Rockies could lose 90% of ice by 2100
Shrinking glaciers mean little water for several major river systems
CALGARY As glaciers shrink, a new study suggests it could affect Alberta’s iconic views of the whitecapped Rocky Mountains, worldrenowned trout fishing in the Bow River and even the quality of drinking water by the end of this century.
The research, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, showed 70 per cent of glacier ice in British Columbia and Alberta could disappear by 2100 due to warming temperatures.
“The retreat or shrinkage of mountain glaciers is a worldwide phenomenon,” said Garry Clarke, who co-authored the study and is a professor emeritus in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. “There is a range of scale of impacts.”
The study suggests not all glaciers in Western Canada are retreating at the same rates. In Alberta’s Rockies, which are drier than the coastal mountains, the loss could be as high as 90 per cent by the end of the 21st century.
It would mean the Columbia Icefield, where tourists are able to walk on the Athabasca Glacier, could almost entirely disappear.
“This is an icy part of the Rockies,” Clarke said. “The icy parts look (almost bare) at 2100 and the parts that aren’t so icy right now are going to look completely bare.”
Clarke said there could, however, be a reward for good behaviour.
“There’s a good climate control scenario,” he said, noting a path of low carbon addition could help reduce how quickly the glaciers retreat. “There’s still a substantial loss in the area, but it’s still there in the end.”
Clarke said it presents an opportunity for Canadians.
“We can decide we don’t care or we can commit to fruitful actions to try to reduce the consequences of this loss,” he said, explaining the Columbia Icefields feed the North Saskatchewan River. “A lot of the contribution to the summer flow of that river comes from glacial melt.
“That would be lost once the glaciers are gone and there won’t be a replacement source.” Similarly, the water coming off the Bow Glacier — located near the Athabasca Glacier — into the Bow River, the source of Calgary’s drinking water, would also be diminished in the later summer months.
Clarke said it’s important to note that the glaciers do not respond to cold temperatures. “They respond to climate,” he said. “When the glaciers are going, they are telling us something about the climate, not about the weather.
“The glaciers are telling us: ‘OK, here’s the story, we’re going away because the climate is not welcoming to us’.”