Michael (Mike) N. Demuth, P.Eng., P.Geo.
Adjunct Professor, Research Geoscientist
Cold Region Environments; Snow, Ice and Glaciers
(last updated 2024-February-05)
About Mike Research Community Publications Contact
About Mike Demuth
Mike Demuth originally hails from Calgary Alberta, and at the start of his snow and ice career made his home in Revelstoke, B.C. An experienced alpinist and back-country skier, Mike’s involvement in snow and ice research was cemented by his participation in the 1981 Environment Canada retrieval of an ice core from the summit plateau of Yukon’s Mount Logan with Gerry Holdsworth – Mike’s long-time mentor.
Several expeditions to Mount Logan later, including the 2001 NRCan/GSC effort to extract a new ice core whose record spans the Holocene into the Late Glacial Maximum, Mike’s research science and observational science activities concerning the Earth’s cold regions have evolved to include four major areas of activity: i) geophysical measurement at appropriate scales; ii) understanding error and managing variance; iii) cryosphere hydro-climatic processes; and iv) evolving improved methods and measures.
Mike brings to the Department four decades of service with the NRCC’s Geotechnical Section, Environment Canada’s National Hydrology Research Institute and the Geological Survey of Canada’s Terrain Sciences Division where, as a Cold Regions Specialist and Glaciology Research Scientist, he pursued studies of glacier mass change, snow and firn stratigraphy, climate change and variability, glacier hydrology and water resources, satellite and intermediate-scale remote sensing, and the material science and hydraulic aspects of river ice.
In particular, Mike led early contemporary (1990s/2000s) studies of the changing character of glacier-related water resources in the Eastern Slope of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in part, with funding obtained from the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC). These studies, emphasizing that the diminution of regions glaciers was affecting the meltwater yield at multiple scales, put a significant dent in the Myth of Abundance that had guided water policy for the region.
From 1993-2016, Mike served as the Canadian National Correspondent to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, Zurich, CH; representing the Canadian community concerned with the study of glacier fluctuations. Demuth was a contributing author to the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report – Working Group 2, and a consulting author to the 2005 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment – Cryosphere – Glaciers and Ice Sheets.
Demuth and Professor Martin Sharp (U.Alberta) were co-Principal Investigators for the Canadian Cal/Val Retrieval Team for Cryosat under ESA’s Living Planet Program and Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission. An advocate for glaciers being a geological material and a geological source of water, Demuth was appointed Head of the GSC’s Glaciology Section, 2008-13.
After retiring from the GSC in 2016, Mike and Margaret Demuth now reside in Lund B.C. They have two daughters, three granddaughters and a grandson, all of whom currently live in the Ottawa Valley, Ontario.
His extensive remote fieldwork, mountaineering and expedition leadership experience in Canada’s western and Arctic Cordilleras has led to interests in human factor analysis as it concerns safety and decision making in the absence of complete information – a theme that has expanded to include societal behaviour in the face of climate heating.
Mike is a member of the Canadian Committee for the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, as Science Advisor, and as Liaison with the World Glacier Monitoring Service of GEMS and IHP:
Research Community
Laboratories:
University of Victoria – Department of Geography, Northern and High-Country Weather Impacts Laboratory:
David Atkinson, Professor, Research Meteorology and Severe Weather
University of Saskatchewan – Centre for Hydrology, Coldwater Laboratory, Canmore, Alberta:
John Pomeroy, Professor and Director of the Global Water Futures Program
Paul Whitfield, Research Hydrologist and Senior Research Fellow
Robert W. Sandford, Water Policy and Ecological Historian, and Senior Research Fellow
Geological Survey of Canada – Cryosphere and Climate Geoscience
David Burgess, Glaciology Research Scientist
Mark Ednie, Cold Regions Physical Scientist
Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, U.K.
Professor Liz Morris
Recent U.Vic1 / U.Sask2 students:
Eric Courtin1, M.Sc. – Snowfall event analysis at a remote northern alpine icefield
Emily Anderson2, M.Sc. – Modelling changes in multi-decadal streamflow contributions – Bologna Glacier, Selwyn Mountains, NWT, Canada.
Dhiraj Pradhananga2, Ph.D. – Response of Canadian Rockies glacier hydrology to changing climate
Ben Paquette-Struger1, Ph.D. candidate – Seasonal snow cover evolution as influenced by outlier climate events
Vida Khalilian1, Ph.D. candidate – Processes and implications of meteorological fog
Outreach concerning Climate Change and Cold Region Environments:
Becoming Water – Glaciers in a Warming World, Rocky Mountain Books, Manifesto Series (2012) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/becoming-water-mike-demuth/1102900117
ISBN: 9781926855721
Malaspina Naturalists, Powell River – Cold Matters – Cryospheric Change and Related Ecosystem Functioning (2019) https://www.malanat.ca/category/invited-speakers/2019-2020-speakers/
Tla’amin Nation – Watershed Protection Plan Evolution – Looking Upstream – Tla’amin Lands Climate Change and Hydro-ecological Functioning Considerations (2020) https://www.tlaaminnation.com/tlaamin-watershed-protection-plan/
Wildsight BC, Golden Chapter: Winter Speaker Series. Weather is What You Get: The Decline of Climate and Hydrological Buffering (2022). https://wildsight.ca/branches/golden/2023-winter-speaker-series-creatures-great-small/2022-winter-speaker-series-old-growth-biodiversity/
qathet Climate Alliance Society – Board of Directors and Climate Science Advisor (2018-2023)
In 2025, countries around the world are coming together to recognize the importance and impacts of climate change on glaciers, snow, ice and their connection to downstream water resources. This is the movement to secure our water future. Snow and ice are a part of the Canadian identity. We need to protect them.
Canadian Committee for the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation
From L to R, maps of glacier cover for Canada’s Coast Mountains, Interior Ranges and Rocky Mountains, and the Eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago (Canadian Geographic – Rivers of Ice by E. Shilts et al., 1998, Cartography by Steven Fick and Andrew Murray; as used in the USGS Satellite Atlas of Glaciers of the World – North America – Canada)
Publications
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Demuth
A list of government departmental and client reports, and UNFCCC Communications is available on request
Contact
Michael N. Demuth, P.Eng., P.Geo
Research Geoscientist
Adjunct Professor
Northern and High-Country Weather Impacts Laboratory
Department of Geography
David Turpin Building - B117
University of Victoria, BC, Canada
Mobile 604 578 0453
Lab 250 472 5136
Senior Research Fellow
Cold Water Laboratory, Canmore Alberta
University of Saskatchewan - Centre for Hydrology
Emeritus Research Scientist (retired) in Glaciology and Cold Region Environments
Geological Survey of Canada
1.
2.
The Canadian Cryosat Cal/Val Retrieval Team on Devon Ice Cap, NT. From left to right, Mike Demuth (Glaciology Research Scientist, GSC), Hans-Peter Marshall (Snow and Ice Research Geophysicist, USA CRREL and Bosie State University, USA), Laurence Gray (Cryosphere Remote Sensing Research Scientist, CCRS-Canada), John Sekerka (Cryosphere Geo-chemist, GSC), David Burgess (Glaciology Research Scientist, GSC), Christina Bell (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Glasgow, U.K.)
3.
Mike and Margie Demuth ascend the lower reaches of the Bologna Glacier, Ragged Range, Selwyn Mountains, Nahanni National Park Reserve, NT during the establishment of glaciological and hydro-meteorological observations and assessments - work fortified by collaborations with the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for Hydrology and The University of Victoria’s Northern and High-Country Weather impacts Laboratory (Ed Struzik photograph, 2006)
4.
GRACE sensing technique and results for the southwestern Cordillera, illustrating (1) the detection of mass changes by GRACE and the area of influence of the signal concentration function, (2) the estimation of changes within all water storage compartments: ΔSWS, ΔSS, ΔIS, ΔSMS, ΔGIA, and ΔGWS, and (3) the contrasting resilience of surficial versus deep aquifer systems. All estimates of storage change presented in this figure correspond to the GRACE GRGS signal decomposition (from Castellazzi et al., 2019, Water Resources Research)
The twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically because of movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair (Images courtesy NASA and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR)).
5.
Airborne LASER Terrain Mapping derived surface roughness variations over the percolation zone of Devon Ice Cap, NU.
6.
Typical flow finger/ice gland and ice layer configuration in the percolation zone of Devon Ice Cap, NU. Stratigraphy and SWE variability is influenced by surface and at-depth topographic and hardness variability and their controls on meltwater infiltration, percolation paths and pooling (Mike Demuth and John Sekerka photograph)
7.
900 MHz impulse and broadband FM-CW (8-18 GHz) radars being deployed across the surface of Devon Ice Cap, NU to map decimeter to 1 kilometer scale variations in snow stratigraphy in the percolation zone (Hans-Peter Marshall photograph; Demuth, Marshall and Morris., 2007)
8.
Density anomaly reconstruction based on multiple neutron probe logs transiting typical percolation zone architecture over a 1-100 m nested grid, Devon Ice Cap, NU.
9.
1 GHz impulse radargram coincident with neutron-probe nested grid snow density logs for the percolation zone of Devon Ice Cap, NU. Neutron-scattering derived density profiles clearly illustrate the variation of inter-annual snow accumulation when the study site was occupied by the percolation zone. Significant ice lens formation is also evident, particularly when the study site was subjected to intense percolation and subsequent refreezing.
A closer examination of the density profiles shows evidence of meltwater percolation and refreezing that has partially obliterated low density layers and the annual depth hoar layer so that building annual chronologies becomes less reliable. There is a clear qualitative correspondence between the neutron-scattering derived snow density logs and the GPR architecture - particularly over the vertical variation that we interpret as zones of modest percolation and a zone of heavy percolation which, as described above, shows evidence of percolation into an adjacent annual unit (internal accumulation). GPR response (interference fringes) is modulated by numerous individual and inter-related electrical and physical properties of the snowpack such as density, grain size and electrical conductivity. Neutron scattering, on the other hand, is determined by snow density alone.
Demuth et al., 2006: Characterising Percolation and Wet-Snow Facies Variability on Devon Island Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada. International Snow Science Workshop Proceedings p.388.
Marshall et al., 2006: Spatial Variability of the Snowpack: Experiences with Measurements at a Wide Range of Length Scales with Several Different High Precision Instruments. International Snow Science Workshop Proceedings p.359-364.
10.
A nested or hierarchical variogram structure for terrestrial icefields illustrating the scale effect on correlation range. The scales shown range from regional presence of glaciers on the landscape, to the distribution of glacier thickness, to the glacier facies assemblage. Demuth, Morris, Marshall, Fisher and Gray - The variability exhibited by glacier and ice sheet percolation facies: Processes and characterisation.