Calgary monitoring river levels amid below-average mountain snowpack levels
The City of Calgary is keeping a close eye on water levels for several reasons this spring, including hot, dry weather and below-average mountain snowpack levels.
"We've seen a 30 per cent increase in demand above normal for this time of year," said Nicole Newton with the City of Calgary.
"We have started to increase the levels of the reservoir in anticipation to manage our water supply that will get us through the wintertime."
John Pomeroy is the Canada research chair in water resources and climate change at the University of Saskatchewan.
He says the snowpack also started melting earlier than he's ever seen.
"About six weeks early," he said.
Even along the continental divide, where winter snows historically lingered until July most years, there is very little, if any, snow left.
It means rivers such as the Bow and the Elbow will get the majority of their volume from groundwater and any rain that falls.
The Bow River generally hits peak runoff in mid-June, but this year it peaked about three weeks ago – something seen across most of the province.
"Their flow has dropped in half for the last 10 days, and it's now in some of the lowest flows ever measured this time of year," Pomeroy said.
Glaciers and lingering snow act as drought insurance for the Prairie provinces, ensuring a volume of cool water continues to flow, even if rain doesn't fall. However, glaciers have been retreating for roughly a century, and melting has accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years.
"In fact, very disturbingly, last month we published a paper showing predictions for the Bow and Elbow rivers for the end of the century under climate change if we don't do anything about climate change," Pomeroy said.
"It's kind of a worst case scenario, and what we've showed for the end of century years looks a lot like this year."
Even since it began to melt away, the Athabasca Glacier one of six outlet glaciers coming off the Columbia Icefield – often held snow on its surface until into July.Now its bottom three kilometres are all snow-free and a massive volume of ice has already melted away.
Already this year, 1.7 metres of ice has melted off the top of the Athabasca – the total volume lost is roughly the equivalent of 1,122 Olympic sized swimming pools.
"We may have crossed a tipping point for glaciers like the Athabasca," said Pomeroy. "We're almost certainly in for record glacier melt this year - even higher than previous years."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'They needed people inside Air Canada:' Police announce arrests in Pearson gold heist
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
Why drivers in Eastern Canada could see big gas price spikes, and other Canadians won't
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
WATCH LIVE As GC Strategies partner is admonished by MPs, RCMP confirms search warrant executed
The RCMP confirmed Wednesday it had executed a search warrant at an address registered to GC Strategies. This development comes as MPs are enacting an extraordinary, rarely used parliamentary power, summoning one of its contractors to appear before the House of Commons to be admonished publicly for failing to answer questions related to the ArriveCan app.
Woman who pressured boyfriend to kill his ex in 2000s granted absences from prison
A woman who pressured her boyfriend into killing his teenage ex more than a decade ago will be allowed to leave prison for weeks at a time.
Attempt to have murder charge quashed against alleged serial killer dismissed by judge
A motion filed by the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg to have one of those murder charges quashed has been dismissed by the judge – weeks before the start of his trial.
Government proposes new policy for federally regulated employees to disconnect from work
In their 2024 budget, the federal government wants to amend the Canada Labour Code, so employers in federally regulated sectors will eliminate work-related communication with employees outside of scheduled hours. If implemented, this would affect roughly 500,000 across the country.
Earthquake jolts southern Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, without issuing a tsunami warning.
Disappointment widespread over budget's proposed $200-month disability benefit funding
Advocacy groups across Canada are expressing widespread disappointment about the amount of funding earmarked in the 2024 federal budget for the long-awaited Canada Disability Benefit.