|
Monday, December 1, 2008
|
|
|
|
Temp:
|
1°C
|
|
Feels like:
|
-3°C
|
|
Humidity:
|
60%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hydro keen on glacier study |
|
|
Written by SCOTT STANFIELD
Citizen staff
|
|
Sunday, 05 October 2008 |
The extent of the annual retreat from glaciers is shown here.
Related Items
No related items found
The results could have a direct bearing on the management of water resources, and on the production of electricity in the near future.
"In general terms, our job is to manage that water resource and meet our obligations from a societal point of view, and at the same time produce reliable power for the province," said Doug Smith, manager of hydrology and technical services at B.C. Hydro, one of several research partners involved in the project. Smith was at UNBC on the weekend to attend a workshop hosted by the network.
"Our key thing is trying to deal with the variability that's in the water resource that's inherent in the fact that it's driven by weather systems and climate. We're in this to understand what that's all about, and what the implications of climate change are going to be for us over the long term."
The WC2N team includes researchers from Alberta and Washington state. They are focusing on glaciers in the mountain ranges of B.C. and western Alberta.
"They're world class scientists doing good work," said Hydro's Sean Fleming, a hydrology and technical services employee who was among the Saturday presenters. "They're helping to answer these questions for us."
Since 1985, B.C's 17,000 glaciers are permanently losing 22 billion cubic metres of water each year, according to geography professor/principal investigator Dr. Brian Menounos.
"That appears to be a substantial volume of water, but it may not be relative to the total volume of input that goes into that basin and then comes off and generate," Smith said. "I think the notion is is that those glaciers are depleting over time, so consequently that water has flown through the system. In cases with our reservoirs, we've extracted some energy out of that. That energy won't be available in the future, it's basically energy that's gone through the system and is not coming back. So the question for us is, 'Is that indicative of the long-term yield that we're going to get out of that basin from an energy point of view?'"
Is there anything we can do to slow down glacial retreat in particular, and climate change in general? Not really, since the latter is essentially an irreversible process.
"Even if we cut off all industrial activity today, it would still keep on warming," Fleming said. "Plus, tying that back to the glaciers, there's another level of complexity. Glaciers take time to respond to changes in climate. So even if you held climate where it is right now, glaciers would still keep on shrinking bad for at least a few decades, and then stabilize.
"There's not a heckuva lot that we personally can do about that. It's more a matter of adaptation."
 |
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 06 October 2008 )
|
|
|
Who's Online
We have 186 guests and 16 members online
|
|
|
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
