Simba the apparatus — not the lion — helping measure ice thickness in N.W.T.

To most people, the names Simba and Mufasa might be characters in The Lion King. 

But to researchers out of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. they're also the names of instruments monitoring snow and ice on lakes in the N.W.T., to better understand climate change and improve public safety. 

Arash Rafat, a master of science student involved in the project, helped install a pair of snow and ice mass balance apparatuses — or SIMBAs for short — near the Ranney Hill trail outside of Yellowknife, back in November. 

Landing Lake, said Rafat, was chosen as a site for a SIMBA because it shares characteristics with other lakes in the region — like its shallow depth of around 2 to 3 metres. Ryan Lake, on the other hand, is unique with a depth of about 90 metres, he explained.

The team, spearheaded by Homa Kheyrollah Pour, an assistant professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, leaned into the instrument's acronym and named one of them Simba, and the other Mufasa.

Rafat said climate change means lake ice is a "lot less reliable than it was in the past."

"The ice has been changing like never before," he explained. "It's been forming a lot later in the season, it's becoming thinner over the entire winter, and it's also melting a lot earlier." 

Given the significance of lake ice in the N.W.T., Rafat said it's "really important" to start monitoring how it's changing over time to predict what it might do in the future, to guide safety policies, and to give residents practical, real-time information. 

"Installing one of these instruments and having it remotely capture ice thicknesses every 15 minutes can kind of give a snapshot of what the conditions might be," he said. He pointed to a recent incident on Grace Lake in Yellowknife — where someone fell through the ice — as an example of when that kind of information could have been helpful. 

"We can distribute the information to the community on an easily accessible web platform or service, so if you're interested in a given area, you just have to go onto the web platform, look at what the ice is, and there you go." 

But an entire network and web platform is still a ways away. 

The project has a climate science focus right now, and Kheyrollah Pour said conversations need to be had with the Government of the Northwest Territories about where two more SIMBAs will go next season. 

The locations are yet to be determined — but their names are not. 

In keeping with the Lion King theme, Rafat said they'd be called Timon and Pumbaa. 

"Science should be fun, not dry all the time," laughed Kheyrollah Pour. "We're trying to make it nice and funny, but at the same time professional."

The research is part of the territorial government's Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program, which collects information from the environment to guide decision-making.