By Klara Pachner
There’s only one word to describe the weather we’ve had in Ottawa this winter: weird. No snow in December, freezing temperatures in January, big snowfalls in late February, then all in the first week of March, a meltdown, a snowfall and then back up to seasonal temperatures.
Stan Siok, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says not to be concerned about the warmer weather.“We should be happy,” he says.
Happy? Climate change has been called the most significant environmental problem the world has ever faced. A United Nations scientific panel predicts continued warming will touch off widespread disruptions in climate and weather and cause the sea level to rise and flood many places.
Yet weather reports, which credited a high-pressure zone over the Great Lakes for channeling warm air from the south-west into the Ottawa area recently, stop short of any real explanation of the trend.
Siok says that’s because scientists aren’t sure what’s going on. “It’s hard to say whether it’s a sign of global warming,” he says. “We’re looking at it and trying to study return periods. The reports we have are not conclusive.”
Experts agree the average surface temperature of Earth has risen. But they continue to differ sharply as to why and how the climate is changing.
Most believe the surface warming is partly attributable to emissions of heat-trapping waste industrial gases like carbon dioxide, a product of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
Critics say warming is wholly natural. They say there is no significant human impact on the global climate and that any future warming will be inconsequential or modest at most.
Either way, the public has the right to as much information as there is. The lack of agreement isn’t reason enough to exclude explanations from weather reports, particularly with the numerous natural disasters that have struck recently in different parts of the world.
Add to that the federal government’s latest investment in the environment and the lack of information on climate change makes no sense at all.
The environment was one of the Feb. 28 budget’s major areas for spending, receiving $700 million over four years, much of which is intended for research into greenhouse gas controls.
Environment Canada shouldn’t take the unseasonable weather lightly and it should be ready to explain the possible consequences of the warming. Maybe then we’ll be happy.