“Within the next three generations, the Athabasca Glacier and the water it provides to communities across Western North America may almost disappear,” it reads. “Strong scientific evidence points to human activities as the primary cause of climate change.” What the sign fails to explain though is the larger consequences of glacial melt, which may make life in the mountains and prairies surrounding it much more difficult in the decades to come. Canmore-based hydrologist John Pomeroy knows all too well what melting glaciers mean for the environment. Pomeroy, director of the Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan, and Canada research chair in Water Resources and Climate Change, likens glaciers to a “deep savings account” for water that provide much-needed flow in the late summer and fall after snows melt. “Warming temperatures,” he explains, “are already causing us to dip into that savings account. Warmer temperatures means snowfall is often replaced by rain, which leads to a thinner alpine snowpack. This not only reduces the amount of snow that can melt and feed waterways in the spring, but also means glaciers lose their reflective, snow-white cover earlier and melt more quickly. “All these things start to connect with each other,” Pomeroy notes. “We’ve had a water bonus in glaciers, and it’s getting smaller and smaller… When we lose the glaciers, we lose that deep savings account. So in a hot summer, stream flows will become very, very small – much smaller than we’re experiencing now.” He points to the winter and summer of 2015 as a preview of what’s to come: “We’re going to see a series of crises, and perhaps we already are. This last winter was a disaster for ski areas in B.C. and a challenging one for ski areas here in Alberta. There was fire and record drought in Southern B.C. and Saskatchewan; and you've got the Bow River flowing at one tenth of what it should be at the mouth of the river. “With further warming, we will eventually see very sparse glacier coverage in the Rockies. It’s going to become a much more challenging place to live. When we do get these droughts, which will become more frequent as the climate warms, there will be less water in our deep savings to deal with them.”
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
This phenomenon couldn’t be more evident than it is today, here at the foot of the Athabasca Glacier. To the east of me, Alberta farmers grapple with massive agricultural disasters brought on by water shortages. To the west of me, wildfires rage throughout a drought-stricken B.C. In front of me, there is a glacier that’s clearly dying. In early July, there is no snow on the part of the glacier that is visible to me. Instead, it is covered by dark silt that attracts more heat from the sun. A sign warns me not to approach the glacier, as the lake that could eventually replace the mass of ice has already begun to form beneath its surface – making it dangerous and unstable to go close. In the mountain morning silence, I can hear the glacier creaking, groaning and grinding. It sounds like the moaning of an injured animal, struggling for life. From its base, like grey-green blood, flows a steady stream of melt water.
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GLACIAL TRIAGE
Whistler-Blackcomb Ski Resort is taking what some might call the direct approach to saving its starving Horstman Glacier. High atop Blackcomb Mountain, the glacier is home to two T-bars, a half pipe, terrain park, mogul field and racing lanes. Horstman sees thousands of visitors each summer who come either to ski for fun or attend the private and national team training camps hosted there. Arthur De Jong, mountain planning and environmental resource manager at Whistler Blackcomb has been keeping track of Horstman’s health since he started working as a ski patroller in 1980. “In order to sustain our summer operations, we’re at a point now where we need to interject and put snowmaking on top of the glacier,” De Jong explains, noting that the first step happens this summer with the installation of five snow guns as a pilot project. If those guns are able to hit their benchmarks, he says a total of 26 guns will be installed at the top of the glacier. “That number of guns, based on the ratings and assumptions we’ve made would be enough to reverse the declining mass of the glacier.” Based on decades of data, the guns will have to be able to annually put back about 500,000 cubic metres of ice to preserve the glacier. And since machine-made snow has a higher density than that made by Mother Nature, De Jong says it has better staying power to last the summer and to help meet that lofty target. “If we can maintain that white colour into the fall, at that point we should have a good jump on keeping the melt under control to some degree,” he says. According to a recent UBC study, with a 4º Celsius global temperature increase, the Horstman Glacier would be all but gone by the year 2050. When presented with this scenario and asked how long he expects the artificial snow can sustain the Blackcomb Glacier, De Jong said only that the equipment being installed has an expected life span of 30 to 40 years – which would take it to about mid-century.