Reconnaissance sub-bottom profiling studies of Peyto Lake, Banff National Park

Abstract

Recent studies have pointed to significant negative flow trends in the glacierized catchments of Canada's Southern Cordillera. These trends and a reduction in the flow regulation effect of glacier cover are due to marked reductions in the aerial extent of glaciers over the last half of the 20th Century (Hopkinson and Young 1998; Moore and Demuth 2001; Demuth and Pietroniro 2002; and Stahl and Moore 2006). These conclusions are the result of analyses conducted using the available instrumental records describing summer month river flows. In the context of water resources, and to better define the warmdry climate episode adaptation limits provided by the presence of glaciers, it is desirable to place these observations within the perspective of glacier fluctuations that have taken place over the last several millennia. In several instances recent and paleoglacier fluctuations from direct or proxy evidence have been well documented. For example, Demuth (1997), Demuth and Keller (2006), Hopkinson and Demuth (2006), Luckman (2006), and Watson and Luckman (2004) provide such evidence for Peyto Glacier. Peyto Glacier is situated in the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and provides flow to the North Saskatchewan River Basin. This glacierized mountainous headwater region plays a critical role in providing orographically derived precipitation, seasonal snowmelt and glacier melt to natural and human systems downstream.