Lakes comprise a large portion of the surface cover in northern Canada forming an important part of the cryosphere.  The timing of lake ice phenological events (e.g. break up/freeze up) are useful indicators of climate variability and change, which is of increasing importance as future changes in lake ice cover conditions could have a considerable impact on the role of lakes on energy, water and biogeochemical processes in cold regions.  Previous phenological studies of lake ice cover in Canada have shown trends towards a longer ice free season, however the major problem with reported changes in lake ice phenology is that they have largely been demonstrated by point in situ observations and are not spatially representative. Lake ice models present a viable solution to supplement observational networks for studying ice phenology, especially in northern areas where in situ climate data is sparse. 

The Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo) was used to simulate lake ice phenolgy across northern Canadian lakes from 1979 - 2007, initialized using the North American Region Reanalysis (NARR) atmospheric data.  Results were compared to derived ice phenology dates extracted from the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) 4k product. IMS was also used to create a range of ice on/ice off dates for lakes within NARR 32km grid cells for comparison with model simulations.  This analysis examines the effects of morphometry on modelled lake ice phenology and also provides insight into climate model downscaling with respect to lakes