Public Meeting #6: CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR SOUTHERN LAKES –
ARE WE PREPARED?
With local experts from the Northern Climate Exchange, Yukon College
Southern Lakes Water Level Committee, September 18, 2014, Marsh Lake Community
Centre
Present: Sue Greetham
Jean Kapala
Dorothy Gibbon
Rob and Mary Ann Lewis
Ed Lishman
Susan Gwynne-Timothy
Presentation by local experts from the Northern Climate Exchange: Dr Bronwyn Benkhert,
Lacia Kinnear, Alison Perrin, Jos Samuels, John Streicker: powerpoint of presentation available
at slwlc.org
Sue Greetham welcomed the presenters and introduced them, saying that because Climate
Change is happening now, and is happening faster in the north, that it will be helpful for us to
know more.
Northern Climate Exchange Presentation
Lacia Kinnear:
It is a pleasure for us to come to Marsh Lake and discuss some of the work we do, especially
relating to the big issues going on around the Southern Lakes. We are part of the Yukon
Research Centre which has quite a large mandate in different areas. Our role in the NCE is to
provide a credible source of information, conduct research and develop a shared understanding
on climate change across the north. NCE has been here for 14 years and we do work relating to
climate change adaptation, education and outreach. Its work is part of a circumpolar,
international effort whose scope ranges from government, industry and first nations down to very
local, community planning, for places where climate change really hits home, for example here
is a photo of our highways project and what permafrost does to roads in the Yukon. In particular
NCE has done outreach to help people in government and communities adapt as needed. See
hazards map where layered concerns re permafrost so communities know where are areas of risk
and where are more safe places to build. Green areas are stable, red areas high risk, yellow areas
are middle risk, so it is a really great tool for communities. Lacia described how their partnership
with YEC started in conversation with David Morrison on Yukon River, hydro security and all
the different factors that play into what goes down to Whitehorse dam, and what any melting of
the glaciers would mean for a changing Yukon climate, for infrastructure, and for YEC hydro
security and future planning.
Sue: You mention that you partner. Would this be circumpolar/internationally right down to
policy, planning and permits?
Lacia: yes, partnering relates to the research questions and directions we go. We have
relationships from international to national, to education and outreach with great partnerships
across the Canadian north, to communities and land planning in terms of our hazards type of
work and helping people learn how climate change can feed in to their land planning needs.
Question: What about the Southern Lakes system?
Lacia: That will be covered mostly under Bullet #2 and #3 on the powerpoint which will be
available.
Alison Perrin:
What is Climate Change, why it is happening and how it is affecting us here in the North?
Climate Change is two things:
1. changes in the weather we experience day to day, with weather events becoming increasingly
intense eg rain, sudden storms
2. Trends, a longterm increase in weather variability, is climate.
Climate change is due to more solar radiation being trapped in the earth’s atmosphere due to
more greenhouse gases. What we observe with climate change is an increase in temperature.
Over the last 100 years there has been a 1 degree warming worldwide, which has been double
that in the arctic. There is some variability, but there is general agreement about what is
happening. So if we are to anticipate 2-4 degrees warming worldwide, there will be 4-8 degrees
change in the arctic.
Oral First Nations tradition shows these changes are occurring too. Trends in data include
changes in precipitation.
Of the last 14 years since, 13 are the hottest years that we have on record, with 2010 being the
hottest year, globally.
So what kind of impacts have we seen in the North? An increase in extreme weather events, and
not just severity but in variability of the weather. There has been more permafrost thaw in areas
of disturbed ground, such as mines and roads. The Yukon is covered in warm, discontinuous
permafrost so as the temperature rises it melts, impacts hydrological features like affect melting
of lakes, erosion. With changes in amount of ice cover in winter we are likely to see more
erosion. Changes in sea ice and glaciers.
These in turn cause increased erosion eg along shorelines, with increased wind affecting the
wave action, and different snow and storms in the winter.
Also more frequent forest fires, more frequent thunderstorms raising the danger of igniting more
forest fires. Changes in precipitation mean change in water flows in rivers.
Later freeze-up and earlier break-up on lakes and rivers will have impacts on how we live.
Ecological impacts: hotter, drier conditions really impact flora and fauna, beetles/insects. Alpine
treeline will move up in altitude and treeline between forest and tundra is also moving north, so
causes species shift, for moose and deer, plus changes in migratory bird patterns, with birds
coming earlier and leaving later, which affects other species in a knock-on effect. Trouble with
invasive species. Caribou can have benefit from warming climate but also problems from it, with
sourcing food in winter, plus travel patterns change.
Impacts on people: those who rely on traditional activities and culture, and live on land, are
noticing changes, new species moving into area or other species declining in health so that
hunters have difficulty finding animals , which impacts their diet/physical health and also mental
health. As well, permafrost thaw causes major wash-outs on highways, which affects
maintenance schedule for roads, affects people financially in lots of ways, plus supplies to north
are affected.
Yes these changes also bring opportunities, eg agricultural opportunities with potential for
growing new foods, tourist opportunities with warmer climate, but in the face of challenges due
to risks/changes to infrastructure.
NCE helping to create tools to mitigate risks and capitalize opportunities.
Question: Where was picture next to graph, on road
Alison: On Alaska Highway
John Streicker
I am very excited to be here as I have a place on Marsh Lake. Tonight I will focus on what
climate change will have as an impact here, with a focus on the southern lakes, ie Marsh Lake,
Tagish and Bennett Lakes, and talk a bit about Atlin Lake but will concentrate on the other lakes.
Several changes build into the story: about what changes we will see, and already see and also
effects of changes in 1. temperature, 2. precipitation (snow and rain) and 3. glaciers on the lakes
eg what effect this will have on flooding, whether there will be more flooding.
When we project into the future on this topic, we already have some conclusions on this topic as
we have done lots of work over time on this, and thus we have confidence, though not certainty
ie are solid on some aspects of data, while some doubts remain on other aspects. It can be
challenging, as we are projecting into the future.
It is important to note one of Alison’s points, the distinction between the weather, which is hard
to predict, and the overall climate, which is easier to predict than the weather, as it is watched
over time so it is more based on patterns, and projections. As a person I couldn’t tell you the
difference between the weather right now and a difference of 1 degree ten minutes from now
though with a thermometer I could. But overall, globally, we can tell you what the difference is,
very well, that 1 degree will make as a climate pattern. When we hit a weather event like the
2007 flood, we cannot say definitively “yes that was caused by Climate Change” but we can say
that the flood was exacerbated by climate change and that climate change is pushing us in a
direction where more such events are likely to occur.
Here is a picture of temperature. Annual temperature; we took an area from just north of
Whitehorse to just south of the Llewellyn Glacier, a grid with 35 points around that grid, and
took temperature at those places over different years, took an average over a number of years.
We can see that there has been warming, up 2 degrees. So we in the Yukon have more than twice
the rate of warming already, over the years 1960-2010, than there has been worldwide.
Then we plug in our predictions with what is happening with the CO2 emissions.
The range of future projections varies, due to differing estimates of the amount of CO2 emissions
that will occur in the future, ie maybe there will be more or less. So what we can say is, this is
what we have seen with temperature lately, and this is where we are headed, and we think it is
significant, a trend. It is not really too important what the annual temperature is, in fact it looks
very cold. See powerpoint slide graph: Mountain Top average temp is -4.5 degrees while down
in river basin/valleys where we live, the average temp is 0 degrees. So it averages out, and that
trend line shows us we are warming. We are currently warming at a rate of 4 degrees per 100
years and this (4 or maybe 5 degree change) is what melted the last ice age and that change took
10,000 years. Remember that the North is more sensitive, behaves in a stronger fashion to
warming. So here in the Yukon we have seen 2 degrees in 50 years.
Summer temperatures are more important for the southern lakes than winter temperatures are.
The reality is that most of the warming in the Yukon and the North is happening in the winter,
not the summer. There is still warming in the summer, but maybe not quite as fast, maybe 3
degrees over a 100 year period but that is still significant for us.
Rain and Snow: Annual Precipitation
So, notice trending up temperatures over time, and here is our projection. Again we see that it is
increasing. When I look at the noise of it, it is a little noisier, which means more variability.
Summer has more rain with climate change, which is concerning. Autumn rain presents less of a
[flooding] problem as there is less water coming in to the lakes than leaving lakes, during this
season, so the level stops rising. So at this point I do not care so much about the rain as the water
is going down, but the summer rain I care about. The highest time with precipitation is the
summer, but the increase in winter precipitation with the snow, is very significant and I will
bring together the pieces to show why this relationship is so important.
People want to find out one number about climate change, but there is lots of variability. From
one year to the next there could be quite a difference. Why do we care about that?
Because, even though there is a lot of variability in the Yukon due to microclimates but if all the
three effects that I spoke about, if all three records from these different areas come together,
there will be a flood
We can see this trend: Warmth + Summer Rain + big winter snowpack= flood.
John feels the graphs show less variability than there will actually be.
For example, already El Nino affects our weather yet it is far away from the Yukon, whereas the
Arctic Ocean is very close to us here, and will now be ice free for some months each year~
which will inevitably affect our weather, not least having the result that those on the ocean edge
will be more affected by shore erosion. But we are now taking an ocean which used to be frozen
all the time and unfreezing it some of the time and that will cause a lot of changes, meaning that
some years we will get a lot of precipitation and some years we won’t. And that we will have to
watch, when it comes to our lakes.
Wind
Wind does not change how much flooding we have, but affects the effect of the flooding. Eg
wind affects the behaviour of water by pushing it to one end or the other, of a lake. Research
shows that there has been an increase in wind speed of 15% over recent years. So if we do get a
flood event, and there is more wind, this flooding will have more of an effect on the shore. This
massively affects shoreline communities, nb most of our communities (eg Carcross).
Glaciers
Remember that snow has to melt to be measured in millimeters as the equivalent of rain. Nb we
see more rain are not as confident in the trend (see graph), the hydrological trend being towards
variability. The highest time for precipitation is in the summer but the increase in winter
precipitation is very significant, and I will show why that relationship is so important.
There is a massive icefield over the Summit mountains between Alaska and B: the Llewellyn
Glacier, which in terrestrial terms is a very big glacier. Yet if this glacier disappeared tomorrow,
it would not mean less water in the Yukon River. Glaciers flow over time. When the moist warm
air gets pushed up as coastal precipitation hits the mountains, it freezes into the glacier, and
pushes and compresses until it makes ice, and the glacier flows. So what would happen if it is not
there? That same snow would land, and it would just flow out that year. Glaciers more or less
even things out a bit, though they also melt at the end of the summer and so add to the lake level
that way. If the glacier entirely melted we would have more variability because weather/rain
rather than pausing as glacial ice, would come straight down when it fell, into the Yukon River.
Due to climate change, the glacier is receding and the melt rate is accelerating.
NCE anticipate the glacier will remain with 2-4 degrees of global warming (ie 4-8 degrees of
global warming here) but that it will be smaller, higher and thinner. So when we imagine what
will happen with the southern lakes, we always imagine a glacier there, but it will be smaller. We
will get roughly the same amount of water except please take into account the changes in
precipitation due to the Arctic Ocean.
Question: But melting fossilized water gets contributed to the system when a glacier melts? Does
this contribute to the glacier flow, and to the system?
JS: Great question, need to ask how big a deal is glacier change? Clarify these figures:
18% of water at dam is from the glacier, a third of water at dam is from rain, almost half, around
47% of water at dam is from snow from previous year.
In this year maybe 6% of the water at the dam is glacial wastage ie from the glacier receding,
while 17% is the normal flow of the glacier, 33% is rain and 44% is snow. So when we are
looking at the glacier, we see that the small picture is the glacial wastage, 6%, though we should
ask what that means as it is 6% we didn’t have before. How much does that add to lake levels?
We’re not sure, maybe 1cm, maybe several cm added to the lake. It matters when it happens, ie
typically during summer when the lake level is rising or later when the lake level is receding.
Question: in the 1990s there was 5-6 years of wastage and then 5-6 yrs where the glacier was
building up again.
JS: Yes, wastage varies over time. Yet we can definitely see the ice is receding over time.
Try to watch climate changes over time but if look back, what one sees most is huge variability
and what matters is especially variability in snow melt from one year to the next. You have to
watch up in the alpine, with the snowpack. Snow is a much bigger contributor to the Yukon
River than the glacier.
The snowmelt happens up high over time, and when it hits Atlin Lake the difference might be a
month. If the melt comes through in the spring, it is not as bad as if it comes through in August
which is a bottleneck month for flooding.
Question: Because of the glacier decreasing in size, are we going to get more precipitation ie if
the water is passing over the mountains with less of the cold mass of the glacier there, will we
get more precipitation?
JS: No that won’t make any difference. The glacier comes from the freezing of that precipitation
while the melt comes from it melting, still have the same amount of precipitation passing through
the system.
Brian: Yes it is the elevation that is making the glacier, it has its own microclimate.
JS: The interface of how high up in altitutde the rain gets to will change with a warmer climate,
but it is all precipitation and once it falls whether as rain or snow, it will make its way down to
the Yukon River. And if it comes down in spring, that is not as bad as if it comes through in
August, as that is the bottleneck.
Net effect of climate change on Southern Lakes?
Net effect of 2 degrees change and more to come: that is going to create more flow, warmer
temperatures mean more volume coming through (nb that 6% could increase) and what matters is
when it comes through. Probably getting precipitation increase but more important is variability,
ie every once in a while we will get a year when there is more precipitation and also will have a
confluence of factors, timing of warmth and precipitation in late summer. We know the glacier is
receding and are trying to figure out how much that will raise the lake levels but it is probably
less than 6”. Have not been able to work out the actual number of inches of change to the lake
level, we think it will be negligible. Will share it with the community.
Slide: Net Effect of Climate Change
Issue for Southern Lakes is the confluence of factors that lead to flooding in August, or not. The
Southern Lakes is really one interconnected lake with 500km2 of water.
The 2007 flood was caused by there being a big snowpack, which we saw and talked about, but
we were a little slow to become really concerned. We had a meeting earlier that summer, and
said there is a big snowpack and there could be flooding, we should be watching for it, but it
wasn’t until a little later there was a massive rain event. That flood was 1’ higher than any
previous flood event on record.
But we were lucky in 2007 with that flood event. A “seiche” means the water is pushed higher
by the wind, but in fact in 2007 there was not much wind especially south wind. That spring, had
awareness of the flood to come, due to presence of a high snowpack. All three factors, glacier +
snowpack + rain = variables. Wind + rain + temp also add variability.
Sue: What are the main uncertainties in predicting changes to the maximum and minimum water
levels? The main variables?
JS: See this graph, that is your variability, with all of these: wind, temperature, precipitation.
This model tells you, on average it is this and we predict this range of variability. We can’t tell
you what will happen in a particular year.
Sue: How soon prior to an event can you anticipate flooding?
John: The best prediction model we have is the previous winter. Watch the snowpack happening
up in the alpine in the upper Yukon River basin. We watch that snow, but sometimes it
accumulates and then gets a chance to melt out.
Sue: Can you predict the precipitation that will follow?
JS: no, but we predict uncertainty in all sorts of things we do, like car insurance so we build
uncertainty into all we do. We came here tonight to give best information rather than
conclusions or advice on how you should make your decisions. There will always be uncertainty
in weather.
Question: That year of 2007 I see the perfect storm and variability is what you want to watch for
isn’t it?
JS: Best information is, expect more flooding, more frequent and more severe
Question: What does this mean using vocabulary of “10 year storm” or “100 year storm”?
John: That is hard to predict. Variability is, is it a big snow year or a low snow year, but that does
not matter overall as there is a delay time in the snow making it down to the lake and the
dam/outflow of Marsh Lake. Temperature matters in whether it is warm summer overall, not so
much whether it is warm at a particular time. Rain events will have a particular impact. Just one
week ago there was a new tool came out, on intensity of rainfall, but we do not know whether it
is negligible or not. The things to look out for with storm, rain and temperature are: Duration,
Frequency, Intensity and there is a curve and we will try to apply that. It is likely that what we
now call a “10 year storm” will become a 7 year storm, ie increase in frequency. But we will
never get to the point where we will be able to say that tomorrow there will be a big storm. We
will only get to the point where we can say that the likelihood is increasing by 30%. So the
likelihood is that there will be more frequent floods and some of those floods will have more
intensity on average than they have in the past.
Jos Samuel
Poor quality of data in Yukon. Most studies done have been conducted in small scale basin.
Want to improve understanding of overall Yukon River’s flows.
This will allow Yukon to develop better hydro security.
Atlin Lake Basin – have some data collecting stations 2005-2013 but there are gaps there too, so
have to rely on statistical data.
What we do know is that May-Oct, precipitation is less than run-off. Area with glacier does
produce more flow into Atlin Lake basin, than the area which is not glaciated..
With an increase in temperature and precipitation over the next 50 years, are likely to have
increased flow into Atlin Lake.
The range of the remaining glacier will be 68-83% of the size it is now, ie its loss of area will be
17% of what is there now.
Question (Werner): So the basic conclusion I come to is that there will not be a water shortage?
JS: No.
Werner: And yet YEC want to raise the lake level?
Sue: This is why we want to accumulate the data. With the changing of the operating regime
with this concept, we need to determine how serious are these variables and these unanswered
questions, and for us to be able to make decisions where we feel that higher levels are a problem.
Werner: There is nothing being done to reduce the increase in the water. This is what should be
done?
Question: This is predicted from natural changes or climate change?
Jos: Climate change
Question: So this is natural variation before fracking. Yet after fracking, this will all be changed,
all these numbers will be changed.
Jos: We use the statistical method to scale.
Sue: Because our major concern is flooding and erosion, the question that comes to us is can we
divert some of the water and reduce the potential for flooding, eg spillways?
JS: Would have to move it to a new watershed. It is possible to push it back to a new watershed
eg from Atlin Lake to the coast. But unless you move it to a new watershed it is going to go
through the valley here.
Bronwyn Benkhert
My work complements some of the work that Jos has explained in that I trace water movement
through the hydrological cycle. My background is in isotope hydrology. What I base the work
that I do on, is like fingerprinting the water. It uses the natural variability in the weight of the
water molecule that is related to the O2 and Hydrogen elements that make up the water
molecule. Every water molecule has some natural variability in its weight in the hydrogen and
the oxygen molecules and that is really interesting in the context of water movement. The lighter
ones will evaporate first and the heavy ones will be the first ones to fall as rain. So I can take
samples of rain, snowmelt, ice, river water, and I can measure the natural variations of weight,
and start to look at how those different contributions of ice, snow of incoming river feed the
composition of water in Atlin Lake and further down river. So it is another way of seeing how
different sources of water, from different small rivers and Atlin Lake feed the incoming
contributions to the Yukon River and appear downstream in the river. So it is another way to
measure how small rivers, etc contribute to the water that is downstream.
Slide 2: These are some of the sampling sites. We have some meteorological monitoring stations,
the red ones here. And some light blue sites are samples of snow we have collected. We have
some really nice transects of snow along the Llewellyn Glacier, some collected way up high and
then at lower points on tongues down near Atlin Lake, so we can look at variations in the snow
that will then appear in the Yukon River. And we also have sample sites through this watershed,
so we can also measure and build another type of model that will measure all these sources that
feed in to the Yukon River. That will help us build another type of model that will help us inform
the Hydrosecurity Project and give some kind of context. Lots still to be done, more samples to
be collected.
I look at water balance. What is the ratio of incoming water to water loss. This is supporting
data to the project that Jos was talking about. In an ideal world we would do the sampling year
after year and set the foundation for marking the variability that we are talking about. This is a 3
year project but starts to set the foundation for that.
Sue: we have some questions sent in by local residents, I have 27 questions here but all of them
were answered by our guests except these following:
1. I am a property owner at Army Beach. Enough damage has already been done by the
existing dam. Why do we want to create more of a problem, with the little bit of money
Yukon Energy is going to pocket. There are so many other opportunities for hydro close
by.
2. Lots of questions about culverts and air strips, what is going to happen with the
permafrost melting.
3. Letter from White Pass and Yukon Route saying any rise in water level will compromise
the rail line, which is an infrastructure problem.
We got many more people here tonight than we expected, thank you. Any more questions?
Question: Do we have the kind of drinking water supplies that can withstand rolling in the
fracking chemicals? How far away are we from that?
Bronwyn: Water chemistry and quality is not part of the expertise of our group, but there are
drinking water standards.
JS: Maybe the geological survey or the Water Resources Branch (Dept of Environment) are the
people who deal with the physical issues around water (eg flooding) but water quality data would
also go through them. We don’t do that work.
Question: It is really important that people deal with facts, not opinions. The notion that the dam
or Miles Canyon is a constraint that affects water levels on Marsh Lake, bothers me, if it exists it
is slight, maybe 10%.
Sue; What about increased levels of sedimentation
TR: Studies on our website show that Miles Canyon is the most significant bottleneck to
outflows of the Southern Lakes and if you were to take the dam away there would only be a few
cm difference.
JS: You can just go and see that there is a small difference in elevation when you go to the
Lewes Dam in the summer.
Question: The starting point in May is the same every year. Climate change will affect water
levels in the summer and how fast water comes up. Everything we have talked about today is
how things are affect mid May to mid Sept
JS: Travis said if you removed the dam, Miles Canyon would still hold the water back, so there
would still be that delay. Depends on whether you believe the studies but they were done by
Hydrology folks. We attempted to keep our focus on late summer/fall as that is when most
flooding happens. We don’t even ask about whether there are control structures. We just focus
on whether the inflow is higher than the outflow as that is when the water level will start to go
up. Atlin Lake always varies but there is no control structure on it.
Question: All these lakes have natural fluctuation.
JS: These lakes all have a seasonal fluctuation and we are asking, does climate change change
that. We think it does. You are asking, does the control structure change that? Yukon Energy
have a low water level and are not allowed to let the water get lower than that, so they are pretty
good at planning that and it does not get lower than that.
Question: White Pass open those gates in the spring to get the break-up.
JS: But that was before the dam. Originally the control structure was about trying to clear out the
winter ice, not about hydro energy.
Travis: So, your graphs show what you expect is that high water events are more likely to
increase in the future as there will be more precipitation?
JS: Yes. If you look at the lake shore and see where willows grow and where they stop, that is
what has been our average high water mark. We are still investigating as the glaciers waste away,
whether there is added water there. We don’t think it’s a lot, but that would not be a very big
flood though it would be some sort of increase. But we do not have a number for that. Then on
top of that, we believe that every once in a while events will line up that bring a bigger flood
than we have been used to, with or without any change that Yukon Energy does. Our real job
tonight, we came here not to be proponents or opponents of the project, but just to present the
information.
Travis: So those effects on the lake levels are likely to be observed during the summer.
JS: Now Yukon Energy does come in as they have a drawdown to the low level. With more
water coming in to the system, that is more energy for Yukon Energy to bring through. Jos and
Bronwyn will help us understand when that wastage is happening. If it melts at the glacier it will
move quickly into the Atlin Basin whereas if it helps on the slopes it will take more time to get
through to the lakes.
Don: Speed at which water levels come up really affects the fish. This spring for the first time in
17 years, on Marsh Lake, the water levels were rising, came up on shore before the ice melted.
Resident Comment: I don’t support the water level rise.
Sue: The SLWLC committee meets almost every month, rotating through the different
communities, to collect these comments, as a determination of what to do next. This process will
come to an end but we want to get as much awareness and input for the community as possible.
You have more awareness than you did when you arrived, and so you will have more questions.
Please go to our website and do our survey!
Thank you to Lacia, all the guests, for putting this information together. You were wonderful.