Climate change is endangering critical mountain water sources like the Canadian Rockies snowpacks and glaciers, with potential for dire implications. To address the challenges of sustaining and managing these mountain waters, UNESCO has announced the creation of the UNESCO Chair in Mountain Water Sustainability. The chair will be hosted at the University of Calgary (UCalgary) and co-held by six international world-class water researchers, including Dr. John Pomeroy (PhD) and Dr. Corinne Schuster-Wallace (PhD) from the University of Saskatchewan (USask).
Q+A: U of S water expert delivers talks to COP27 climate conference
John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan is delivering virtual talks on glacier preservation and water issues in the circumpolar North to delegates at the COP27 climate summit. He spoke with Postmedia ahead of his second lecture, set to be delivered Wednesday. Q: What are some key points from your talks? A: Warming is proceeding faster in the mountains than other parts of the world. Glaciers are retreating, snowpacks are melting earlier in the year. We’re also getting extremely high temperatures, such as in 2021, and massive forest fires in areas as well as flash-flooding coming form heavy rainfall at times. All these are occurring at once, which is making it very challenging.