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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63111 Hard Rocky Mountain glacier retreat and meltwater

Read the following passage.

A. Glaciers in the Canadian Rockies work as stores of frozen water. They hold water in years of heavy snowfall and low temperatures, then add to streamflow in years with less snow and more heat. That makes them a crucial source of fresh water in Western Canada, because they release it during the dry summer months. Retreat has been observed in the Canadian Rockies since the middle of the twentieth century, and across Western Canada glaciers are now thinning and retreating at ever-increasing rates. Their loss will affect water tables, farming practices and even the supply of drinking water downstream.

B. Peyto Glacier, in Banff National Park, is one of the most closely watched glaciers in the world. Photographs of it date back to the 1890s, and in 1968 the United Nations chose it as a reference glacier for the International Hydrological Decade. Scientists track its mass balance, which one researcher compares to a bank account: they measure snow depth and density in spring to see what was deposited, and surface melt in summer and fall to see what was withdrawn. Metal stakes drilled into the ice show how much melts. In most years the glacier has lost much more mass than it has gained.

C. Most of the water flowing out of the Rockies comes from melting snow, but glacier melt adds a small, necessary share to rivers such as the Bow, the North Saskatchewan and the Athabasca. A model of the 2000s found that glacier ice melt equalled about 3 per cent of the Bow River's yearly flow at Calgary, but 8 to 20 per cent of its flow in August. An earlier study found that in extremely dry years, glacier loss supplied up to half of the Bow's late-summer flow at Banff. The river system is fully allocated, mainly for irrigation.

D. How fast the remaining ice will go is still an open question. In the year to August 2023, a research station near Peyto's base recorded 6.5 metres of melt, and the glacier retreated 80 metres, about four times its long-term average of 20 metres. Soot from wildfire smoke darkens the ice, and research on the Athabasca Glacier suggests it can raise melt by as much as 10 per cent. One model projects that by 2100 few glaciers will remain in the Rockies. Studies suggest that Peyto and the glaciers near it will lose most of their mass by 2100, but glaciologist Mark Ednie believes that if current trends continue, it will happen much sooner.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Burning forests may be speeding up the loss of glacier ice.

- 2.
Farmers who water crops from the Bow will be given less once the glaciers are gone.

- 3.
Over most years on record, the glacier's losses have been bigger than its gains.

- 4.
The earliest pictures of Peyto were taken by an explorer from the United States.

- 5.
Experts do not agree on how soon Peyto will have lost most of its ice.

- 6.
In a typical year, the Bow gets only a small share of its water at Calgary from glacier ice.

- 7.
Dark particles from burning forests first started settling on the ice in 2014.

- 8.
Over twelve months ending in the summer of 2023, the glacier pulled back several times faster than its usual pace.

- 9.
Glaciers save water in snowy, cool years and give more of it back in warm years with little snow.

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