Climate change predicted to transform Vancouver into San Diego, but at a heavy cost

[Sheba]

A major climate-change study predicts temperatures in Metro Vancouver will exceed those of present-day Southern California in the coming decades.

Frost and ice will become virtually a thing of the past, heating bills will drop, and farm crops will flourish virtually year-round in the Fraser Valley.

That’s the good news.

On the down side — and there is plenty of it — the region can expect: air-conditioning costs to soar; worsening smog and associated health problems; increased forest fires and water shortages; summer droughts followed by severe fall rain events; and an influx of invasive species threatening forests and agriculture.

A new 70-page study, Climate Projections for Metro Vancouver, predicts changes in temperature and precipitation that will affect everything from sewage pipes to ski hills in the 2050s — just 33 years distant — and 2080s. Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, based at the University of Victoria, assisted in the report.

The report’s author, Jeff Carmichael, division manager of utilities research and innovation for Metro Vancouver, said the findings are meant to help the region and its member municipalities plan for the future while doing their own part to reduce greenhouse gases.

It is common for municipalities now to have staff specifically devoted to climate-change issues.

“Let’s make sure that all of Metro Vancouver — everything we do — is aware of the most up-to-date information,” he said. “We’d better prepare and adapt for the climate that’s coming.”

Metro Vancouver plans to launch a more detailed study later this year into planning for stormwater pipes to ensure they can handle the more intense rain events to come. Municipalities on the rainy North Shore will have to address similar issues, while low-lying areas such as Richmond and Delta must consider factors such as the impact of rising ocean levels, storm surges and altered river flows.

Parks staff are also considering how climate change will affect plant and animal species under a warming scenario.

The report assumes a “business as usual” approach to global greenhouse gas emissions, and would have to be updated if governments adopt serious and swift measures to address the problem.

...

Vancouver Sun

[s211]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Vancouver Sun

Climate change advocates don't do themselves a service by being so apocalyptic.

[jlousa]

Agree with the above poster, credibility is thrown out the window with these outrageous predictions.

[BobLoblawsLawBlog]

Then I love climate change now why are people protesting it wtf? Let's get this thing going.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by BobLoblawsLawBlog

Then I love climate change now why are people protesting it wtf? Let's get this thing going.

Yeah seriously, I'm gonna go down to the parkade and let my car run. Bring on San Diego.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Agree with the above poster, credibility is thrown out the window with these outrageous predictions.

Just because you two will be dead or continuing to be oblivious to the real world doesn't mean it won't affect you or your kids to this extent in the future.

You are too 'Business as usual' for your own good.

If this article was just facts or all soft and positive it would be forgotten about quickly.

[jlousa]

I can assure you my kids won't be living in a "San Diegoed" Vancouver, nor will even there grandkids. The report is littered by what ifs and assumptions. When a article like that is published it actually does more harm then good, as you see pushback which then leads to questioning of the well written reports. Heck just look of the comments on that article and see if you feel any good was done by publishing it. Its not bad to call out crap regardless of where your beliefs lie. Personally I think this is one of the most globally politicized topics of our time and when the dust settles in 10-15yrs and the data is presented unbiased we'll see just how overstated some predictions were.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I can assure you my kids won't be living in a "San Diegoed" Vancouver, nor will even there grandkids. The report is littered by what ifs and assumptions. When a article like that is published it actually does more harm then good, as you see pushback which then leads to questioning of the well written reports. Heck just look of the comments on that article and see if you feel any good was done by publishing it. Its not bad to call out crap regardless of where your beliefs lie. Personally I think this is one of the most globally politicized topics of our time and when the dust settles in 10-15yrs and the data is presented unbiased we'll see just how overstated some predictions were.

I agree completely with his.

I remember reading a similar story when I was about 10 years old how in 30 years Vancouver's climate was going to become identical to San Francisco's.

Well, it has now been 22 of those 30 years, and it looks like we still have a looong way to go (especially given this winter!) and I doubt the next 8 years is going to pick up the slack for that to come true.

Is climate change real? Yes.

Is climate change largely man made? Yes.

Are far to many environmental events lazily being written off as "Global Warming did it" Yes.

Are many of our models and prediction wrong, and some of them sensationalizing this issue? Yes.

I started realizing the above during university, so long story short:

I studied GIS in university and focused on the interior forests and grasslands of BC. These are ecosystems that require regular forest fires to remain healthy. Before forest fire suppression these events were very regular. A single spot in the Okanagan for example would see at least a surface fire about once every 10 years. Today there are many spots that have not seen a fire for over 90 years! This is severely damaging the bunchgrass and Montane (Ponderosa Pine / Douglas Fir) forest ecosystems with overcrowding (saplings are not burnt back like they naturally were 100 years ago) and natural litter pilling up on the forest floor.

The 2003 fire season in BC was a big one, but even during that "horrid" year only HALF the land area in BC was burned compared to the natural pre-fire suppression annual cycle.

Now this is where I am going, it is obvious that the forrests and grasslands in BC need to burn, and over the last 90 / 100 years the largest forrest fire season we have had was still 50% below the natural level, despite this every time we have a forest fire in BC all i hear is "global warming" and "global warming is burning the fires in BC" and "global warming will cause more fires" etc...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The forests burning in BC are not due to global warming, in fact, they need to burn more, much much much more than we have been allowing them!

Yet every year news publications and environmental groups keep publishing this same falsehood about global warming and forest fires in BC. This was a big moment of maturing for me, it was when I realized that even the things that I believe in and support have a bias, and have misconceptions and flat out lies in them.

Do i believe that global warming / climate change is a lie? No, of course not. But there are many people out there who are printing bogus stories with half truths / misconceptions. I am sure many of these are not done with any malice or ill will, but they are still misinformation and weaken a very valid issue.

So again this summer I will half to explain to my friends and other websites how global warming is not to blame for forest fires in BC...

[spacebjorn]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I can assure you my kids won't be living in a "San Diegoed" Vancouver, nor will even there grandkids. The report is littered by what ifs and assumptions. When a article like that is published it actually does more harm then good, as you see pushback which then leads to questioning of the well written reports. Heck just look of the comments on that article and see if you feel any good was done by publishing it. Its not bad to call out crap regardless of where your beliefs lie. Personally I think this is one of the most globally politicized topics of our time and when the dust settles in 10-15yrs and the data is presented unbiased we'll see just how overstated some predictions were.

This could not have aged more poorly.

[towerseeker101]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Vancouver Sun

If Vancouver becomes San Diego, is San Diego going to become a new Sahara Desert? Americans will have to move up north to Canada and Vancouver will be renamed to New Los Angeles (or New San Diego).

[Jebby]

All these absurd climate change predictions over the past 30 years have proven to be nothing but sensational bullshit.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by Jebby

All these absurd climate change predictions over the past 30 years have proven to be nothing but sensational bullshit.

We are past the stage of predictions. Of course their are alternate facts that are pretty handy for some folks.

As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Fea...ming/page3.php

[whatnext]

San Diego doesn't have intense rain events, sounds like they're mixing up their predictions.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

San Diego doesn't have intense rain events, sounds like they're mixing up their predictions.

That aged well since 2017. Here's 2019. Last year was Hurricane Kay. This weekend's forecast isn't much better, with Hurricane Hilary bearing down.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by whatnext

San Diego doesn't have intense rain events, sounds like they're mixing up their predictions.

Originally Posted by Changing City

That aged well since 2017. Here's 2019. Last year was Hurricane Kay. This weekend's forecast isn't much better, with Hurricane Hilary bearing down.

It's true (and interestingly uncharacteristic) that San Diego is having major rain events in high summer> Normally it's dry, with possible high clouds and maybe even a flash from the desert SW Cortes monsoon.
However, harking back to the thread title about becoming climatically parallel to SD, this is an impossibility. First San Diego is at Lat 33N, over 15 degrees further south than Vancouver at 49N. More intense sunlight all year, hotter surface temps. Secondly, SD does not experience cold winter outflow wind events that Vancouver does. In Vancouver,such winds bring biting cold and the possibility of snow and black ice. Winter easterly winds in San Diego are Santa Ana winds that bring heat and dust. / So, although Vancouver's climate is already showing signs of heating up, with hotter summer days and nights, longer Indian Summers, and sometimes warmer spring weather, it will never attain the consistent warmth, sunshine hours, and erratic but infrequent rain events that San Diego does annually. / Perhaps a slight tweaking of the thread title is valid. Thank you.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Changing City

That aged well since 2017. Here's 2019. Last year was Hurricane Kay. This weekend's forecast isn't much better, with Hurricane Hilary bearing down.

Wow, it is almost like the climate changes.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

San Diego doesn't have intense rain events, sounds like they're mixing up their predictions.

Ageing well as a comment. Things seem to have changed since 2017. "Emergency declared in San Diego as wettest January day on record brings widespread flooding. The mayor declared a state of emergency as nearly 3 inches of rain Monday left standing water around multiple locations."

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Ageing well as a comment. Things seem to have changed since 2017. "Emergency declared in San Diego as wettest January day on record brings widespread flooding. The mayor declared a state of emergency as nearly 3 inches of rain Monday left standing water around multiple locations."

I guess we should change this thread to Climate change predicted to transform San Diego into Vancouver, but at a heavy cost

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by logan5

We are past the stage of predictions.

This very thread makes an alarmist and absurd prediction....

And it's just another in a long line of alarmist hyperbolic predictions that have turned out to be completely false. Remember these?

In the 70s climate change alarmists predicted a new ice age and worldwide starvation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global...960s_and_1970s

Back in 1989 the UN Environment Programme warned of “coastal flooding and crop failures” that “would create an exodus of ‘eco-refugees" by the year 2000. 17 years later and still hasn't happened...

A 2005 UNEP prediction claimed that, by 2010, some 50 million “climate refugees” would be fleeing the coastal areas of the Pacific and Caribbean. Still hasn't happened.

15 years ago the IPCC predicted an end to snow storms. Still hasn't come true.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/w...ex.php?idp=569



As jlousa said, this is probably the most politicized issue of our times. In 25 or 30 years we'll be looking back and it will all seem extremely foolish.

Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in favor of renewable and clean power, in favor of reducing our environmental footprint, of protecting forests and wetlands, and I think recycling and reducing waste is important. I just don't subscribe to the apocalyptic nonsense peddle by the climate change lobby.

[WaxItYourself]

Jebby: The 1970s 'ice age' was not advanced much in the peer reviewed literature. Scientists did not predict another ice age. Your own link even pretty much states this. It states that anthropogenic warming dominated the peer reviewed literature even then. A possible 'ice age' was projected by 1 or 2 scientists and this was due to increases in aerosols via fossil fuel use. Specifically sulfate aerosols. It is the same reason why the planet drops in temperature for a couple years after large volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo. And it is also one of the reasons, along with increases in acid rain, why catalytic converters were placed in cars and scrubbers on coal fired power plants.

Coastal flooding is occurring due to increased storm surge intensities. At least in the Atlantic. Crop failures are also occurring. This is dependent on crop type though.

Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923 (Grinsted et al, 2012) - http://www.pnas.org/content/109/48/19601.full

Climate Trends and Global Crop Production Since 1980 (Lobell et al, 2011) - http://izt.ciens.ucv.ve/ecologia/Arc...0al%202011.pdf

Your link to the IPCC page states no such thing. The story you are stating, though, originated with an interview and dealt with a scientists stating that snow fall would become a thing of the past in specific portions of Europe. Nothing to do globally. And since then much more data and measurements have been done as well as a better understanding of our climate system.

As this is all based on proven physics and measurements it is highly doubtful that in 25 to 30 years we will look back on this as us being foolish. Actually as more people in the know become more knowledgeable on the subject a greater number of them are accepting it as a reality. I'm curious, where are you getting your information and statements from?