Many Canadian municipalities are starting to come to grips with what climate change will mean to their cities and what they need to do, now, to adapt. This item from TorStar is a pretty graphic depiction of what Toronto is facing even as its beached whale of a first magistrate remains oblivious or at least indifferent to the future. It's worth read because it addresses changes that most of you will live long enough to experience.
Here on the island, Victoria is being warned to prepare for wetter, more stormy winters but also hotter, dryer summer conditions. But it's Vancouver that faces the greatest challenges from climate change. The combination of heavy winter mountain snowpacks and early spring melt brings flooding to the rivers of the Lower Mainland. That will be compounded by sea level rise and the likelihood of severe storm surges. And, if that wasn't trouble enough, large parts of the low-lying communities (below sea level in fact) in the Lower Mainland are subsiding. With a freshwater flooding problem and a sea water flooding problem, it's not a particularly good time to be sinking.
Quebeckers are also being warned to prepare for severe impacts from climate change.
“It is striking that over the last 10 to 15 years we didn’t have a single season colder than normal,” said Alain Bourque, director of climate change impacts and adaptation at Quebec’s climate change research institute Ouranos. “That is a clear indication that Canada’s climate is heating up beyond any reasonable doubt.”
While most Quebecers may cheer the warmer winters, Bourque warns it is already endangering coastlines, the northern communities that are built on permafrost and our forests, which probably will not be able to adapt fast enough to a warmer climate.
The prairie provinces see in climate change the risk for heatwaves coupled with severe and extended drought similar to what much of the United States is experiencing this year. Climate change has been identified as causing shrinkage in the northern boreal forests of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. All three provinces are worried about the security of their water supply.
It may be that up to 98% of Canadians now accept the reality of man-made climate change but you would never know it from the Petro-Pols of Parliament Hill. Harper, presumably, is desperate to avoid anything linking climate change and his bitumen trafficking. That must be why he has chosen a true weasel to serve as his EnviroMin.
There is much to do and time wasted may come at considerable cost. As the TorStar article pointed out, a lot of Canada's infrastructure is vulnerable to climate change. And the greatest threat will come from spikes - sudden extreme heatwaves or rainfall inundation triggering flash floods - the problems we're already seeing elsewhere. The degraded eastern electricity grid is vulnerable to outages from these spikes.
Changes that just a few years ago we were expecting to arrive by 2020 or 2030 are already becoming reality. Our optimistic outlooks, coupled by a monstrously successful denialist rear-guard action, have left us well behind events and will require far greater efforts to catch up.
Showing posts with label climate change adaptation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change adaptation. Show all posts
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Saturday, August 04, 2012
California Prepares to Meet Climate Change Head On
Reports released this week by the California Energy Commission and the California Natural Resources Agency reveal adaptation measures the state will need to take to address climate change impacts and they're innovative.
State researchers foresee temperature increases of 2.7F over 2000 averages by 2050. Note that's 2.7F higher than the state was averaging just 12-years ago. The reports explore how California will be impacted - everything from agriculture and irrigation, habitat destruction and species extinction, urban living and energy risks and vulnerabilities.
Among the proposals are the creation of "migration corridors" to permit animal and plant species to escape uninhabitable regions and relocate to new locations capable of supporting them. Some creatures, however, simply can't migrate. Alpine species, for example, cannot survive when taken out of their colder environment so they will have to be trapped and transported for suitable relocation.
California will prepare for sea level rise by retreat from especially vulnerable parts of the coast. This is something much easier done well in advance than only when immediately necessary. It's a process that begins by prohibiting new development in areas that are to be subject to inundation.
The state is expected to create a network of "chilling stations" for urban populations to escape the impacts of heatwaves. Identified as particularly high risk are poor neighbourhoods that have density, transportation and lack of tree cover stresses. They point out the particular problems faced by inland cities. Sacramento, for example, has historically had four 100F+ days per year. That is predicted to increase to 25-days of extreme heating per year - heat that kills the young, the old and the infirm.
California, unlike your own province, is putting these challenges out in the open, loud and clear. They're talking about what is coming and options for dealing with those dangers.
They're interesting reports, almost forty of them, and reviewing some of them is helpful if only to get you asking why your province isn't doing the same for its citizens.
Among the proposals are the creation of "migration corridors" to permit animal and plant species to escape uninhabitable regions and relocate to new locations capable of supporting them. Some creatures, however, simply can't migrate. Alpine species, for example, cannot survive when taken out of their colder environment so they will have to be trapped and transported for suitable relocation.
California will prepare for sea level rise by retreat from especially vulnerable parts of the coast. This is something much easier done well in advance than only when immediately necessary. It's a process that begins by prohibiting new development in areas that are to be subject to inundation.
The state is expected to create a network of "chilling stations" for urban populations to escape the impacts of heatwaves. Identified as particularly high risk are poor neighbourhoods that have density, transportation and lack of tree cover stresses. They point out the particular problems faced by inland cities. Sacramento, for example, has historically had four 100F+ days per year. That is predicted to increase to 25-days of extreme heating per year - heat that kills the young, the old and the infirm.
California, unlike your own province, is putting these challenges out in the open, loud and clear. They're talking about what is coming and options for dealing with those dangers.
They're interesting reports, almost forty of them, and reviewing some of them is helpful if only to get you asking why your province isn't doing the same for its citizens.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
What's Up? Flash Floods, That's What.
From Britain to Africa, America to China and Russia, India to Canada, no corner of the world seems immune to flash flooding. Is global warming the culprit? In most cases, probably.
We done gone and broke the hydrological cycle.
How we broke it is as easy to understand as it is to prove with basic meteorolgical instruments. We have warmed the atmosphere. Not as much as we will warm it over the balance of this century but already enough to alter the hydrological cycle. A warmer atmosphere coupled with global warming increases the evaporation of surface water into water vapour. You wind up with more water vapour heading into the atmosphere which, as luck would have it, is likewise warmer so it can hold more water vapour. Think of it as shifting the Earth's water from the ground to the sky.
Because the warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour it doesn't have to return that to the surface as rain or snow as it once did the way we came to expect it over the past centuries. Now it's more likely to skip some places altogether and hit others with deluges that cause flash floods.
So, what are we going to do about it. In the worst-hit spots we can implement adaptation measures, floodways and such, but the real cause is warming and we're not on track to do anything about that. How bad could it get? Well the Brits have been warned that they could have a four fold increase in flooding by 2035.
As severe floods continue to batter parts of Britain after the wettest June since records began, around one in seven homes and businesses face some kind of flood risk, the climate advisers said.
Around 160,000 properties would be at risk by 2035 if better planning and more investment was made in flood defenses, compared with 610,000 at risk if no action was taken, they said.
Like every other climate change impact, we in Canada - especially our political classes - are paying no heed, none whatsoever. We're just whistling past the graveyard.
We done gone and broke the hydrological cycle.
How we broke it is as easy to understand as it is to prove with basic meteorolgical instruments. We have warmed the atmosphere. Not as much as we will warm it over the balance of this century but already enough to alter the hydrological cycle. A warmer atmosphere coupled with global warming increases the evaporation of surface water into water vapour. You wind up with more water vapour heading into the atmosphere which, as luck would have it, is likewise warmer so it can hold more water vapour. Think of it as shifting the Earth's water from the ground to the sky.
Because the warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour it doesn't have to return that to the surface as rain or snow as it once did the way we came to expect it over the past centuries. Now it's more likely to skip some places altogether and hit others with deluges that cause flash floods.
So, what are we going to do about it. In the worst-hit spots we can implement adaptation measures, floodways and such, but the real cause is warming and we're not on track to do anything about that. How bad could it get? Well the Brits have been warned that they could have a four fold increase in flooding by 2035.
As severe floods continue to batter parts of Britain after the wettest June since records began, around one in seven homes and businesses face some kind of flood risk, the climate advisers said.
Around 160,000 properties would be at risk by 2035 if better planning and more investment was made in flood defenses, compared with 610,000 at risk if no action was taken, they said.
Like every other climate change impact, we in Canada - especially our political classes - are paying no heed, none whatsoever. We're just whistling past the graveyard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)