A personal tale of melting ice

Author Christopher White’s new book “A Melting World” touches on themes long discussed in the media — melting glaciers and the impacts that come with climate change.

White accompanied U.S. Geological Survey scientists Dan Fagre and Clint Muhlfeld on field expeditions in Glacier National Park over several seasons to gather information for his book. Fagre is renown for his work on glaciers, and Muhlfeld specializes in research on native and invasive fish.

White said it was difficult to ask questions, take notes and keep up at the same time.

“I’d stop to take notes, and they’d be gone,” White said.

The author’s love for the mountains began in the Adirondacks while growing up back East as a teenager. He came to Wyoming in his late teens, started climbing there and was hooked. He’s climbed Mount Baker and Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount McKinley in Alaska, to name a few.

Earlier in life, he hiked and climbed in Glacier Park. He had his first grizzly bear encounter on the Loop Trail en route to Granite Park Chalet more than 30 years ago. While writing and researching the book was a kind of homecoming, it was also depressing at times, he said.

“The impacts can be overwhelming,” he said during a talk in the Park last week. “I had my moments of pessimism. It got depressing.”

White noted that the most important thing about glaciers, not just in Glacier Park but worldwide, is the fresh, cold water they supply to millions of people and entire ecosystems.

Even though Glacier Park has recently seen several wet and cold years in a row, those gains can be wiped out in a single El Nino year, Fagre noted, and this winter is expected to be a moderate to strong El Nino.

El Nino is a warm current in the Pacific Ocean that influences the region’s overall weather, usually bringing mild winters and hot, dry summers.

White said it will likely take a catastrophic system failure — such a city in the U.S. losing its drinking water — for real change to be exacted.

He relayed a story of a new law in Argentina that prohibits the destruction of glaciers. Gold miners had been blowing up the ice in the Andes to get at the gold underneath.

“Someday the water in those glaciers will be more valuable than the gold,” White said.