River delta's rise puts Arctic's future in flux

In the Mackenzie River Delta, where there are about 45,000 lakes separated by thin arms of land, researchers have found that global warming is causing water-level increases three times greater than expected.

When Lance Lesack a Simon Fraser University geographer, and Philip Marsh, an Environment Canada scientist, began to study the myriad lakes of the delta, they thought they would find more evidence of the impact of global warming.

They were surprised by just how rapid and extensive those changes are, Dr. Lesack said yesterday.

"In the case of the Mackenzie Delta, it's three times what we thought it would be ... and that's quite dramatic," said Dr. Lesack, who found a 30-centimetre rise in summer water levels of low-elevation lakes over the past 30 years.

"This is not something that's just of pertinence to the Mackenzie Delta. I think what this work indicates is that receding sea ice is going to have a huge effect around the entire circumpolar region," he said.

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