Unprecedented melt of glaciers adding to U.S. climate change concerns

Dene Moore, The Canadian Press Published Sunday, May 18, 2014 8:14AM EDT Last Updated Sunday, May 18, 2014 1:56PM EDT

VANCOUVER -- The mountains of British Columbia cradle glaciers that have scored the landscape over millennia, shaping the rugged West Coast since long before it was the West Coast.

But they're in rapid retreat, and an American state-of-the-union report on climate change has singled out the rapid melt in British Columbia and Alaska as a major climate change issue.

"Most glaciers in Alaska and British Columbia are shrinking substantially," said the U.S. National Climate Assessment, released last week to much fanfare south of the border.

"This trend is expected to continue and has implications for hydropower production, ocean circulation patterns, fisheries, and global sea level rise."

According to the report, glaciers in the region are losing 20 to 30 per cent of what is melting annually from the Greenland Ice Sheet, which has received far more worldwide attention.

That amounts to about 40 to 70 gigatons per year, or about 10 per cent of the annual discharge of the Mississippi River.

"The global decline in glacial and ice-sheet volume is predicted to be one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise during this century," the report said.

It is some of the fastest glacial loss on Earth. The cause: rising temperatures due to climate change.

"We've seen an acceleration of the melt from the glaciers," said Brian Menounos, a geography professor at the University of Northern British Columbia and one of the scientists involved in cross-border, multi-agency research into glacial loss.

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Unprecedented melt of glaciers adding to U.S. climate change concerns