It could be a long hot summer in Canada.
Environment Canada says the spell of hot weather this month could extend into July and August.
Early modelling shows seasonal temperatures for most areas of the country were higher than usual.
Meteorologist Armel Castellan says they expect that trend to continue.
“Potential consequences of this seasonal forecast include a high frequency of wildfires that may exceed local management capacity, evacuations due to fire and poor air quality from smoke, the potential for heat waves that create health risks and contribute to mortality for vulnerable communities, as well as the potential for continued drought conditions,” says Castellan.
Fingers point to climate change as the cause.
Research Scientist, Nathan Gillett, says with global warming, the frequency of a 50-year heat wave recorded in the late 19th century will increase.
“In the present climate, with a little more than one-degree global warming, this kind of one-in-50-year heat wave is now about five times more likely to occur. With a 1.5 degree C level of warming, this will be expected to occur around nine times as frequently as in the pre-industrial climate. And at two degrees Celsius global warming, substantially more frequent, about 14 times more frequent than in the pre-industrial climate,” says Gillett.
Gillet says that could change if efforts to reduce emissions are successful.
“But if we’re not successful in an unmitigated climate where emissions continue to increase, we could expect about four degrees warming by the end of the century. And in that scenario, we would see that one-in-50-year heat wave become something that we would see almost every year by the end of the century.”
Environment Canada defines a heat wave as having high temperatures for two straight days and one night.
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