PCIC science brief: Waves and coastal sea level and the human influence on Canadian temperatures
Date
2018-05
Authors
Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC)
Abstract
In this Science Brief we consider two aspects of climate change that are of direct interest to Canadians--the warming of the Canadian climate and changes in high water events that affect our coasts. Two articles recently published in the peer reviewed literature discuss the contribution of waves to coastal sea level rise and the roles of human and natural influences in Canada's warming climate.
Publishing in Nature Climate Change, Melet et al. (2018) study the effect of atmospheric surges, tides and waves on total water level rise at the coast. Using a mixture of model output and observations from the 1993-2015 period, they find that the size of wave contributions from several processes varies regionally. These processes can strengthen, offset or, as is the case for locations on the west coast of North America, entirely dominate sea level rise due to thermal expansion and land ice melting.
In their article in Climate Dynamics, Wan, Zhang and Zwiers (2018) examine the roles that human and natural influences have played in Canada's warming climate from 1948 to 2012, both nationally and regionally. Comparing observations to climate model simulations, they find that about 1.0 °C of the 1.7 °C warming that Canada experienced over that period can be attributed to anthropogenic influences, while natural external influences (the sun and volcanic eruptions) contributed only about 0.2 °C. For the region comprised of British Columbia and Yukon, which has experienced a 1.6 °C warming, they find that about 0.8 °C is attributable to anthropogenic influences and about 0.2 °C to natural influences. They also find that, in most cases, anthropogenic influences can be detected in changes to the annual hottest and coldest daytime and nighttime temperatures for Canada as a whole and at the regional level. Natural influences can generally only be detected in changes to the coldest winter nighttime and daytime temperatures, both nationally and regionally.
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Keywords
UN SDG 13: Climate Action, #science brief, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC)