Saskatchewan wildfires could burn until fall

CBC News: The fires burning in northern Saskatchewan could burn until the first snowfall, according to researchers. Kerry Anderson, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, said the weather pattern known as El Nino, which is caused by the warming of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America, is responsible.

He expects weather conditions will settle down in Saskatchewan in the coming weeks, but warmer than normal temperatures will likely persist in B.C. and Alberta. Anderson said even if crews bring the Saskatchewan fires under control, they may not actually be out until the fall. "The large fires that are burning there will continue to burn until they are contained or until a fire-ending event may occur, and that may just end up being the first snowfall."

Fire rages near Mark Paquette's cabin on Nemeiben Lake. Late on July 8, 2015, Paquette said his cabin had been spared. (Submitted by Mark Paquette) Wildfire expert Mike Flannigan said tinderbox conditions that have lead to the destructive fires in the West can be blamed on climate change.

"Our weather this year has been very hot, dry and windy," said the University of Alberta professor. "This is consistent with what we expect with climate change. I'm not saying every year is going to be a bad fire year, but we are going to see a lot more fire on the landscape."...

An aerial view of a fire in Saskatchewan from 2009, shot by White White, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Food waste costs North America $162 billion

Waste Management World: Food waste in America amounts to $162 billion and between 31% to 40% of American food supply goes to waste, primarily in homes, stores and restaurants, according to a new study. The findings, from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, were published in a report in the journal PLOS ONE.

Top food wasted, by weight, include fruit and vegetables yet nearly 75% of Americans believe that they waste less food than the national average, according to the findings.

Furthermore, as a result the food waste places a huge drain on the environment when approximately 30% of the fertiliser, 35% of the fresh water and 31% of the cropland in the US was used to grow food that was eventually wasted.

The first nationally representative consumer survey focused on wasted food sheds some light on factors affecting consumers’ waste. The survey, administered to 1,010 American consumers in April 2014, covered awareness, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to wasted food.

Despite the large environmental impacts related to wasted food, most survey respondents listed environmental concerns last when ranking reasons to reduce food waste, with just 10% calling them “very important.” Instead, respondents said that saving money and setting a positive example for children were the top motivators for wanting to throw out less food....

Wasted food, shot by Assianir, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Northern fires caused almost a quarter of global forest loss, contributed to global carbon emissions

Karl Mathiesen in the Guardian (UK): Vast areas of forest in Canada and Russia were lost to fire in 2013, according to new satellite data. But there were encouraging signs from Indonesia, where the loss of forest cover fell to the lowest level in a decade.

Scientists from Global Forest Watch collated 400,000 images of the Earth’s surface to map the world’s forests down to a resolution of 30 metres. Their findings showed that overall the world lost 18m hectares of forest in 2013.

Between 2011 and 2013 fires in the boreal forests of Canada and Russia accounted for almost a quarter of global forest losses. Some of this will return, but northern forests are particularly slow to recover after fire.

Boreal forests are one of the world’s great carbon sinks. But scientists predict that climate change will cause them to burn more often and with greater intensity, unlocking the carbon stored in the wood and soil. Already they are burning more than at any point in the past 10,000 years.

Dr Nigel Sizer, study co-author and director of the forests programme for the World Resources Institute (WRI), said the increase of fires in northern forests had worrying implications for the climate. “If global warming is leading to more fires in boreal forests, which in turn leads to more emissions from those forests, which in turn leads to more climate change. This is one of those positive feedback loops that should be of great concern to policy makers.”...

A 2012 wild fire in Siberia, shot by Савин Игорь Игоревич, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Ignored by government, Canadian academics offer their own climate policy

Lesley Evans Ogden in Science: Under the conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has become a tough and frustrating political environment for researchers trying to advance evidence-based policies to reduce emissions. The country has withdrawn from international climate pacts, muzzled government climate researchers, and put new regulatory efforts on the back burner. Now, one group of prominent Canadian academics is trying to change the dynamic by releasing its own set of climate policy recommendations for the nation.

“We believe that putting options on the table is long overdue in Canada,” write the 71 authors of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues report, released today. The authors, whose expertise ranges broadly across scientific, sociological, and political disciplines, were organized by Catherine Potvin, a climate and policy researcher at McGill University in Montreal. One goal, she says, is to encourage Canadians—and ultimately their government—to support “ambitious and thoughtful commitments to emission reductions” at a global negotiating conference set for Paris in December. The group is trying “to do whatever can be done to raise the level of ambition of Canada prior to the Paris conference,” Potvin tells ScienceInsider.

“Climate change is the most serious ‘symptom’ of non-sustainable development,” concludes the report, which offers a detailed policyroad map for Canada to achieve 100% reliance on low-carbon electricity by 2035. It calls for Canada to reduce greenhouse emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025 and eliminate at least 80% of emissions by midcentury. Ten major recommendations include calls to impose a price on carbon emissions through a tax or pollution permit trading system, add more solar and wind power to Canada’s bountiful hydropower supplies, and eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels....

This is a picture of Syncrude's base mine in Athabasca. The yellow structures are the bases of pyramids made of sulphur - it is not economical for Syncrude to sell the sulphur so it stockpiles it instead. Behind that is the tailings pond, held in by what is recognized as the largest dam in the world. The extraction plant is just to the right of this photograph and most of the mine is to the left. Shot by Tasty Cakes, public domain

Wildfires threaten an expanse of northern Canada the size of Texas

Ben Makuch in Motherboard: t's been more than twenty years since the Northwest Territories, one of Canada’s northernmost remote jurisdictions comprising parts of the North Pole, experienced extreme drought conditions of the magnitude it's currently enduring. That extreme drought has fueled wildfires now affecting much of the NWT, a territory almost twice the size of Texas.

So much smoke is being produced by the burning forests of the boreal region that the jet stream is carrying it to parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and even as far as North and South Dakota. One look at an image outlining the extent of the damage and you get a feel for the biblical size and scope of the inferno burning across the territory.

A redditor from NWT put it best when he or she posted a similar image of the fires with the caption, “I live in Canada’s Northwest Territories and we are on fire (literally).” As of July 10, roughly 168 fires have consumed over 425,000 hectares of prime boreal forest in an area of Canada regarded for its natural beauty and untouched ruggedness.

Officials told the CBC some of the fires—at least 13—started because of human causes, such as people tossing cigarette butts or campers setting campfires in places where there were fire bans. In addition, the continuous burning is no doubt due to lightning striking the hot and dry forests of the NWT, which has been desperate for rain since the spring melt.

There's another factor at play, as well: the climate. Record droughts in the NWT will become more common as the region warms. In a 2008 government report on climate change, researchers outlined the several observable changes to the vast forests of the territory.  “Warmer weather, along with changes in precipitation and evaporation, is increasing the risk of forest fires in some parts of the boreal forest,” said the report, adding that while some areas will burn more often, others will receive higher levels of rainfall....

A 2004 crown fire experiment in Northwest Territories, shot by Bunk S: World on Fire. PLoS Biol 2/2/2004: e54. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020054.g001, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Drainage contributing to flooding in western Canada, expert says

Bruce Johnstone in the Leader Post (Regina): An expert on hydrology and climate change believes the recent flooding in Saskatchewan and Manitoba has been exacerbated by the widespread drainage of agricultural lands that have increased water volumes that flow downstream into Manitoba. “The short answer is, yes I do,’’ said John Pomeroy, Canada research chair in water resources and climate change and director of the Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan.

Pomeroy, who has studied water volumes on the Smith Creek watershed over the last 55 years, says agricultural drainage of sloughs and other wetlands appears to have been one of the factors in the recent flooding. “The volume of streamflow is basically doubled from what it was if the wetlands had stayed intact in 1958,’’ Pomeroy said. “It looks like the peak flows have increased about 30 per cent from that.’’

Pomeroy said the Churchbridge-Langenburg area has seen it wetlands reduced from 25 per cent in 1958 to 10 per cent in recent years. “There’s been a lot of drainage there ... It gives us some idea of the impact of drainage in a lot of the Assiniboine (River system),’’ Pomeroy added.

Pomeroy said the floods in 2011 and 2014 have seen the confluence of several factors, including multiple days of persistent rainfall in summer, while previous floods were due to excessive snowmelt in the spring.

“This is what’s making it a perfect storm," Pomeroy said. “There’s been a lot of difficulty in estimating the flood peaks because things like this (agricultural drainage) are making older observations more difficult to interpret. So we’re seeing something that is — it’s a cliché to call it climate change — but that’s exactly what this is.”

And he believes the Saskatchewan government should be doing what the Manitoba government has done by bringing in stiff penalties for illegally draining farmland. “Manitoba made it (unauthorized agricultural drainage) against the law on June 10 with really strict regulations and big fines.’...’

A 2011 flood on the Red River in Winnipeg, shot by Shahnoor Habib Munmun, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Was Saskatchewan prepared enough for the flood of 2014?

Bruce Johnstone in the Star-Phoenix (Saskatchewan): With the Flood of 2014 barely over and the clean up just begun, it's far too early to be pointing fingers of blame at government or anyone else for failing to predict the magnitude of the flooding or prevent it from happening.

However, it's not too early to ask some pointed questions about the extent of our preparedness for these types of disasters, whether our response was adequate and, more importantly, whether we can expect these events to occur more frequently in the future.

...But Wall added we've learned a lot from the 2011 experience. "We've just purchased more equipment. We have better knowledge, better expertise by our response team.' More pumps and temporary barriers were acquired, while forest firefighting crews and resources were repurposed to help mitigate the flood damage in the soggy southeast and east-central portions of the province. The Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP), which provides coverage against flood damage not covered by insurance, has been approved for 37 municipalities, including Regina and Melville.

And the province has set aside $500 million in its (aptly named) "rainy day' fund that will be used to cover its share of its PDAP costs, which amounted to $163 million in 2011. (Ottawa picked up the other $200 million.)

...So what more could have been done to prevent this flood or better prepare for it? Manitobans have complained for years that unauthorized drainage projects in Saskatchewan have contributed to flooding on the Manitoba side of the border. Wall himself has suggested that agricultural drainage may be partly to blame for exacerbating, if not causing, the widespread flooding that seems to be occurring more frequently in recent years....

2009 flooding in Manitoba, shot by Shawn, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Heavy rain caused havoc for parts of Toronto

Global News: A heavy downpour caused flash flooding and transportation problems for many in Toronto on Wednesday evening and into Thursday morning. A band of heavy rain moving south through the city caused between 30 and 40 millimetres of rain. A flood warning issued by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority Wednesday has since been cancelled.

Motorists were told to be prepared for dangerous driving conditions and the risk of hydroplaning - especially in low-lying areas and underpasses – but Toronto Emergency Services still had their hands full. A section of the DVP was closed in both directions between Bloor St. and the Gardiner Expressway due to flooding but was reopened to traffic just before 6 a.m.

There is currently no GO Transit train service from the Old Cummer and Oriole GO stations. Trains will only service the Richmond Hill and Langstaff GO stations. The Toronto Transit Commission had earlier advised customers that trains were bypassing Lawrence subway station due to flooding.

Shuttle buses were brought in to move passengers around the affected station in the north end of the city. Toronto Hydro also reported roughly 3,500 customers in East York were without power for several hours before it was restored just before midnight....

2013 flash flooding in Toronto, shot by mark.watmough, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

New permafrost is forming around shrinking Arctic lakes

Katherine Gombay  in McGill University News:  Researchers from McGill and the U.S. Geological Survey, more used to measuring thawing permafrost than its expansion, have made a surprising discovery. There is new permafrost forming around Twelvemile Lake in the interior of Alaska. But they have also quickly concluded that, given the current rate of climate change, it won’t last beyond the end of this century.

Twelvemile Lake is sometimes called the disappearing lake. That’s because over the past thirty years, as a result of climate change and thawing permafrost, the lake water has been receding at an alarming rate. It is now 5 metres or 15 feet shallower than it would have been three decades ago. This is a big change in a very short time.

As the lake recedes, bands of willow shrubs have grown up on the newly exposed lake shores over the past twenty years. What Martin Briggs from the U.S. Geological Survey and Prof. Jeffrey McKenzie from McGill’s Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science have just discovered is that the extra shade provided by these willow shrubs has both cooled and dried the surrounding soil, allowing new permafrost to expand beneath them.

The researchers were initially very excited by this find. But after analyzing the thickness of the new permafrost and projecting how it will be affected by continued climate change and the expected rise in temperature in the Arctic of 3°C, they arrived at the conclusion that the new permafrost won’t last beyond the end of the century.

Aropuk Lake in Alaska (just used as a generic illustration), shot by Andrea Pokrzywinski, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

EU proposal scraps mandatory 'dirty' label for tar sands

EurActiv: A mandatory EU requirement to label oil from tar sands as more polluting than other forms of crude could be scrapped altogether following years of lobbying from top producer Canada, according to a draft European Commission proposal. The change removes one obstacle to Canada shipping crude from tar sands to Europe, but will be criticised by environmental campaigners.

The clay-like sands have to be dug up in open-pit mines with massive shovels, or blasted with steam and pumped to the surface, before oil can be extracted. As a result, the oil costs more to produce than regular crude, uses more water and energy, and emits more carbon.

Canada, oil majors and the refining industry have fiercely opposed EU plans to label tar sands as highly polluting. In the context of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and fears about European energy security, Canada argues Europe should be embracing its oil as a secure form of energy.

"We don't see the crisis in Ukraine as simply an opportunity to market Canadian products, but obviously we're deeply engaged in a discussion with our allies on how we can make sure that globally our energy supplies are secure and stable," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters after G7 talks in Brussels on Thursday (5 June).

...The European Commission draft document proposed that oil refiners would only have to report an EU-wide average of the emissions for the feedstock they use. "The proposed methodology requires suppliers to report a (European) Union average greenhouse gas emission intensity per fuel with an option to report supplier specific values," the draft said....

Syncrude's Mildred Lake plant in the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada. Shot by The Interior, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Canadian economy will lose billions to climate change

Kim Nursall in the Toronto Star:   A new report on the financial implications of climate change notes that while natural catastrophes are estimated to cost Canadians $21-$43 billion per year by 2050, popular economic measures like GDP fail to capture the escalation, discouraging preventative investment.

The TD report follows a recent and alarming warning by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that governments are ill-prepared for a warming world. If action is not immediately taken, the UN report projected risks could become unmanageable.

Monday’s report detailed the Canadian perspective on increasingly frequent natural catastrophes — the average number per year has doubled over the past three decades — and how by 2020 they will sap an estimated $5 billion from the economy.

“The reality is that the frequency of weather events has increased,” said lead author and TD economist Craig Alexander. “Storms that used to occur every forty years are now occurring every six years. And because of the composition of Canadian economy and society, we’re ending up with more damaging events.”

Although increased frequency is one reason that natural disasters are leading to higher costs, Alexander explained that as Canada’s economy becomes more prosperous, and more and more people move to cities, there’s that much more to lose if a severe weather event strikes....

Riverfront Avenue in Calgary during the 2013 flooding, shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Food insecurity a growing challenge in Canada's northern and remote Aboriginal communities

Seed Daily via SPX: A new expert panel report on food security in Northern Canada, has found that food insecurity among northern Aboriginal peoples requires urgent attention in order to mitigate impacts on health and well-being. Aboriginal Food Security in Northern Canada: An Assessment of the State of Knowledge, released by the Council of Canadian Academies, addresses the diversity of experience that northern First Nations, Inuit, and Metis households and communities have with food insecurity.

Aboriginal households across Canada experience food insecurity at a rate more than double that of non-Aboriginal households (27% vs. 12%, respectively). Recent data indicate that Canadian households with children have a higher prevalence of food insecurity than households without children.

A 2007-2008 survey indicated that nearly 70% of Inuit preschoolers aged three to five lived in food insecure households, and 56% lived in households with child-specific food insecurity. Preliminary evidence also indicates that more women than men are affected. The Panel concluded that lasting solutions require collaboration and the continued involvement of those most affected by food insecurity: people living in the North.

"To fully understand the issue of food security, consideration must be given to the many factors that influence life in the North, such as environmental change, culture, governance, and economies," said Dr. Harriet Kuhnlein, Chair of the Expert Panel. There are no silver-bullet solutions - that is why cooperation among all the key actors including local communities, governments, businesses and institutions is essential....

Photo by that incomparable photographer of the Arctic, Ansgar Walk, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Canadian government targets environment NGOs

Paul Weinberg in IPS: Job cuts totalling 1,000 at Environment Canada’s climate change division this month means there will be even fewer government scientists onboard to monitor the impact of the extraction, development and transportation of crude oil from the carbon-intensive oil sands in Alberta.

The oil sands are a major source of fossil fuel emissions which are heating areas of the planet, including the Arctic.  Ironically, this same department, just weeks earlier, produced new research confirming that toxic chemicals from oil sands tailing ponds covering 176 square kilometres in northern Alberta are leaching into the local groundwater and seeping into the Athabasca River.

But two experts on Canadian environmental policy say they expect fewer such studies to be financed by a Conservative government in Ottawa focused on the development of the Alberta oil sands. “This government is taking out specific forms of [research] capacity and those are the kind of things we need to have if we are ever going to tackle climate change,” said John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada.

“[With] any government that comes into power in the future, it’s going to take them two or three years to get the staff, to review what they have to do,” he told IPS.

Picking up the investigative slack but without the same amount of resources are the environmental NGOs such as the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute, said Mark Winfield, a professor in the faculty of environmental studies at Toronto’s York University....

Syncrude's Mildred Lake plant, shot by TastyCakes, Wikimedia Commons, public domain 

Great Lakes evaporation study dispels misconceptions, points to need for expanded monitoring program

University of Michigan News: The recent Arctic blast that gripped much of the nation will likely contribute to a healthy rise in Great Lakes water levels in 2014, new research shows. But the processes responsible for that welcome outcome are not as simple and straightforward as you might think.

Yes, extreme winter cold increases ice cover on the Great Lakes, which in turn reduces evaporation by preventing water vapor from escaping into the air. But this simplistic view of winter ice as a mere "cap" on Great Lakes evaporation is giving way to a more nuanced conception, one that considers the complex interplay among evaporation, ice cover and water temperature at different times of year.

In a report released today by the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA)—a federally funded collaboration between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University — a team of American and Canadian scientists notes that while ice cover affects evaporation, the reverse is true as well: evaporation rates in the autumn help determine the extent of winter ice cover.

High evaporation rates in the fall can nearly offset water-level gains that result from extensive winter ice cover, complicating efforts to forecast Great Lakes water levels, which have declined in most of the lakes since the late 1990s, rebounding somewhat during a wet 2013.

The newfound appreciation for evaporation's varied roles reveals gaps in our current understanding of fundamental environmental processes and highlights the need for sustained funding for the project's Great Lakes evaporation monitoring network, said John Lenters, the study's lead investigator and a senior scientist at Ann Arbor-based LimnoTech, an environmental consulting firm.

The binational group's network of five stations is one of the few sources of direct, year-round observations of Great Lakes evaporation. "It's our hope that we will soon have the funding and infrastructure in place to maintain—and even expand—the network well into the future," Lenters said. "This will be extremely important for improving Great Lakes water-level forecasting and for understanding the long-term impacts of climate change."...

A weather station on Granite Island, Lake Superior. This weather station is part of a five-site network to measure year-round Great Lakes evaporation. In addition to evaporation, the weather station measures air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, carbon dioxide, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, and water temperature. Image credit: John Lenters

Weather swap: Is America’s ‘polar vortex’ linked to record warm winter in Russia?

Russia Today: As Americans kept struggling with extreme cold and snow brought on by a ‘polar vortex,’ people in central Russia were puzzled by warm rainy weather that swept all the snow away. Now weather experts say the two anomalies are in fact connected.

As residents of the US and Canada were surprised by the frigid cold dipping below minus 30 degrees Celsius, Russians were also surprised by the January weather, with temperatures in Moscow rising some 11 degrees above average and melting the snowy “New Year’s spirit” away.

Central Europe also experienced sudden warm-up, and trees in Moldovan capital Chisinau got confused to the point their buds started swelling, apparently in anticipation of the blooming season. One of the reasons for the snowless January in Russia and the coldest winter in the last 17 years for the US is in fact the shifting of the Arctic Cyclone towards North America, Greg Carbin, warning meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Itar-Tass news agency.

The cyclone may come to Russia in a week or two, Carbin said, predicting that the temperatures in the country could soon leap back to below zero and even below average.

Russian meteorologists have said that the gradual return of winter is to be expected even sooner. According to the Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia, frost and snow is coming back, starting from this weekend and reaching minus 17 degrees Celsius on Wednesday night....

A 1919 snowstorm in New York City

Canada reports first H5N1 bird flu death in North America

Terra Daily via AFP: Canada announced Wednesday the first H5N1 avian flu death in North America, of a patient who had just returned from China, and said it was urgently contacting airline passengers on the victim's flights. It was also the first known instance of someone in North America contracting the illness, Canada Health Minister Rona Ambrose told a press conference, stressing it was an "isolated case."

The victim, who had recently returned from a trip to Beijing and had been otherwise completely healthy, was from the western plains province of Alberta, officials said, adding they were withholding the person's gender and other identifying details to protect the family's privacy.

"I am here to confirm North America's first human case of H5N1, also known as avian flu," Ambrose said, confirming the patient died on January 3. "I want to reassure the public this is an isolated case and the risk of H5N1 to Canadians is very low. There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission," the minister added.

The virus is contracted directly from birds, mainly poultry. The illness it causes in humans is severe and 60 percent of human cases are fatal....

A colorized electronmicrograph of H5N1, from the CDC

H1N1 flu claims five lives in Canada's Alberta province

Terra Daily via AFP: An H1N1 flu outbreak in Alberta has sickened nearly 1,000 people and killed five, the Canadian province's health minister said Friday, urging everyone to get vaccinated. "Over the past few weeks, we have seen a surge in the number of influenza cases across Alberta. Many of those affected are healthy young adults," Health Minister Fred Horne said in a statement.

In total, 965 cases of the flu have been confirmed by health authorities in the province, with just more than 250 requiring hospitalization, he explained. "Sadly, five Albertans admitted to the ICU have died," Horne said, emphasizing that the age and health of the patients was unusual. "It is concerning that we are seeing younger, working-age adults being hospitalized," he said.

So far, only around one in five residents have gotten flu shots, which, Horne emphasized, are needed to protect "you, your friends, family, co-workers and everyone you come into contact with. "That includes vulnerable Albertans for whom the flu can mean serious illness or even death," he stressed...

A CDC image of the swine flue virus

Study shows unprecedented warmth in Arctic

University of Colorado at Boulder: The heat is on, at least in the Arctic. Average summer temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic during the last 100 years are higher now than during any century in the past 44,000 years and perhaps as long ago as 120,000 years, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

The study is the first direct evidence the present warmth in the Eastern Canadian Arctic exceeds the peak warmth there in the Early Holocene, when the amount of the sun’s energy reaching the Northern Hemisphere in summer was roughly 9 percent greater than today, said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Gifford Miller, study leader. The Holocene is a geological epoch that began after Earth’s last glacial period ended roughly 11,700 years ago and which continues today.

Miller and his colleagues used dead moss clumps emerging from receding ice caps on Baffin Island as tiny clocks.  At four different ice caps, radiocarbon dates show the mosses had not been exposed to the elements since at least 44,000 to 51,000 years ago.

Since radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 50,000 years and because Earth’s geological record shows it was in a glaciation stage prior to that time, the indications are that Canadian Arctic temperatures today have not been matched or exceeded for roughly 120,000 years, Miller said.

“The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is,” said Miller, also a fellow at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. “This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

...Miller and his colleagues compiled the age distribution of 145 radiocarbon-dated plants in the highlands of Baffin Island that were exposed by ice recession during the year they were collected by the researchers. All samples collected were within 1 meter of the ice caps, which are generally receding by 2 to 3 meters a year. “The oldest radiocarbon dates were a total shock to me,” said Miller.

Located just east of Greenland, the 196,000-square-mile Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world.  Most of it lies above the Arctic Circle. Many of the ice caps on the highlands of Baffin Island rest on relatively flat terrain, usually frozen to their beds. “Where the ice is cold and thin, it doesn’t flow, so the ancient landscape on which they formed is preserved pretty much intact,” said Miller....

Baffin Island from the air, shot by Wes Gill, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Climate change creates complicated consequences for North America's forests

EurekAlert via Dartmouth College: Climate change affects forests across North America – in some cases permitting insect outbreaks, plant diseases, wildfires and other problems -- but Dartmouth researchers say warmer temperatures are also making many forests grow faster and some less susceptible to pests, which could boost forest health and acreage, timber harvests, carbon storage, water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas.

The Dartmouth-led study, which appears in the journal Ecological Monographs, reviewed nearly 500 scientific papers dating to the 1950s, making it the most comprehensive review to date of climate change's diverse consequences for forests across the United States, Canada and the rest of North America.

Tree-killing insects and plant diseases are natural elements of healthy forest ecosystems, but climate change is rapidly altering the distribution and magnitude of forest pestilence and altering biodiversity and the ecosystem. For example, pine bark beetles have recently killed trees over more area of U.S. forests than wildfires, including in areas with little previous experience managing aggressive pests. "One of our prominent challenges is to adapt forest management tactics and generalize the underlying theory to cope with unprecedented changes in pest pressure," the authors say.

Results show that over the last 50 years, the average global air temperature has increased about 1 ̊ F, while the coldest winter night averages about 7 ̊ F warmer. That has permitted population explosions of tree-killing bark beetles in forests that were previously shielded by winter cold and made it easier for invasive species to become established. But tree growth rates in many regions are increasing due to atmospheric change, which may increase resilience to pests. Also, pest populations in some regions may decline, allowing those forests and their environmental and economic benefits to expand....

S-64 dropping water on the Ahorn Fire, Montana, September 2007. U.S. Forest Service photo from http://inciweb.org/incident/pictures/large/805/0/

Flood insurance not possible without new maps, insurers say

Matt McClure in the Calgary Herald: Top executives with the country’s insurance sector — which suffered losses of more than $2 billion in southern Alberta’s recent floods — unanimously agree Canada will see more such disasters due to intense rains caused by climate change, making comprehensive flood insurance unavailable to homeowners.

While the industry is divided on whether it can provide homeowners with policies to protect them against future overland flooding, a soon-to-be-released study found most companies believe there is still an urgent need for updated mapping that accurately identifies the increasing risk.

Co-author Blair Feltmate, a climate-change specialist at the University of Waterloo, said the executives surveyed said the maps are essential for industry to price its products and for governments to plan how they will protect vulnerable communities.

“They see what climate change is causing and they’re paying for it now already through sewer backup coverage,” Feltmate said in an interview. “We’re rapidly heading into the realm where certain areas of Canada may be uninsurable.”

The report says the insurance industry could share the cost with government of updating risk maps for large population centres, using topographical data on development changes and the impacts of climate change on river flows....

The June 2013 flooding in Calgary, shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license