How Warm Winter Weather Affects the GTA Environment

As many people want to take advantage of any chance they get to do winter activities in the Greater Toronto Area, it's become more difficult to do so this season with unusual activities. the weather in the region.

“Unfortunately, this is an indicator of climate change, that the climate is changing,” Hou-Sen Chong, a climate campaigner at the Toronto Environmental Alliance, told CityNews on Thursday.

“Basically, this is what we've been waiting for for decades. All the climate models are telling us the weather is going to get warmer and the weather is going to be weird.”

No snow in the entire GTA. Most of the Great Lakes are not significantly frozen either.

Meteorologists like Geoff Coulson of Environment and Climate Change Canada attribute the current situation largely to El Niño, which means warmer than normal temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.

“I think the real standout feature of this winter has been the persistence of mild temperatures, whereas in other El Niño winters it's typically been milder than normal, but not necessarily to that level for this number of days,” he said.

As for the lack of snow in the GTA, he said it could be “problematic.”

“We got off the pace. The average winter snowfall at Toronto Pearson International Airport is about 109 centimeters. We had a little over 40 centimeters this winter,” Coulson said.

He consulted Toronto Pearson International Airport's weather records dating back to 1937 and asked how this winter would affect others so far.

“December was the second mildest December at Pearson Airport. I think it was 2015 here. January (was) another very mild month. I think we finished ninth overall,” Coulson said.

The forecast for Friday is a high of 12 degrees in Toronto. The highest daytime temperature is -2 degrees.

Since we are only in the middle of winter, he cautioned against assuming that the better weather would continue.

“There's going to be a change in the forecast starting in the middle of the month, so by the middle of next week we're going to start seeing signs of a normal temperature pattern across southern Ontario,” Coulson said.

But it's not just total snowfall and temperature values ​​that scientists, researchers and conservationists are paying attention to. There is concern that many of our lakes have no ice.

Sapna Sharma, a scientist and ice condition professor at York University who recently returned from a research trip in central Ontario, described the importance of the “ice cap” over the lake.

“You can think of it as a reset button for our ecosystem,” he said.

“If lakes freeze less, they will have shorter ice ages or not freeze at all. They have no chance to recover in winter.

“If we raise this cap too early, you increase the rate of winter evaporation and that directly affects the amount of water. So ice is really important to maintain water quality and water quantity during the open water season.”

According to Sharma, if the water level drops due to evaporation, it can increase the growth of algae under the ice and much higher than the water level rises. He says algae is not a bad thing in normal conditions because it acts as a good food source, but rapid growth can have consequences.

“It can reduce the oxygen levels on the bottom of the lake, and that creates very poor conditions for fish and pests to survive in the summer, so we may see summer fish kills due to more oxygen conditions in the winter.” – said Sharma.

“It has the potential to affect drinking water as well. Some of this algae can be toxic in the summer, and it's not only bad for our wildlife, it's bad for our pets and beach closures.”

Sharma pointed out that there are also concerns about the formation of ice in the lakes.

“Over the last 25 years, we're seeing a six-fold faster rate of ice loss … We're also starting to see some lakes starting to experience ice-free years starting in the 1990s,” he said.

“As the climate continues to warm, we predict that as many as 200,000 lakes could begin experiencing ice-free years, and as many as 6,000 lakes could lose their ice cover permanently, with major consequences.”

Finally, Sharma said, the loss of lake ice in the winter puts people at risk as people try to continue their normal seasonal activities without realizing that the ice thickness has decreased.

Despite all these concerns, Sharma said there have been some advantages.

“Less ice increases the amount of underwater activity. There's a lot of food for the fish right now, a lot of food for the little critters to eat when there's less on the ice, so they can get bigger, maybe bigger fish in the summer. ,” he said.

Moreover, Sharma said that the recent weather conditions have reinforced the need to tackle pollution and climate change.

“If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at our current rate, we expect very serious consequences for our freshwater ecosystems,” he said.

Sharma said other actions are needed, such as stronger regulations to protect wetlands and maintain water quality.

Chong joined the calls of Sharma and other environmentalists. He said he was optimistic that positive changes could come through technological advances and climate adaptation, reiterating that we all have a role to play.

“What we have is not only our ability to act as individuals, but our ability to act as a group,” said Chong, who said policymakers at all levels of government must act.

“Invest in these climate solutions that are also affordable and make life more affordable for Torontonians.

“The solutions we need in Toronto include investments in things like rapid and affordable transit. It includes things like efficient buildings that are cheaper to run because they don't use expensive fossil fuels like oil and gas. That includes things like trees and parks.”