SOURCE: CTV News
DATE: December 27, 2018
SNIP: Climate change is prompting glaciers in British Columbia, Yukon and Alberta to retreat faster than at any time in history, threatening to raise water levels and create deserts, scientists say.
David Hik, an ecology professor at Simon Fraser University, said the region is one of the hotspots for warming and the magnitude of change in the glaciers is dramatic.
“Probably 80 per cent of the mountain glaciers in Alberta and B.C. will disappear in the next 50 years,” he said.
The Peyto Glacier in the Rocky Mountains and part of Banff National Park has lost about 70 per cent of its mass in the last 50 years, Hik said.
While the melt increases water levels and sets off coastal erosion and flooding, it also causes dry areas and dust bowls.
As glaciers recede, more water flows downhill, but the further the ice sheets retreat, the less water there is to go down stream and soon the area begins to dry.
The melt also changes the way water flows and where it accumulates, creating lakes, wetlands or desert-like conditions.
Outside of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, Canada has more glacier cover than any other nation.