An El Nino-less summer is coming. Here's what that could mean for Canada
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Lakes in the Northern Hemisphere have been warming six times faster since 1992 than they were at any other time period in the past 100 years, a Canadian study suggests.
The study, entitled “Loss of Ice Cover, Shifting Phenology and More Extreme Events in Northern Hemisphere Lakes,” was published in the October issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences and led by York University in Ontario.
The most northern of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior, which spans the Canada-U.S. border was one of the fastest warming lakes, the study found, losing more than two months of ice cover since conditions started being recorded in 1857. Grand Traverse Bay in Lake Michigan had one of the fastest melting trends recorded, with the ice melting about 16 days earlier per century.
“We found that lakes are losing on average 17 days of ice cover per century. Alarmingly, what we found is that warming in the past 25 years, from 1992 to 2016, was six times faster than any other period in the last 100 years,” said study author and associate professor at York University Sapna Sharma in a release.
Some of the lakes studied in Canada were Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Simcoe, Lake Nipissing and Lake of Bays.
Researchers studied 40 lakes in North America, 18 lakes in Europe and two in Asia, Lake Baikal in Siberia and Lake Suwa in Japan.
Researchers analyzed ice trends for 60 lakes for the first time since 2004 by studying ice phenology records ranging from 107 to 204 years-old, prior to the industrial revolution.
Phenology refers to the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how they are affected by seasonal changes and variations in climate – like when the first leaves and buds appear in the spring.
The timing of ice formation and ice melting has been observed for centuries because of its importance to refrigeration, transportation (ice roads), recreation and spiritual and cultural traditions, the study says.
Sharma said many of the lakes “may be approaching a tipping point to ice-free conditions which will have vast cultural and ecological implications.”
The study found that on average, the lakes being studied were freezing 11 days later and thawing approximately 6.8 days earlier, something researchers posit was due to extremely warm winters over the last decades contributing to the increasing rate of ice loss.
“We found that the duration of winter ice cover has decreased, particularly since 1995, to the point where some lakes are beginning to have more winters with minimal or even no ice cover,” said study co-author David Richardson in the release. “For example, some deep lakes in Switzerland and Germany, which historically used to freeze each winter, have permanently lost their ice cover in the past few decades.”
Lake ice phenology is considered an important signifier of climate change, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is necessary if the loss of ice is to be mitigated, the study says. Ice loss contributes to increased evaporation rates, warmer water temperatures, worse water quality and aids in the formation of toxic algae blooms.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
The federal New Democrats are calling out Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his party for trying to block the bill that could pave the way for millions of Canadians to access birth control and diabetes coverage.
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
An Ontario MPP was asked again to leave the Ontario legislature on Monday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that was banned by the Speaker last month due to its political symbolism.
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc will be tabling legislation on Monday aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada. Federal officials have scheduled a technical briefing on the incoming bill for Monday afternoon.
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.