name:"Sandford, Robert W." found 59 records - Research Collections

1 website

Physical Description: 223 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), maps (chiefly color)

Subjects: Water; Watersheds; Rivers; Glaciers; Hydrology; Hydrology - Alberta; Rocky Mountains; Climate change

Abstract: Written by one of the most respected experts in water and water-associated climate science and featuring stunning photography collected over the past four decades, Our Vanishing Glaciers explains and illustrates why water is such a unique substance and how it makes life on this planet possible. Focusing on the Columbia Icefield, the largest and most accessible mass of ice straddling the Continental Divide in western North America, and featuring photographs, illustrations, aerial surveys and thermal imaging collected over more than 40 years of the author’s personal observations, the book reveals the stunning magnitude of glacial ice in western Canada. Citing evidence to suggest that in the Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks alone, as many as 300 glaciers may have disappeared since 1920, this large-format, fully illustrated coffee table book graphically illustrates the projected rate of glacier recession in the mountain West over the rest of this century and serves as a profound testament to the beauty and importance of western Canada’s water, ice and snow. (from publisher's website)

Contents: 1. The wonder of water -- 2. What winter does to water -- 3. Ecology as defined by winter water -- 4. How ice fields and glaciers form -- 5. Canada's most accessible glaciers -- 6. The death of Peyto glacier : A case for more comprehensive -- 7. The Columbia ice field today -- 8. Glaciers in a changing climate -- 9. What we stand to lose -- 10. Water, climate and the National Parks ideal.

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1 website

Subjects: Water; Watersheds; Rivers; Glaciers; Hydrology; Hydrology - Alberta; Rocky Mountains; Climate change

Abstract: Robert Sandford has spent a lot time watching and thinking about water. This was not because he was predisposed to do so, but because the importance of water gradually caught up with who he was and what he was doing with his life. As this self-reflective book demonstrates, when one takes up the serious study of water, one cannot but be surprised at how far that interest can take you: from the very origins of the cosmos right down to the unique structure and remarkable qualities of water as a molecule. It takes you to the depths of the oceans, to the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere, and into the centres of storms. You fall to Earth with raindrops, travel tiny streams and great rivers, go round and round in lakes and ponds. Your study takes you down to the very roots of trees, into the soil, along the dark, dank banks of underground rivers. It takes you from one person’s thirst to the thirst of nations; from the demographics of the past to how those may drastically change in the absence of water in decades to come. Following water takes one back and forth in time, linking us to what the Earth was like in the past; what it is now; and how water will shape what it will be in the future. (from publisher's website)

Contents: Invocation - Rain comin' down; Celestial rivers; Rivers of cold; Rivers of heat; Rivers of words; The heart of dryness; Irrigating Eden; Rivers of memory; Rivers of ice; As the world burns; Learning from the burning: The summer of 2018; Afterword - Rivers of hope; Appendix - a Canadian National Glacier Act; Bookshelf