The Conversation: 2021 was a bad year for glaciers in western North America — and it’s about to get much worse
HydroGeoSphere models have demonstrated the significant impacts that glaciers and ice sheets exert on continental groundwater flow systems (see this paper by Lemieux et al. 2008). A new article in ‘The Conversation’ shows us just how bad the past summer was for glaciers in Canada’s western provinces.
“In late June, the so-called heat dome settled over the west, creating exceptional warming that melted snow cover on the glaciers and exposed ice in a matter of days. The timing was especially bad, as it coincided with days when energy from sunlight is at its maximum.”
”The hot weather also helped spark wildfires in British Columbia, Oregon and California that spread through the mountains. When soot, dust and debris from wildfires settle on snow and ice, it darkens the surface, causing them to absorb more solar energy and melt more.”
[E]ach year the global temperature is about 1 C above the 1951-80 average, those monitored glaciers lose, on average, about 0.8 metres of water equivalent depth.”