Winski interviewed by Globe and Mail about ice core sampling on Mount Logan
The Globe and Mail reported on a research expedition to the summit of Mount Logan, Canada’s tallest mountain, last month to collect ice core samples from the massive glacier that resides just below the summit’s multiple peaks. Dominic Winski, research assistant professor at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute and an expedition member, said that he plans to study the ice core data for clues to the changing nature and extent of wildfires over the past several thousand years by detecting fine particles of soot that are trapped in the ice to identify past fires. “There’s a whole fleet of chemicals that are released when you burn plant material. So we can not only tell how much fire was burning within the catchment of that ice core, but we can use the different chemistry of those compounds to tell what type of vegetation was burning,” Winski said.