The Globe and Mail: First fire, now floods: Why B.C. is trapped in a world of climate extremes
The recent flooding in British Columbia perfectly illustrates the vulnerability of our communities to the impacts of climate change, and The Globe and Mail article below explains the situation perfectly. The Canada 1 Water project should be a major help to those addressing these vulnerabilities; coupling HydroGeoSphere with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model will give us a better understanding of how integrated surface and groundwater systems react to extreme weather events (like the atmospheric river impacting BC today).
A few key excerpts from the article follow below, or visit The Globe and Mail to read the full article.
Click here to read the article.
“During a record-smashing heat wave that devastated British Columbia this past summer, its population of more than 5,000 people endured temperatures reaching 44.5 C. Soon after, it was racked by drought conditions and was the subject of an evacuation alert because of nearby forest fires. And on Monday, an evacuation order for the entire B.C. Interior city was issued in the face of epic flooding.”
”It’s so important to point out the role that climate change plays in these kinds of events,” said University of British Columbia climate scientist Simon Donner.”
”More warm weather and more frequent extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall, are among the most consistently predicted outcomes of climate change owing to human-generated fossil fuel emissions. This certainly applies to Canada, which is projected to warm about twice as much as the global average for a range of climate scenarios.”