Changes to our climate and extreme weather are becoming increasingly common. While Canada seems quite focussed on this at the moment, Trevor Murdoch has been studying this topic for decades. He is a climate scientist with the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at UVic where he leads the Regional Climate Impacts theme. In a presentation called "What's Climate got to do with it". Trevor outlined what he thinks is happening and what the predictions are for the future.
His first comment was that taking future climate into account is both necessary and possible. He also defined for us the difference between weather and climate. Weather is conditions at a specific location and time whereas climate is the long-term statistics of weather. Climate varies by location and with time but there is absolutely no doubt that the planet is warming and used British Columbia to demonstrate some impacts. They include the following:
- warmer winter temperatures and fewer days below freezing will occur.
- more extreme hot weather days in summers and longer dry spells in winter will take place.
- more precipitation in the fall, winter and spring will become the norm.
- increased frequency and intensity of precipitation and storm events will occur.
For more information go to the CRD Climate Projection Report which can be found at:
http://www.crd.bc.ca/about/data/climate-change
This report also talks about the impacts in a number of areas including:
- human health
- rainwater management and sewerage
- water supply and demand
- tourism and recreation
- transportation networks
- ecosystems and species
- buildings and energy systems
Trevor also referred the club to additional sources of information around the following:
- myth busting SkepticalScience.com
- climate denial logical fallacies CrankyUncle.com
- reducing emissions Drawdown.org
From Trevor's perspective "best practices" include:
- make use of available climate information
- consider a range of future projections
- practice cross-disciplinary engagement
- repeat, repeat and repeat.
He finished his presentation with the following observations
- climate is not static
- past and ongoing...greenhouse gas emissions are expected to alter most climatic regimes in the future
- buildings will need to be designed, maintained and operated to adequately withstand ever changing climate loads.