf presently marks the southernmost occurrence of recent ice-shelf retreat on the Antarctic Peninsula and according to some predictions the ice shelf is close to its thermal limit...

The continued retreat of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula has been widely attributed to recent atmospheric warming, but there is little published work describing changes in glacier margin positions. We present trends in 244 marine glacier fronts on the peninsula and associated islands over the past 61 years. Of these glaciers, 87% have retrea...