Water in the Bank

If water were currency,
glaciers and snowpack would be savings accounts.

Image credit: Steve Hillebrand, FWS.gov

Transcript of the Audio Podcast:

Glaciers and snowpack are water in the bank… on this CurrentCast.

Imagine water is currency. Rain is like having cash in your pocket, and it comes and goes. But snowpack is our banking equivalent of a checking account, accumulating over the winter and spring when deposits are common, and then slowly melting to pay water bills in the summer and fall.

Glaciers, those awesome repositories of water, are a savings bond – locked away for years. Unfortunately, as the climate warms, glaciers, and our savings, are disappearing.

Some areas of the U.S. rely on melting snowpack for sixty to eighty percent of their surface water. But the changing climate is making snowpack much less reliable, leaving many areas living ‘paycheck to paycheck.’