Three B.C. glaciers face extinction within decades as climate change accelerates

Three glaciers in southwestern British Columbia face extinction within decades due to climate change, according to a study published in the journal Annals of Glaciology by researchers at Simon Fraser University.

Whistler Glacier could disappear within the next 10 years. It has shrunk 95% over the last five decades and is now fractured into three smaller ice masses. Horstman and Blackcomb glaciers have each shrunk by up to 75% over the same period and will likely melt between three and seven decades from now, according to the research.

Lead researcher Chloé Monty said nothing can be done to save these three glaciers from extinction, but it is not too late to prevent larger glaciers in B.C. and Canada from disappearing. Monty noted that glaciers respond slowly to climate change, so the losses being observed now reflect atmospheric warming that occurred over the last several decades.

Whistler and Horstman glaciers once hosted summer ski camps. Whistler Blackcomb ski resort suspended summer skiing on Horstman Glacier indefinitely after the final runs ended last year; summer skiing there began in the 1980s. Whistler Glacier's summer ski operations ended in the late 1990s. The resort is now developing alternative summer activities such as mountain biking.

"This is definitely a very sad story," Monty said. "But it doesn't mean that there aren't things that we can do to reduce our carbon emissions now that would help prevent the loss of bigger glaciers and the losses also to the ice sheets that would contribute probably more significantly to sea level rise."