Climate change, impacts and adaptation in the Canadian Columbia Basin

The current climate of the Basin, and indeed of Earth, is the result of Climate Change a delicate balance of influences that include the heating of the planet’s Climate change is defined as a detectable atmosphere by the sun, the moderating influence of clouds and the shift in the average (mean) and/or action of greenhouse gases. [...] For example, the unusually wet and cold weather conditions in winter and spring 2010/11 were in large part due to the convergence of a La Niña and PDO cool phase.7 El Niño/La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) Influences Typical Influence on Basin Temperatures . El Niño winter temperatures up to 1.8 C above average in the northern parts of the Basin, and 1.0 C warmer in the southwest [...] This scale of warming, even at the low end of the estimates, will result in annual average temperatures in the 2050s that are outside the range of the historic year-to-year variability in the Basin as highlighted in Figures 2, 3 and 4 on the next page. [...] These results are consistent with the with findings from global climate projections.17 Increase in the Variability of Temperature and Precipitation ? Global climate models suggest the possibility of increases in climate variability in the future, particularly with respect to precipitation.18 However, more research is required to be certain of the specific types of changes that could occur in the B [...] Increase in Rain-on-snow and Rain-on-frozen-ground Events The projected warming and increases in winter precipitation falling as rain could result in an increase in rain-on-snow and rain-on-frozen-ground events in the Basin.