Sustainability Speakers Series – October 21 – Can we save the Earth’s glaciers?

The Sustainability Speakers Series is an event hosted by Saskatchewan Environmental Society volunteers in partnership with the Saskatoon Public Library. These free, in-person events are held in the Auditorium of Cliff Wright Library (located in the Lakewood Civic Centre, 1635 McKercher Drive) on Tuesday evenings at 6 pm.

October 21 / Can we save the Earth’s glaciers? 2025 — International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation

Dr. John Pomeroy will describe the impacts of climate warming and other changes causing the global retreat of mountain glaciers and why this matters for humanity. The impacts on water resources, sea levels, and ecosystems will be addressed and the prospects for glacier preservation in a time of global warming and the highest atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in over two million years will be considered.

https://cfcr.ca/calendar/sk-environmental-society-sustainability-speaker/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DP9pUjLifvX/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPmFh8KDnto/

https://environmentalsociety.ca/events/sustainable-speakers-series/

Warmer weather is leading to vanishing winters in North America’s Great Lakes

Marguerite Xenopoulos, Trent University
Michael R. Twiss, Algoma University
The Conversation
October 16, 2025

Fifty years ago, winter didn’t just visit the Great Lakes — it took up residence. If you blinked too slowly, your eyelashes froze together. Standing on the ice at the edge of Lake Superior, just after an early January snowstorm, everything was white and still, except for the lake. The wind had swept across it revealing ice cracked along thunderous fractures…

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Globe Climate: Wildfire ash speeds up glacier melt

Sierra Bein
The Globe and Mail
September 15, 2025

John Pomeroy is familiar with Peyto Glacier’s rapid melting.

He’s a distinguished professor and director of the Global Water Futures Observatories at the University of Saskatchewan, and has studied the ice mass in Banff National Park since 2008, visiting several times a year to adjust weather stations and photograph changes.

But on a helicopter trip through the Canadian Rockies to the glacier one year ago, Prof. Pomeroy and his team of scientists gasped – stunned to see how much it had transformed since even his previous visit.

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Wildfire ash is accelerating glacier melt in the Canadian Rockies

Andrea Woo
The Globe and Mail
September 5, 2025

As the helicopter turned toward Peyto Glacier, located in the Park Ranges of the Canadian Rockies, John Pomeroy and his team of scientists gasped.

Prof. Pomeroy, a distinguished professor and director of the Global Water Futures Observatories at the University of Saskatchewan, has studied the ice mass in Banff National Park since 2008, visiting several times a year to adjust weather stations and photograph changes.

He is familiar with the glacier’s rapid melting. It retreats tens of metres per year – 80 metres in 2021 alone. But on the helicopter ride last September, he was stunned to see how much it had transformed since even his previous visit…

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Let’s both celebrate – and worry about – our Great Lakes on World Lake Day

John Smol, Sapna Sharma and Steven Cooke
The Globe and Mail
August 27, 2025

Canada is blessed with over nine million lakes, leading to the perception that we have endless freshwater resources. However, Canadian lakes – like lakes around the world – are under increasing environmental threats from multiple stressors, such as pollution, land-cover changes and invasive species, among other factors, many of which are now amplified due to climate change and extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and droughts.

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Listen – Canada’s “exceptional” drought from coast to coast to coast

The Current
with Matt Galloway
CBC Listen
August 25, 2025

Across Canada, 71 per cent of the country is abnormally dry or experiencing moderate to severe drought, according to the Canadian Drought Monitor. That includes places like Sunnyside, Newfoundland and Labrador, where the taps ran dry earlier this month. And in Nova Scotia, Farmer Amy Hill in Nova Scotia shares how the dry conditions are straining her farm. John Pomeroy, Director of the Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan, explains what’s driving these conditions and what Canada must do to prepare for a hotter, drier future.

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Soot from wildfires on Rocky Mountains glaciers affects Sask. water security

CKOM News
August 18, 2025

It has been a record season for wildfires in Saskatchewan, and while the smoke has a direct impact on people’s health, it is also affecting long term water security in the province.

Dr. John Pomeroy, director of the Centre for Hydrology at University of Saskatchewan (U of S) was a guest on The Evan Bray Show on Monday and described the impact on glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, which feed the South Saskatchewan River from which the province draws most of its water.

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Listen Here
(11:00 segment)