Essay by Eric Worrall
If this deadly global warming continues, Canadians might have to invest in T-shirts and shorts.
Broken temperature records are alarming but it is not too late to limit global warming
Published: September 3, 2024 11.51pm AEST
Alex Crawford
Assistant Professor, Department of Environment and Geography, University of ManitobaJuly 22, 2024 was the hottest day in recorded human history, with a global average temperature of 17.16 C.
This followed the hottest June ever recorded, which followed the hottest May ever recorded. This all follows 2023, which was the hottest year on record at 1.48 C warmer than the 1850-1900 average according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
…
… 1.48 C of total warming doesn’t sound like much. So although these numbers are useful global benchmarks for scientists and policymakers, most Canadians will likely only feel the effects of climate change through specific (usually extreme) weather events.
For example, global warming means more sweltering heat waves that make Canadians sweaty, tired and — in some cases — in need of medical care.
Consider the city of Montréal. Between 1900-1923, Montréal averaged six days per year with temperatures over 30 C. Since the year 2000 (2000-2023), the average number of days per year reaching 30 C has been more than double at 13.
Any individual hot day may still just be a hot day — it’s weather. But twice as many hot days over 24 years compared to a century ago? That’s climate change.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/broken-temperature-records-are-alarming-but-it-is-not-too-late-to-limit-global-warming-236300
As an Australian who lives three hours drive from the Southern edge of the Tropics, I’d like to assure Canadians we’re doing just fine in this deadly warm climate. Some of us even enjoy it. You’re not going to die if Montréal starts to experience 14 days above 30C / 86F per year.
But some of you might live longer if global warming takes the edge off your savage winters.
Cold weather kills far more people than warm weather, even in hot countries like India.
The fact that cold weather is a far greater threat to human health than heatwaves should be no surprise to anyone, except perhaps climate scientists.
Humans are a tropical species. In the environment where our ancestors originally evolved, clothes are optional. Everywhere else, we all need clothes to shield us from anything less than extreme tropical conditions, otherwise we die from exposure.
As the Indian study I linked above demonstrates, the greatest threat to human health from ambient temperature is people ignoring temperatures which are slightly cooler than comfortable. How many Canadians have died before their time, because green policies have driven up the cost of energy, and they hesitated to switch on the room heater?
The evidence is clear. Our bodies become medically stressed even by mild cold discomfort, stressed enough to produce a substantial spike in death rates, strokes and heart attacks. Cold weather produces a much bigger death rate spike than hot weather, even in hot countries like India.
The 1 to 2.5 mile thick Laurentide Ice Sheet covering all of Canada was a much bigger threat to Canadians. It’s hard to barbecue in your backyard under a mile of ice. Commutes to work are just a really bad day.
At this rate that old joke about summer in Canada being June 26th then early winter starts, might have to be scrapped. Summer might last into July
It will be in the high 20’s C in Winnipeg all next week. A lovely start to Indian Summer.
Will Canadians invent Water Hockey?
Already invented, an ex commanding officer of mine played the game, google it.
Dang…day late and dollar short…again…
For Malthusians, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature…
The recently elected Labour government here in the UK has enacted legislation that clearly flies in the face of cold causes harm rhetoric.
Their first move once elected was to take away the £300 payment made at the start of winter to all pensioners which was called ‘winter fuel payment’
The Labour government are so unconcerned about OAPs getting cold, they chose to use the money saved by not paying the winter fuel allowance on a 14% (over two years) pay increase to their union supporters at the train drivers branch.
The priorities of the socialists are nothing if not traditional.
Who needs winter warmth when you have globalised socialism to keep you cold?.
What cold? I thought Britain was boiling hot because of global warming?
I guess the expectation is on the occasional evening it still gets cold, pensioners can stay warm by riding around on trains using their discount travel passes, until they have a cultural experience on the train, lose all their stuff, then while the broken bones and abrasions are healing they can have a NHS socialised medicine “do you really expect me to eat that?!” experience.
You thought wrong
Eric,
As a hobby beekeeper I can reflect on what has been a bad year, regarding weather conditions in the UK. My normal honey harvest of between 60 and 120 lbs of honey resulted this year in 14 lbs. only.
The cold wet weather is the very opposite of the so called global warming. Maybe the term they were looking for was, global swarming, as that is what most of my bees did this year!
I read a comment recently on Cliff Mass’ site I think where someone was calling for a scientific study into how ro get his tomatoes to get educated about the reality of global warming, ’cause they certainly haven’t responded to all the extra “heat” they supposedly experienced this last summer.
Coldest year since 2015
A site that actually shows longterm data suggests that the author may be cherrypicking:
“In Montreal, pre-1910 had lower daily maximum temperatures on average. Since the 1930’s average maximum temperatures have been flat …
… In Toronto, the average number of days over 30 degrees was highest many decades ago” (Link, see graphs below).
The annual average temperature for Montreal has increased about 1C in the past century but the above data suggest that is probably mainly an increase in daily minimums.
Have visited Montreal a few times. Warmer periods were far safer than cold.
I found the footpaths quite dangerous for an Aussie lad. My shoes in no way resembled the required hobnails to safely negotiate Montreal footpaths. Also I was not alone in slip-sliding about.
I could imagine quite a lot of hip replacements being required in Montreal and more broadly in Canada.. But the data shows Switzerland has the highest incidence of hip replacement. Cold and steep and maybe lots of worn out tennis players.
I believe squash players suffer later life debilitating knee and hip issues.
Spent my teen years there, it’s not as bad as you make out, my now wife spent her entire teen years in Montreal wearing ballet slippers everywhere.
24 years?
Fail.
“That’s climate change”.
It may well be climate change, but what is causing it? The paper doesn’t say, I suspect because no-one knows.
It’s the Sun, it always has been, it always will be.
Double the number of hot days is purely the result of an increase in average temperature due to the slight warming by less than a degree. If our Alex calls that climate change then he claims that an increase by less than a degree produces a different climate. I guess that will come as news for most Canadians. And I would like to know, given that the Netherlands enjoy a coastal climate, what temperature goes with it?
Canadians afraid of global warming is one of the greatest absurdities in a country rife with the absurd. If a Canadian believes that global warming is somehow miraculously ending the ice age, then being against global warming means that you are in favour of the continuation of the ice age and the eventual end of the current interglacial. In other words Canadians against global warming are also Canadians in favour of a mile of ice covering Canada. It is completely irrational for any Canadian to be against global warming. What would you expect from a country with massive natural gas reserves whose Primeminister didn’t see any economic opportunity in LNG?
In Britain we get regular intimations that the weather is going to be beastial. Nothing excites forecasters more than the prospect of a thunderstorms, which are always accompanied by threats of flooding. Ordinary rain is going to make highways treacherous, all that spray and surface water (which, with the chance of a child running in front of your vehicle suddenly, one would have thought, drivers would be prepared for). These reporters are gleeful when overnight temperatures drop, so ecstatic that their chance viewers will be ‘comfortable. Anyone viewing the British Open golf tournament will be acquainted with the fact that Britain is a cool place where it rains a lot. The incidence of the suggested perils of warm/hot weather, the chance of relaxing in your garden or being certain of good weather on you staycation are slim here, which drives millions of our residence abroad every year in search of warmth, sunshine, pleasure away from the dangers here. As for flooding that only goes to highlight the parlous state of civil engineering here. The official body is insistent that weather is dangerous, never enjoyable or benign, ‘there, we told you weather was getting worse’.
“global average temperature”
“global warming means more sweltering heat waves”
Typical CAGW confusion. They assume that the average going up means that maximum temps are going up! Thus everyone is going to die because the Earth is going to be on fire!
In reality the minimum temps going up can raise the AVERAGE just as easily as the maximum temps going up. Using the AVERAGE hides what is really happening with the “climate”.
Longer growing seasons and continuing record grain harvests every year *should* legislate toward assuming minimum temps are going up, not max temps. Earlier last frost dates and later first frost dates mean the minimum temps are going up. If it were max temps goin gup then we should see worse grain harvests due to stunting effects of high temps and we should see stagnant growing season lengths since the last frost and first frost dates wouldn’t be changing.
Higher minimum temps are *NOT* dangerous. They mean lower energy use for heating and more food abundance.
I’ve tried to keep this at a high level look at gross level data for the globe rather than trying to do detailed statistical analyses of questionable temperature data bases that simply aren’t fit for the purpose of distinguishing anomaly differences in the hundredths or thousandths digit. Everyone can see the effects of longer growing seasons and more food without depending on detailed statistical analyses.
I’ve done cooling degree-day mapping for various measuring stations around the world. Most show stagnant cooling degree-day values over the past 25 years. Some show small amounts of warming max temps and some show small amounts of cooling. There simply isn’t any indication of wide spread global warming let alone widespread increases in max temps.
I’ve advocated for more than two years that climate science should move to metrics that actually allow discerning what is actually happening with temperature. Cooling and heating degree-days would be one such metric and the data is actually available to use since it is the same data they use to come up with their hokey “global average temperature anomaly”.
Ask yourself why climate science remains mired in using a metric that is not fit for purpose. Agriculture science has moved on. Same with HVAC engineering. Why not climate science?
Good point, Tim. I remember reading (I think on this site) a number of years ago that the increase in modeled average temperatures WAS due to warmer overnights. That does not support the extreme extremes narrative.
I don’t think that’s entirely correct.
All chemical reactions have an optimal temperature range, and for most of the growing season (at least for cereals), the temperature will be nearer the lower bound than the upper.
The limiting factor in summer is more likely to be moisture stress than temperature. Not that it has much effect on winter and spring growing crops, apart from perhaps haying off a little earlier. Summer-growing crops such as maize and the millets seem to thrive on heat, provided they have enough soil moisture.
Possibly not. There are also day length factors in setting seed and ripening. The last frost coming earlier is a Good Thing where wheat is concerned. Getting a late frost in September when the head is starting to fill can really ruin your year.
There is always a trade-off between growing season length, moisture consumption, nutrient requirements, and yield.
Our ideal year was a wet summer to give subsoil moisture, April rain to be able to sow early, inter showers to help growth along and set seed, and a hot, dry late October and November to finish ripening and get it off. Then repeat, with some good storms in summer and autumn. And pigs might fly…
There is a very good, though rather dense, article on wheat available here.
“All chemical reactions have an optimal temperature range, and for most of the growing season (at least for cereals), the temperature will be nearer the lower bound than the upper.”
When I spoke of “stunting” I was talking about the formation of the fruit, not the stalk. Be it wheat, corn, rice, or what ever the actual setting and filling of the fruit can be stunted in the presence of continual high temperatures. It’s even true for vegetables like tomato and cucumber. Setting and growth of the fruit happens later in the growing season when the temp is nearer the max than the min.
“The limiting factor in summer is more likely to be moisture stress than temperature.”
Moisture is a necessity. But high temps can stunt the fruit even in the presence of otherwise sufficient moisture.
We don’t grow much (if any) wheat during the summer. It is mostly winter wheat of some type. For the corn and soybeans the fruit is usually set and growing in late July and August. Corn is done and drying by Sept. Soybeans planted after harvesting winter wheat generally finishes a little later but by August the bushels/acre is pretty much also determined. Early soybeans planted at the same time as corn is usually done and drying by Sept.
go here: https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/heat-stress-corn.html
“Multiple statistical studies have shown negative correlations between average seasonal temperature and corn yield (Lobell and Field, 2007; Sakurai et al., 2011; Tao et al., 2008). As average temperatures increase above a certain point, corn yields decrease. Further analysis of yield and weather data has found that the main driver of this negative association is the sensitivity of corn to temperatures above 86 °F (30 °C) (Schlenker and Roberts, 2009). Researchers have begun using the terms extreme degree days (EDD) or extreme heat degree days (HDD) to quantify the accumulation temperatures above this level (Lobell et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2013). Corn yields tend to increase with temperature up to this threshold and then drop off sharply when temperatures exceed it.”
This is just one more example of where agricultural science has advanced far beyond climate science. They focus on the degree-day metric to determine the impacts of climate rather than the piss-poor metric of temperature. It is the *accumulation* of the heat that causes the effect on corn just as it does on climate.
I hold out no hope that climate science will ever change. There is too much “money” tied up with catastrophic climate change predictions from climate science. Moving to a metric like degree-days would highlight the lack of catastrophe thus drying up the money.
Thanks for the reply, Tim.
Yeah, I figured you meant the head filling stage.
I’m not at all familiar with maize or rice. We were sheep/wheat in an 18″ average rainfall area. Depending on planting time, variety, winter conditions, et al, the heads used to start to form in September, fill out in September and early October, start to hay off in October and be ready for harvest around the middle of November. Offset that by 6 months for northern hemisphere seasons. We rarely had prolonged hot periods during the head formation and filling period; our biggest concern was late frosts.
That’s equivalent to January – March for us. What’s the usual planting period for those? Our wheat harvest in Queensland tends to be in by the end of November, and Victoria and southern South Australia some time in January.
The couple of times we tried growing maize or millet as forage crops we didn’t get them in until December.
That’s not very warm. Is that a general finding, or specific to certain varieties?
That’s what I’d expect, based on the bathtub effect of optimum temperature ranges of the reactions. I’m surprised the threshold is so low. Is that 30 degrees C the max or midpoint average?
corn and soybeans (not following winter wheat) are usually planted in late April to mid-May here. You want to avoid any frost frost yet catch the spring rains. Winter wheat is usually harvested between mid-June and sometime in July so soybeans planted after that have to be a quick maturing variety. Even then it’s not unusual to have to wait till the ground gets frozen from any fall rain – otherwise its too muddy.
There are so many variety of corn I can’t really tell you what the variances are. But they are all subject to some degradation from lots of heat. I was always told it was 90F-95F for an extended period but that was 50 years ago. I’m sure varieties since then are different – probably to get higher yields something has to be given up.
The heat has to be extended. That’s why degree-days are used. A few days of 100+F days won’t cause real harm. A week+ will. And it goes up from there. But we don’t have summers with extended days of 100+F temps at least here. South of us in OK and TX that’s more of a problem. But they are not corn states like KS is. Cotton is king further south.
That’s more the range I expected. 30C seems a little low.
Totally off topic, but i have fond memories of our trip to the “Wild West and Flyover Country” in late September / early October 2016.
We basically followed the Santa Fe Trail from Santa Fe to Dodge City. South-east Colorado was far less hilly than I expected. and SW Kansas was rolling country rather than dead flat as we’d been told it was. There were little green circles of centre-pivot irrigation everywhere. Then down into Oklahoma and Texas, again with the centre-pivot irrigation and a proliferation of Tumbling Tommy oil pumps, and quite a few small refineries. There was quite a bit of cotton between Wichita Falls and Lubbock. That was smaller areas with centre pivot irrigation as well. I’m more used to the larger flood irrigated cotton growing west of Wee Waa on the NSW north-west plains.
Even further off topic, we followed the sign to the Buddy Holly museum in Lubbock, and it was closed that day. There was a nice little park next door, though. The Billy the Kid museum was closed the day we found it, as well.
The Pecan trees in the park we stopped at for lunch along the Pecos River on our way north from Carlsbad were massive.
Nice!
SW Ks is pretty flat! But if you want *real* flat you need to go north a ways to the high plains. You can see the small town of Plainville north of Hays while standing on the ground, a distance of about 24 miles. Right at the edge of the horizon, nothing blocking your view at all! Or at least it was that way 50+ years ago.
SE CO is not much like the rest of CO. It’s plateau’s and real semi-arid for most of it. They have an area called the Great Sand Dunes that *is* nothing but sand – probably scoured by the wind from the Rockies and settled in SE CO.
I’m sure that there is some flood irrigated stuff around in OK and TX but not a lot. Not enough rivers that have water year round, the irrigation is mostly from wells. That’s why the Ogallala Aquifer is always in danger of being drained dry.
Sorry you missed the museums. I’ve never been to either but maybe someday.
That 24 miles might be a slight exaggeration, unless Plainville has a high water tower like so many of the towns in Kansas, or a tall radio mast. Standing on the ground, the horizon is around 3 miles away.
Part of the reason that the first cotton farmers (US transplants) in Aus started around Wee Waa and Merah North was that they could flood irrigate from the Namoi River without having to level the ground. On the Merah Plain, a little further west, they didn’t even have to clear any trees.
Wee Waa has an elevation of 623′. Walgett is 80 miles west, with an elevation of 436′, so a fall of around 2′ per mile.
We only stumbled onto them en route to somewhere else, so we weren’t terribly disappointed that they were closed. For some reason, I knew the Lincoln County Wars were in New Mexico, but had Lincoln, Nebraska in mind. When I saw the sign, it was “Why is a Billy the Kid museum here?”
There were so many other great places to see and things to do that it was a fantastic trip anyway.
You should take a few weeks and head SW for a while. There are so many iconic places in west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Even better, there aren’t many people in most of them.
We have also had thoughts of spending a few weeks to see Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic and check out all the Great Lakes, but our exchange rate is dreadful at present. There are lots of things we haven’t seen in Aus or “over the dutch in Un Zud” yet, so we’ll just nibble away at things while we still can
“That 24 miles might be a slight exaggeration”
Think grain elevators <grin>.
We used to take the Boy Scouts to summer camp in SE CO. Never made it past that. Someday I want to go to the big gem and mineral show in Tuscon. My time in TX has been in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio for work travel. Loved San Antonio, especially when I could get there during Cinco de Mayo (big fair and carnival). The Alamo was just a cherry on top.
If you hit the west coast San Diego is nice and Seattle used to be although I hear it’s changed a lot. Love Boston if you make it to the northeast coast.
We aren’t into international travel though my youngest son is. He’s been all over Europe. I’d like to see Spain someday, maybe it’ll happen. Mostly I just like to work around my 3 acre “ranch”. Always something changing and something that needs done. Keeps me busy.
Don’t like big cities much. People are alright in moderation.
Holbrook and Winslow weren’t bad. Loved the drive from Globe up to Holbrook, and also Route 66 in Az. Tombstone was a bit touristy. On an earlier trip, Highway 1 from Morro Bay to SF was a blast. We spent a bit of time in Big Sur, which was very pleasant. Northern California north of SF was quite scenic. Some of the national and state parks were really nice. The Grand Canyon was quite impressive, both the north and south rims.
We’ve had one brief trip to the UK and Europe. Too many people in most places, but the history is amazing. Switzerland was astonishingly beautiful, but expensive. Patras and Sami in Greece were the most laid back – reminded us of Aus country towns. That might be because every country town had at least one Greek family running a cafe or milk bar when I was growing up 🙂
It’s nice to have a bit of elbow room. Having a few acres is an excuse to have a few decent toys as well.
We’re considering moving to somewhere smaller near the coast in a few years. My wife claims the mouse keeps slipping on the real estate sites and she keeps finding nice 100 – 200 acre places. 10 – 20 may be more practical. The trick is finding something which isn’t prone to flooding or bushfires.
Canadians shouldn’t be worried about warm weather. They all spend the winter in Florida so they own shorts and tropical shirts, and they brew some pretty decent lagers.
This Alex Crawford, as a professor of geography is literally full of schist. I live in S Florida and every winter tens of thousands of Canadians fly or drive to FL to escape the cold of Ontario and Quebec. Every 5 to 10 license plates on cars on the roads are from Ontario or Quebec in the season affectionately called “Snowbird” (season, madness).
That is some pretty good evidence that it is NOT getting too hot in the great white north!
Mexico also sees numerous climate “refugees” from Canada.
I believe these folk are the only legitimate “climate refugees” in the whole world today.
Given that global warming would result in longer growing seasons and higher crop yields, if any nation should welcome it then it would be Canada.
I don’t guarantee exact numbers .. 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.
Which is perplexing considering the general disdain many Canadians have for their US cousins.
If these disdainers had the courage of their convictions, you’d think they would prefer to live much further north, say just south of the Arctic Circle.
Nah, normal Cdns like Americans. It’s the Cdn leftist media that tries to tell us otherwise.
But then they’d have trouble receiving US TV stations.
How reliable are the temperature reading given that the UK ecoactivist Met Office – formerly a provider of weather forecasts – creating new junk weatherstations that are WMO class 4 or 5 and then screaming about new temperature highs. The legacy media up their propaganda as it makes for a good story while ignoring the far more interesting and important story of why they are creating the new junk sites.
DEI in real life.
Specifically due to green policies, likely not many: the country has plenty of Nuclear and Hydro. Freezing to death, while a longstanding and historical tradition in Canada, has seldom been due to energy policy.
I’m sure, though, the 97 degree limited exposure warning will soon cause a collapse in the Southern U.S. and Caribbean travel industries, from where millions of semi-permanent Canadian residents will soon flee. The effects of the departure of Canadian actors from Hollywood alone will be devastating.
People will be banned from visiting Death Valley and the official Death Valley meteorology equipment will be relocated to Palm Springs for safety
Just Canadians. Maybe they’ll take back Shatner, for his own protection, of course.
We cooled off to a high of 31C yesterday. It felt cool.
When I lived in San Diego, I met several Canadian tourists on holiday. The weather was quite warm and they looked pretty healthy and seemed to like it.
Cold air causes our blood vessels to constrict to preserve heat.
This causes our blood pressure to rise ant that causes increased heart attacks and strokes in cooler weather.
No, that’s UHI
When I was attending Lake Superior State Univ (Sault Ste. Marie, MI) in the late 60’s-early 70’s (which had a fair a number of Canadian students), we used to joke that when the temperature in the winter hit 35F, the Canadian students would show up wearing short sleeve shirts and cut-offs. For them it was a heat wave.
Notice the weather statistics are manipulated to give the conclusion the writer wants. Namely, the temperature from 1900-1923 is used, conveniently stopping before the century highs of the late 1920s and the 1930s.
I grew up in a semi-desert area where we sometimes had three months in a row with maximum temperatures close to or over 90F and many days over 100F. We had no air conditioning and I do not remember people dying because of the heat.
Oh cry me a river. My home town can be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and less than minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. Canadians should be able to handle a few days of 30 degrees Celsius. Good grief. Grow up.