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Canada Earth Science

Canada Warming At Twice the Global Rate, Report Finds (www.cbc.ca) 245

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: Canada is, on average, experiencing warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Northern Canada heating up at almost three times the global average, according to a new government report. Entitled "Canada's Changing Climate Report (CCCR)," the study was commissioned by the Environment and Climate Change Department and was slated to be released officially on Tuesday. That release date was moved up to Monday after CBC published its story about the leaked report.

The leaked copy of the report says that since 1948, Canada's annual average temperature over land has warmed 1.7 C, with higher rates seen in the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia. In Northern Canada, the annual average temperature has increased by 2.3 C. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), since 1948, global average temperatures have increased by about 0.8 C. Along with these temperature increases, the CCCR says Canada is experiencing increases in precipitation (particularly in winter), "extreme fire weather" and water supply shortages in summer, and a heightened risk of coastal flooding. The document says that while warming in Canada has been the result of both human activity and natural variations in the climate, "the human factor is dominant," especially emissions of greenhouse gases.

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Canada Warming At Twice the Global Rate, Report Finds

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  • heat rises (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobby ( 109046 ) on Monday April 01, 2019 @11:40PM (#58369412)

    USA is generating all that heat, and heat rises, and Canada is above USA, so...

    • by Anonymous Coward

      USA is generating all that heat, and heat rises, and Canada is above USA, so...

      So your saying my dream/vague goal of becoming an expat and getting accepted into Canada due to my software engineering skills thus allowing me to finally live some place where Trump's approval is around 25%, meaning that most people are slightly more sane is looking better all the time? (It will be warmer.)

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Fun fact, both the US AND Afghanistan have more female representatives in government than Canada.

        Afghanistan mate....

        Good luck with the move.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      APRIL FOOLS!!! Canada is freezing cold as EVER!!!

    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      USA is generating all that heat, and heat rises, and Canada is above USA, so...

      You joke, but that's more or less how it actually works. Global warming due to CO2 mostly warms the poles, because the effect is to even out temps across the globe. For a little bit of warming at the equator, you get a lot of warming at the poles.

      This effect is why there's a worry about the ice at the poles melting with only a small average increase in temperature. It works the other way too: with a smallish decrease in temperature, Canada will be under 1 km of glaciers, which has been the most common co

      • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        There are many European cities at the same latitude as Canadian cities, yet a much more temperate climate. I think this is due to ocean currents, which are bound to change when we modify the globes temperature.
        • by lgw ( 121541 )

          You might find it interesting to look at the glacier maps from the last glaciation. A big chunk of modern Europe was under the ice sheet. One of the bigger mysteries of climate is why that's not the current condition - it should have been, had the pattern for the last million years or so held (and probably a lot longer, but that's as far back as we have ice core data). It's no coincidence that human civilization arose when the usually-brief warm period lasted 10,000 years instead.

          • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            All of Canada was under glaciation in the last ice sheet. All of it. The warm-water stream up along the east coast of the US to the UK makes such a fundamentally huge difference that it shouldn't be a surprise either, it also explains why half of Europe wasn't under the ice sheet, or most of Russia.

      • by bobby ( 109046 )

        Poles? Poland is in Eastern Europe. No where near North America. Check Apple maps. Unless you're talking about Poles who have emigrated to North Americza; they'll get some of the warming.

      • This is why Alaska was so warm this winter. And a lot of the Arctic ocean was not covered in ice.

    • technically, Colorado has higher mountains than BC does, even if they're part of the same mountain chain, so it's all the extra emissions from Colorado flowing downhill to Canada, eh?

  • can really generate the heat. I blame Tim Hortons.
  • On the positive side of things this would indicate that there are some countries warming slower than (though not necessarily at half) the global rate.
  • Urban heat? (Score:2, Informative)

    The Royal Metrological Society [wiley.com] in the UK found that 1 deg of the increase was from urbanization, not CO2. Buildings/asphalt absorbing heat during the day and radiating back out during the evening, thereby increasing Tmin (and thus the average). Same effect here?
    • Re:Urban heat? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:38AM (#58369560)
      No it hasn't. The UHI effect is corrected for in observations. James Watts tried to find the effect, but no amount of data mutilation has provided positive results. Heck, even YOUR own article states this:

      We generally find weak and statistically insignificant relationships between monthly, seasonally or annually averaged T max and urban fraction (Figure 3). When T max is averaged annually, the linear relationship between this and urban fraction is insignificant (at a 97.7% confidence level) at 0.25±0.42 K. The strongest relationships are observed in the winter months with December having an urbanisation effect of 0.67±0.34 K.

      How much are you being paid to spread lies?

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        That is about Tmax... Now read what it says about Tmin. And then realize that the average for the day is (Tmax + Tmin) / 2. Increase Tmin without a change in Tmax and you get an increasing average temperature. And it was found to be significant...
        • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

          Average is (Tmax + Tmin) / 2 ??? Damn, you lost me there. That's one hell of a simplification, not mentionning 100% wrong.

          • Yep, that is exactly what they do [colostate.edu]. They measure the min and max - thus the minimum and maximum thermometers included. Then you add them together and divide by two.
            • You are getting climate information from a website on collecting postage stamps ?

            • That's not how you compute a population average.

              Consider a classroom quiz. Take the lowest grade, and the highest, and find the average of those two. Now - what does that tell you about the combined average of everyone in the class? Almost nothing. It could be a classroom full of brilliant students and one dunce, or full of dunces with one brilliant student, or anything in between. Same thing with temperature - the details matter immensely.

              To find the average temperature, you must record the temperature

            • You can actually get the raw data they used to calculate the temperature record off of NASAs website. I downloaded the files and started doing analysis on them (I wanted to see how many thermometers there were in different eras, figure out what margins of error there were, etc), but I got distracted before I did anything concrete.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        Here's some interesting data, see figure 4-2 [changingclimate.ca] straight from the report. Because there is a step in the temperature pre-1963 to post-1963, the powers-that-be determined to heat the past rather than cool the current. So the new, UHI-affected data is determined to be "correct" instead of the older, less-affected data. That's called cooking the books - literally.
        • the powers-that-be determined to heat the past rather than cool the current.

          Since these are temperature anomalies, the effect would have been the same.

          Besides, it's not a matter of preference. By examining dozens of stations at the same time, you decide which is the odd one out.

          • So for those two graphs presented (all blue = corrected, red + blue = original) you would say the anomaly from 1960 until now would be the same? Really?
            • So for those two graphs presented (all blue = corrected, red + blue = original) you would say the anomaly from 1960 until now would be the same? Really?

              No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm referring to your comment about "determined to heat the past rather than cool the current".

              I assume you agree that the step error needs to be corrected. We can either do that by pulling up past temperature, or lowering the recent ones. But in either case, the slope of the blue, corrected curve would stay the same. The slope determines the anomaly. The vertical offset of the entire curve is not relevant for the anomaly calculation.

              • Warm the past, and you have a ~1.5 deg C anomaly relative to the 1910 timeframe. Cool the present, and you have a ~0.1 deg C anomaly relative to the 1910 timeframe. Big difference.
    • Re:Urban heat? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cdu13a ( 95385 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:38AM (#58369562)

      Have you been to Northern Canada? Or any part of Canada that is not with in 100 miles of the US border?
      I don't think Urbanization is the problem here.

      https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/17/canada-empty-maps_n_5169055.html

      • Most definitely been all over Canada, including lots of the NWT and Nunavut. And most of the Stevenson screens are located near people. Have those changes been factored in?
      • Or any part of Canada that is not within 100 miles of the US border? I don't think Urbanization is the problem here.

        Yes, I live there and I have to say that urban heat definitely exists in Edmonton as well as Calgary. Not every large city in Canada is within 160km of the US border but since we have a population about half that of the UK and a land area about 40 times greater it is true that urbanization is not going to account for any significant effect on the average temperature.

    • That's extremely unlikely, considering how little urban area there is in Canada.
      • Data is usually collected from Stevenson screens - and those are usually located around towns and population centers.
        • Most data is collected by satellites ...

          • Re:Urban heat? (Score:5, Informative)

            by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:07AM (#58369716) Journal

            Not for this report. See chapter 4 for where the data was collected [changingclimate.ca]. It was individual stations. A grand total of 32 stations - located in towns - across both the NWT and Nunavut. That is for an area of 3.1 million km^2 - a bit more than Western Europe as a whole (Germany through Ireland, not including Scandinavia).

            As far as satellite data, it shows the predictions are all pretty much wrong [drroyspencer.com], and lends evidence to the sensitivity of CO2 being about half the value as used in modeling.

            • Re:Urban heat? (Score:4, Informative)

              by derrickn ( 2714097 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @09:41AM (#58371008)
              "Towns" in the NWT and Nunavut have no pavement. The roads are gravel and ice, with ice predominating for roughly 10 months of the year. And the roads extend about 1 to 1.5 km total - from one edge of town to the other - and then there are no more roads at all. As for buildings re-radiating heat at night - again these towns are small, the buildings are small, and they never really get all that warm. I doubt Stevenson screens or anything else are picking up much heat off of them.
              • What is the albedo of a gravel road compared to snow? What are the thermal emissions of a grey/brown building compared to snow? Stevenson screens are supposed to be 100 feet or more away from other structures and land changes for this very reason. We are talking tenths of a degree here.
          • Satellites don't measure surface air temperature, unfortunately.

    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      The Royal Metrological Society [wiley.com] in the UK found that 1 deg of the increase was from urbanization, not CO2?

      Ah, I see you don't understand the paper you referenced. The paper says that the temperature in urban areas has increased. But measurement of global temperatures does not rely on such figures from urban areas. In fact, as BEST showed, if you remove urban temperature figures and those areas that changed from rural to urban, the trend in temperatures is higher. The effect of urban areas on the figures is anyway pretty low as only a very small proportion of recording stations are in urban areas.

      • Please check the report. The increase in urban area Tmin has affected the overall trend in temperatures for the UK. That's what they say. By quite a large chunk, it turns out. The paper doesn't deal with the globe - it deals with the UK.
    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The greatest warming is in the middle of nowhere. I'm from the northern Canadian prairies. There isn't any asphalt.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    What a good thing! What a wonderful thing!
    I live in Toronto. The winters here are frickin freezing. Just a few days ago we had snow, and it's April already, for Christ's sake.
    I welcome global warming with open arms.

    • The winters here are frickin freezing. Just a few days ago we had snow, and it's April already, for Christ's sake. I welcome global warming with open arms.

      Unfortunately for you, global warming is only adding a few degrees to average temperature. That's never going to be enough to make winters in Canada disappear.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @09:30AM (#58370968)

        It makes them a lot milder though. It's been years since we had a good run of -50C.

        • If by "years", you mean a month ago, then yes: https://globalnews.ca/news/500... [globalnews.ca]
          • I should add there were numerous days which broke -40C (-40F) with and without wind chill. Extreme cold winters are still a regularity, no need to exaggerate. Although contrary to the doom projections of climate change, most here would be ecstatic to know we could count on milder winters in the future. February was suffering.
          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            I'm not sure how a news report about temperatures between -20 and -27 is some kind of proof against my statement "it's been years since we had a good run of -50C."

            It has been a while since I took formal logic though. Care to explain?

            • Because you're lying about the -50C. Looking at weather records in Edmonton (one of the coldest major cities in Canada) back to the 1800's, there hasn't been a single recorded day where the temperature reached -50C. Link: https://www.currentresults.com... [currentresults.com]
              • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                I didn't say I was from Edmonton, nor a major (or any other kind of) city.

                You know what they say about assumptions.

  • Permafrost bomb (Score:5, Insightful)

    by doug141 ( 863552 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:48AM (#58369572)

    When the permafrost thaws, the carbon in it starts getting converted to CO2 and methane. There's enough carbon in the permafrost to torch the planet.
    https://phys.org/news/2018-12-... [phys.org]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Geoengineering options include increasing albedo through deforestation.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Brett Buck ( 811747 )

      "Torch the planet"? Really? Do you guys never listen to yourselves?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Reminder: Atmospheric carbon PPM is all that separates Earth and Venus. The more you know.

        • What you're basically saying is that someday it'll be better to live on Venus.
          • What you're basically saying is that someday it'll be better to live on Venus.

            OK. Better than what? Florida?

        • by Anonymous Coward

          This is wrong. The forcing effect of CO2 diminishes with increasing PPM. Earth will not become Venus from SUV exhaust. Stop spreading lies.

        • Re:Permafrost bomb (Score:5, Informative)

          by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @06:02AM (#58370142)

          Reminder: Atmospheric carbon PPM is all that separates Earth and Venus. The more you know.

          While that's technically true, the difference is so vast that it's a meaningless comparison.

          Earth CO2 concentration, current: 0.04%, 20 C
          Earth CO2 concentration, worst-case model: 0.2% (est)
          Venus CO2 concentration, current: 96.5%, 462 C

          Also worth pointing out that
          Mars CO2 concentration, current: 95.3%, -125 C to 20 C

          The more you know...

        • Reminder: Atmospheric carbon PPM is all that separates Earth and Venus.

          No, not at all. First, there is the distance to the sun: Venus is about 100e6 km vs. Earth 150e6 km which means Venus receives about twice the intensity of solar radiation. Then there is the atmospheric pressure on Venus which is about 90 times higher than Earth's.

          You cannot generate a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth by burning all the fossil fuel reserves because they simply do not contain enough carbon, which is not surprising since this carbon originally came from the atmosphere in the first place

  • by Terje Mathisen ( 128806 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:38AM (#58369768)

    All the climate models show that temperatures should rise faster closer to the arctic, here in Norway we have measured the same rise as in Canada, i.e. about twice the global average.

    Norway starts at 58N, North Cape is 71 degrees North. Except for the Gulf Stream Norway would not be habitable at all.

    Terje

    • All the climate models show that temperatures should rise faster closer to the arctic,

      Makes sense too, because water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, with a spectrum that overlaps CO2. Since the arctic region has low water vapor, the effects of extra CO2 are stronger.

  • by xenobyte ( 446878 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:43AM (#58369780)

    But getting longer warmer summers and less ice and snow in the winter makes up for it! :)

  • Of the industrialized countries only Australia is worse. We beat the American's by over 5% and that's not counting the fact that we fudge the numbers. The Canadian government chose not to include methane being released by rotting wood from forests. It turns out if you clear cut large areas and then replant those areas with only one type of tree those trees become susceptible to disease. Who would have thought. I guess there is some justice in seeing the Australians suffer but I can't see many Canadians
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @07:21AM (#58370386)

    Temperatures in Sweden, on roughly the same latitudes as Canada, have also been reported as rising twice as much as the global mean.
    The press release [www.smhi.se] (Swedish) from the Swedish meteorological institute was posted last Friday, and in the newspaper this mornin.

    That temperatures would be rising faster near the poles than the global mean, is right in line with expectations. So nobody around here who is the least bit in the know about climate change is surprised one bit.

  • I would have expected it to warm at exactly the global average rate. I mean, isn't that what averages are FOR? /sarcasm
  • Canada is, on average, experiencing warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Northern Canada heating up at almost three times the global average, according to a new government report.

    You're welcome.

    • but, not caused by America. It is China that is causing that. Any heating in say north west Europe, would be from America.
      • firstly [skepticalscience.com]

        Individual carbon dioxide molecules have a short life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere. However, when they leave the atmosphere, they're simply swapping places with carbon dioxide in the ocean. The final amount of extra CO2 that remains in the atmosphere stays there on a time scale of centuries.

        You're a bit thick so again, CO2 remains in the atmosphere a long time [theguardian.com]

        This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years.

        So it isn't just last years CO2 emissions that are warming Canada.

        This is a much more appropriate timescale [ourworldindata.org]

        If we extend our timeline back to 1750 and total up how much CO2 each country has emitted to date, we calculate each nation’s ‘cumulative emissions’.

        If we fast-forward to the accumulated totals we see today, the US and Europe dominate in terms of cumulative emissions. China’s rapid growth in emissions over the last few decades now makes it the world’s second largest cumulative emitter, although it still comes in at less than 50% of the US total.

        So in fact America is responsible for over twice as much CO2 as China.
        But wait it gets better.

        The key drawback of measuring the total national emissions is that it takes no account of the nation's population size. China is currently the world’s largest emitter, but since it also has the largest population, all being equal we would expect this to be the case. To make a fair comparison of contributions, we have to therefore compare emissions in terms of CO2 emitted per person.

        Let's just say, per person American's have been, and still are extremely bad.
        Let's look here starting in 1950 to match the timescale in the summary and report. [ourworldindata.org] You can slide it yourself to see that the US is bright red on the

  • Yet Vancouver continues to dump raw, unprocessed sewage into the Puget Sound:
    https://www.thestar.com/vancou... [thestar.com]
  • The report was timed to come out the same day our carbon tax came into effect. It's designed to freak Canadians out so that they will fully accept the carbon tax.

    • wait, you actually expect pollution to be unlimited and free?

    • Some fun history: Here in Canada we had a conservative government up until 2015, when we elected the current Trudeau Liberals. There was much hate and an "Anyone But Harper" campaign, in which speaking to the opposition you'd think PM Harper was evil incarnate (data now shows he quite handily outperformed his successor). One of the common refrains was that Harper's government "muzzled" scientists and kept them from speaking the truth. In reality this was a very distorted way to represent new PR guideline
  • In the north, it flows to the north east. Canada itself is not warming it that much. Northwest America generates very little, so nope. So, where is a massive CO2/CH4/soot based nation to the south west of Canada that could generate so much as to impact them (and alaska)?
    No doubt, we will see Chinese trolls here shortly blaming New York and Chicago for this.
    • firstly [skepticalscience.com]

      Individual carbon dioxide molecules have a short life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere. However, when they leave the atmosphere, they're simply swapping places with carbon dioxide in the ocean. The final amount of extra CO2 that remains in the atmosphere stays there on a time scale of centuries.

      You're a bit thick so again, CO2 remains in the atmosphere a long time [theguardian.com]

      This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years.

      So it isn't just last years CO2 emissions that are warming Canada.

      This is a much more appropriate timescale [ourworldindata.org]

      If we extend our timeline back to 1750 and total up how much CO2 each country has emitted to date, we calculate each nation’s ‘cumulative emissions’.

      If we fast-forward to the accumulated totals we see today, the US and Europe dominate in terms of cumulative emissions. China’s rapid growth in emissions over the last few decades now makes it the world’s second largest cumulative emitter, although it still comes in at less than 50% of the US total.

      So in fact America is responsible for over twice as much CO2 as China.
      But wait it gets better.

      The key drawback of measuring the total national emissions is that it takes no account of the nation's population size. China is currently the world’s largest emitter, but since it also has the largest population, all being equal we would expect this to be the case. To make a fair comparison of contributions, we have to therefore compare emissions in terms of CO2 emitted per person.

      Let's just say, per person American's have been, and still are extremely bad.
      Let's look here starting in 1950 to match the timescale in the summary and report. [ourworldindata.org] You can slide it yourself to see that the US is bright red on the

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