They have a cool job in a warming world.
Several times a year, a team of B.C. scientists hikes into mountains on Vancouver Island, laden with heavy snowpack core-testing gear and skis to get into hard-to-reach places, and camps in the snow, sometimes in -15 C temperatures or blizzards.
They face difficult terrain, avalanche risk and heavy rain, which can make hiking in the snow treacherous.
The testing area is in the Cruickshank River watershed in the Comox Valley Regional District, and the goal is to collect samples of the snowpack so they can accumulate data and determine whether it’s declining — and if so by how much.
This data will become crucial in the future to determine how much communities will need to ration water because of climate change.
To get to base camp, about 1,350 metres above sea level at Castlecrag Mountain, south of Mount Washington, they first take a helicopter — that’s the easy part.
Then they must hike eight kilometres mostly uphill with up to 40 pounds of equipment each.
“It can be really tough,” says Emily Haughton, a science technician with the Hakai Institute, which conducts long-term scientific research at remote locations on B.C.’s coast.
“Most of us that do this type of work are pretty comfortable in inclement weather and blizzards because you can just dress warm, but when it’s raining and you’re in the snow, it’s quite hard.
“The slush makes moving around really slow. It’s difficult to use the snow tubes, and you get a lot of icing happening within the tube, which just complicates everything.”
Haughton, who is based mainly in Campbell River, said the team, which includes fellow Hakai science technicians and members of Vancouver Island University’s hydrology lab, takes up to five week-long trips a year between early March and July.
The goal is to figure out the amount of water that is held in the snow that could be available once all the snow melts and is stored in a reservoir, Haughton said.
To test the snowpack, the researchers use steel or aluminum coring pipe, which they must drill down into about five metres of snow.
She said in some watersheds, up to 40 per cent of the water that people use for drinking and other uses comes from snowpack.
“Its really important because we are researching how much water will be available for community use,” she said.
“It’s a bit scary when you think about that 40 per cent … If climate change continues as it is, then I think a change in snow cover will have massive implications, especially in watersheds that primarily derive their water from the snowpack, as opposed to rain or glacial-fed [watersheds].”
Peter Marshall, a field hydrologist with Metro Vancouver, said collecting this data is essential for water resource planning.
The regional district helps fund Hakai’s Airborne Coastal Observatory, a fixed-wing plane on a five-year mission to scan B.C.’s mountains’ snowpack and glacial melt. Other partners include the University of Northern B.C., Vancouver Island University and the Kisik Aerial Survey.
The aircraft is equipped with a LiDAR sensor, which Marshall says is being used to map the depth of snow over various watersheds.
“Initially, it was a research and development kind of project, but this year, we’ve moved to being able to go and do a LiDAR flight survey and then get data back within a week, and then use that operationally to figure out how much water is available in the snowpack,” said Marshall.
Field observations, like the ones Haughton is involved in, are used in combination with the LiDAR data to estimate water density across the watershed, he said.
“It’s important because it allows us to determine water restrictions each year, regardless of snowpack conditions. Knowing how much water is available allows us to then plan for dam operations, so operators can figure out when they want to fully fill the reservoirs for the summer.”
The data is eventually expected to show the changes over time — for example, how the snowpack is retreating higher up the mountain and where snow water storage is at specific elevations, he added.
“Last year, for example, our snowpack in Metro Vancouver was about average, but then we had an extremely hot May and early June, and the snowpack disappeared really quickly … something faster than we’ve ever seen before,” he said.
“Being able to see how things are changing over a season and then factoring in temperatures and climate change is going to be another way to project into the future.”
Snowpack data isn’t yet public, but he said anecdotally, they’ve seen about 50 per cent less snow at lower-elevation sites this year than normal.
