planted city

Canada, Our Changing Climate & ‘The Winter That Wasn’t’

Canada’s environmental agency recently released a weather bulletin reporting that:

The national average temperature for the winter of 2011/2012 was 3.6°C above normal (1961-1990 average), based on preliminary data, which makes this the third warmest winter on record since nationwide records began in 1948.

It also noted that Canada’s:

winter temperatures have been at or above normal since 1997.

The infographic above summarizes some of regional impacts of the winter of 2011/2, a.k.a. ‘The Winter That Wasn’t’. 

Related reading:

- ‘Last winter was third-warmest in decades: Environment Canada’ (Postmedia News)

- ‘Ottawa locks in emissions with delays in carbon rules, agency warns’ (Globe & Mail)

- ’Record high greenhouse gases to linger for decades’ (Reuters)

- ‘Extreme weather to worsen with climate change: IPCC’ (Reuters)

- ‘NASA says Canada in ‘hot spot’ of ecological change’ (CBC)

- ‘Great Lakes show massive ice loss, study says’ (CBC)

(Infographic source: The National Post)

From Reuters via The Guardian:

Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by human-induced global warming, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Research used physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations to link extreme rainfall and heatwaves to global warming. The link between warming and storms was less clear.

“It is very likely that several of the unprecedented extremes of the past decade would not have occurred without anthropogenic global warming,” said the study. The past decade was probably the warmest globally for at least a millennium. Last year was the eleventh hottest on record, the World Meteorological Organisation said.

Extreme weather events were devastating in their impacts and affected nearly all regions of the world. They included severe floods and record hot summers in Europe; a record number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic in 2005; the hottest Russian summer since 1500 in 2010 and the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history. In 2011 alone, the United States suffered 14 weather events which caused losses of over $1bn each.

The high amount of extremes is not normal, the study said. Even between 13 and 19 March this year, historical heat records exceeded in more than 1,000 places in North America.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Graphic credit: Nature Climate Change via Climate Progress) 

Extreme Weather in the USA: ‘Over 15,000 Records Broken as March 2012 Becomes Warmest on Record’

From NOAA Visualizations:

According to NOAA scientists at the National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/), record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895. This animation shows the locations of each of the 7,755 daytime and 7,517 nighttime records (or tied records) in sequence over the 31 days in March.

(Graphic source: NOAA)

Word Cloud: Visualizing the IPCC report on Climate Change & Extreme Weather 

You can check out the report and more here.

(Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change via RealClimate)

‘NASA Images Depict Rapid Loss of Thick Arctic Sea Ice’, 1980 - 2012

From Yale e360:

A new comparison of satellite images from 1980 and 2012 vividly depicts the rapid disappearance of thick, multi-year Arctic Ocean ice in winter. Over the past three decades, the extent of the Arctic’s thickest ice has declined by 15 to 17 percent per decade, according to NASA climate scientist Joey Comiso.

Details over at Yale e360 and NASA’s Earth Observatory.

It’s also worth noting that a new study has found an important link between melting Arctic sea ice and extreme weather being experienced in some regions of our planet. BBC coverage of the study explains that:

The progressive shrinking of Arctic sea ice is bringing colder, snowier winters to the UK and other areas of Europe, North America and China.

More here.

Christian Parenti, author of ‘Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence’, in the conclusion of his article, ‘Why climate change will foster strange bedfellows’. You can read the rest of it over at CBS News.

(Photo credit: CBS News)

From Reuters:

Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.

The warnings are carried in the government’s “Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change,” which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China — the world’s second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.

Global warming fed by greenhouse gases from industry, transport and shifting land-use poses a long-term threat to China’s prosperity, health and food output, says the report. With China’s economy likely to rival the United States’ in size in coming decades, that will trigger wider consequences.

“China faces extremely grim ecological and environmental conditions under the impact of continued global warming and changes to China’s regional environment,” says the 710-page report, officially published late last year but released for public sale only recently.

Even so, China’s rising emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, will begin to fall off only after about 2030, with big falls only after mid-century, says the report.

Assuming no measures to counter global warming, grain output in the world’s most populous nation could fall from 5 to 20 percent by 2050, depending on whether a “fertilization effect” from more carbon dioxide in the air offsets losses, says the report.

But that possible fall can be held in check by improved crop choice and farming practices, as well as increased irrigation and fertilizer use.

China is the world’s biggest consumer of cereals and has increasingly turned to foreign suppliers of corn and soy beans.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credits: Reuters; The Guardian)

From Atlantic Cities:

Once, cities were built to channel storm water away from building foundations and roadways. But as urban areas have grown, rooftops, streets and other impervious surfaces have disrupted cities’ natural hydrology. Today, everyone from water authorities to home gardeners are looking to absorb rain where it falls, eschewing traditional treatment plants and underground sewerage tunnels that effectively neutralize runoff, but don’t do much else.

The first of these projects matured in Portland, Oregon, and Prince George’s County, Maryland. Now, dozens of cities including Washington, Philadelphia, and Louisville have embarked on their own overhauls. 

They are attracted, in part, by the lower cost of planting trees and gardens and retrofitting streets, parking lots and roofs. But it’s also a matter of pay-off. Taxpayers never see the underground fixes. But green infrastructure is something people can use and enjoy, says Joan Furlong, program manager at the Rock Creek Conservancy, a D.C. nonprofit group working with city officials to recruit residents and business owners to the RiverSmart Program.

“It’s become a really hot topic in the last five years or so. Before that green fixes weren’t really accepted by the regulatory agencies,” Gardner-Andrews says, particularly the EPA, which first publicly endorsed green infrastructure just five years ago.

The agency now endorses planting greenery to absorb rainfall as an important tool for adapting to rising sea levels and more extreme storms.

Wildlife also benefits. For instance, if you live in Maryland, planting White Turtleheads in your rain garden can provide much needed habitat for the state butterfly, the Baltimore Checkerspot, which will only lay its eggs on Turtlehead leaves, says Carole Barth, an environmental planner with the Department of Environmental Resources in Prince George’s County, Md.

But doing a rain garden requires careful site planning, experts say. If planted too close to buildings, they can exacerbate rather than alleviate basement flooding. And it’s important to find a patch of land where water percolates well through the soil, which is not necessarily the case everywhere. Researchers have found years of mowing and other activities sometimes leaves the ground so compacted that its about as permeable as concrete.

Check out the rest of the article here. Check out Wikipedia, the Sightline Institute, ASLA and CMHC for more on rain gardens including how to design your own.

(Photo credit: Huston Street Racing; graphic credit: Seine-Rat River Conservation District)