• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Eastern Canadian Flooding Carries Strong Climate Signal

May 9, 2017
Reading time: 2 minutes

Helene Samson/Wikimedia Commons

Helene Samson/Wikimedia Commons

 

As the raging Ottawa River peaked at record heights over the weekend before beginning to recede, residents of eastern Ontario and the Montreal region still faced potentially weeks of high water and a new reality: Like last year’s mega-fire in Alberta’s tar sands/oil sands region, this spring’s flooding is an example of a new class of “climate change emergencies.”

Both the Fort McMurray fire and the last week of flooding were made much more likely by climate change. More intense precipitation is one of the clearest fingerprints of a warming atmosphere.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

“We’re getting a lot more extreme weather events, whether that be torrential rains leading to flooding, or really hot and dry temperatures,” of the sort that preceded 2016’s inferno in Alberta, University of Ottawa geographer Paul Beckwith told the National Observer. “These events are much more severe, much more intense, they last longer, they’re happening more frequently, and they’re happening in areas where they didn’t happen before.”

One reason is simple physics: Warm air can hold more water than cold (the reason weathercasters talk about relative humidity, a measure of how much water the air can hold at its current temperature). Studies observe that the amount of water vapour in the global atmosphere has increased by about 4% since the advent of global warming.

“It’s a very direct connection,” said Katharine Hayhoe, the Canadian co-director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “The warmer it is, the faster water evaporates, especially out of the ocean, the more water vapour there is for any given storm.”

In the U.S. region adjacent to the Ottawa Valley/Montreal area, the number of intense precipitation events leapt by a stunning 71% between 1958 and 2012, according to the United States’ 2014 National Climate Assessment (still available online and not yet purged as of Tuesday, May 9).

Meanwhile, evacuated Montreal-area residents who began returning to soaked homes face ongoing inconvenience and stress. “We’re going to be literally weeks with [water] levels that are above normal. Probably it’s going to be a week to 10 days until we get down even to what would be considered a high spring level,” said Michael Sarich, a water engineer with the Ottawa River Regulation Secretariat.



in Canada, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Drought, Famine & Wildfires, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

United Nations
Air & Marine

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
52
RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.2k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
290

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
248
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
52
RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.2k
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
290
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
271
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
511

Recent Posts

Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
89
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
46

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
75
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
498

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
226
willenhallwench / Pixabay

Ontario Greenwashes with ‘Misleading, Illegitimate’ Emission Credits

January 16, 2023
314
Next Post
TobinFricke/Wikimedia Commons

Tunnel Collapse Puts U.S. Nuclear Facility on Lockdown

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}