Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Climate change added at least 10 per cent more rain to Hurricane Ian, a study prepared immediately after the storm shows.
Thursday's research, which is not peer-reviewed, compared peak rainfall rates during the real storm to about 20 different computer scenarios of a model with Hurricane Ian's characteristics slamming into the Sunshine State in a world with no human-caused climate change.
"The real storm was 10 per cent wetter than the storm that might have been," said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner, study co-author.
Forecasters predicted Ian will have dropped up to two feet (61 centimetres) of rain in parts of Florida by the time it stopped.
Wehner and Kevin Reed, an atmospheric scientist at Stony Brook University, published a study in Nature Communications earlier this year looking at the hurricanes of 2020 and found during their rainiest three-hour periods they were more than 10 per cent wetter than in a world without greenhouse gases trapping heat. Wehner and Reed applied the same scientifically accepted attribution technique to Hurricane Ian.
A long-time rule of physics is that for every extra degree of warmth Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the air in the atmosphere can hold seven per cent more water. This week the Gulf of Mexico was 0.8 degrees warmer than normal, which should have meant about five per cent more rain. Reality turned out to be even worse. The flash study found the hurricane dropped double that -- 10 per cent more rain.
Ten percent may not sound like a lot, but 10 per cent of 20 inches (50 centimetres) is two inches (five centimetres), which is a lot of rain, especially on top of the 20 inches that already fell, Reed said.
Other studies have seen the same feedback mechanisms of stronger storms in warmer weather, said Princeton University atmospheric scientist Gabriel Vecchi, who wasn't part of the study.
MIT hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel said in general, a warmer world does make storms rainier. But he said he is uncomfortable drawing conclusions about individual storms.
"This business above very very heavy rain is something we've expected to see because of climate change," he said. "We'll see more storms like Ian."
Princeton's Vecchi said in an email that if the world is going to bounce back from disasters "we need to plan for wetter storms going forward, since global warming isn't going to go away."
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.