Dear editor,

鈥淕obsmackingly Bananas鈥� is how one climate scientist described the global September 2023 temperature rise, which hit a new record by an enormous margin.

The tropical Pacific Ocean is also switching from the climate event known as La Nina to an El Nino climate event, which will bring an even hotter and drier climate over the next couple of years to B.C., further depleting our water resources, and our stores of ice and snow.

This year鈥檚 photo of the Comox Glacier shows new rock is exposed all along the central right side, and that the glacier continues to melt rapidly

We will be down to just a few patches of remaining ice in the near future.

The Comox Glacier is a visual 鈥淐anary in a Coal Mine,鈥� and it is a good indication of how greatly reduced the overall snowpack is these days.

Furthermore, the entire snowpack in mountain valleys, plateaus, and meadows between the Comox Glacier and Mt. Albert Edward is melting earlier each spring.

This loss of snowpack means a large amount of runoff water will no longer be available to replenish our streams and rivers through the summer, nor will it enter long-term storage in the aquifer.

We will be more dependent on rainfall for most of the year, rainfall which is becoming less and less reliable.

Having a heavy accumulation of ice and snow in the backcountry was like having an insurance policy.

We have made multiple claims on this insurance policy, especially last year in the fall when the Comox Glacier and a few patches of snow kept the Puntledge River flowing. In the future, we must learn to live without this insurance policy, and change our behaviour accordingly.

Finishing up photographing the glacier, I panned my camera to the right. I saw urban creep beginning on the Forbidden Plateau, and I was reminded of all the new building projects in the Valley and whether we will have water for all these new resource users. Whatever we do, we must not repeat past mistakes.

In the end, there is a limit to our water resources, and those resources are getting smaller every year. We are exceeding that limit. Water conservation is of supreme importance.

Fred Fern,

Merville