Western Canada is a great place to witness climate change in action. That, from USask water expert and Canada Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change, Dr. John Pomeroy, who says the Saskatchewan River system is completely dependent on mountain snow and glacier ice melt for its water flow. For example, in Saskatoon, 99 per cent of the flow from the South Saskatchewan River is coming from Alberta and 80 per cent of that is from the Rockies. Pomeroy states that what happens in the Rockies doesn’t stay in the Rockies. Its flows through our river system.
He is worried this year, because the snowpack in the Rockies is about 70 per cent of what it should be, that we could be heading into a snow drought, because it means less melt coming through the system to the Saskatchewan River. As well, the glaciers are melting down about seven to eight metres each year. He says, “It’s affecting us all far downstream, and really, we’ve got to get climate change under control right away. We are passing the point where it’s becoming catastrophic right now, so it’s time for rapid action on this.” Pomeroy states that Saskatchewan is dependent on snow melt for soil moisture, and snow melt, and glacier melt for our river flow, which all sustains our economy.
Canada is warming faster than the world, and, in the Prairies, the average temperature has gone up around two degrees since the 1800s. Globally, the average is about a 1-and-a-half-degree rise. Prairie winters and summers are warming quicker. “The concern we have for the future is drier summers are highly likely, as well as much more heating in the summers and winters. We are going to have changed agricultural possibilities for the province. That hotter, drier summer is going to be problematic in some places unless we can irrigate or store water through our snowpacks in the winter and get them into the soil in the spring.”
Glaciers give us a bit of drought proofing, but Pomeroy says we won’t have that any more in a few decades, so we have to figure out how to manage the Saskatchewan river system to make sure there is enough to go around for the environment and human activities. Pomeroy remembers a few years ago, when there was a snow drought in the Rockies, which then affects water flow downstream. He says in 2023, the snow drought was disastrous for communities like Leader which wasn’t able to access enough drinking water. “Cumberland House also ran out of drinking water and they had to dig a deep well there, for the first time, and that settlement has been there since the 1700s. The whole Saskatchewan River delta dried out.” Pomeroy notes that muskrat populations collapsed and it impacted hydro for SaskPower. Alberta had to restrict its irrigation and there were water restrictions in Calgary, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. Pomeroy calls 2023 a year of not just hydrological drought -but also a moisture drought which led to poor yields and wildfires.
Dr. John Pomeroy is a well-known USask water research expert who is also the Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change, UNESCO co-chair for the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, and UNESCO Chairholder in Mountain Water Sustainability. He is also the co-author of a free, new book called ‘The Great Thaw: A Homage in Art to Vanishing Glaciers’ which explores the impact of climate change on glaciers and the broader cryosphere through art and science.