Most of Western Canada’s glaciers will melt in 80 years, UNBC study finds

By Michelle Gomez

2023.01.09

A study by international researchers using a supercomputer at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) has found that most of Western Canada’s glaciers will disappear by the year 2100.

The study, “Global Glacier Change in the 21st Century: Every Increase in Temperature Matters” was published Thursday in the journal Science.

“A child born today will witness the near-complete disappearance of one of western Canada’s most iconic symbols glaciers,” reads a statement from the university.

The statement goes on to describe how continued greenhouse gas emissions will “decimate” glaciers around the world in the decades ahead — including those in Western Canada, which provide water during the late summer or during times of drought.

According to the study, by the end of the century, the majority of remaining glacier ice will exist in southeastern Alaska, the Northern Coast Mountains, Yukon, the northeastern Canadian and Russian Arctic, and mountains that border the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.