Global warming impacts Canada’s winter sports

Although there was no snow on Christmas, many parts of Canada experienced wild swings in temperatures throughout January, as the growing effects of climate change significantly slowed Canada’s winter sports season.

Historically, January is the coldest month of the year, but at Montreal’s Ignace Bourget Park, hockey nets had yet to be installed midway through the month.

Instead, workers took advantage of a rare day when temperatures dropped below freezing to thicken new ice by applying a thin layer of water.

“I’ve been working in the city of Montreal for 20 years, and it’s really unusual for an ice rink to open this late,” Martin Rutendre, wearing a fluorescent orange coat and crampons, told AFP. .

He and his team work day and night to prepare the skating rink. But weeks after the Christmas holidays ended, most of the city’s 250 outdoor ice rinks remained closed to visitors.

“Normally, we aim to open on December 21st or 22nd, before Christmas, but unfortunately it has been delayed this year,” he laments.

To achieve a suitable thickness of approximately 15 centimeters (6 inches), the mercury must fall below -4 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) and remain stable for three consecutive days. Rutendre explains.

“This year it took longer for the cold to set in,” Charles-Antoine Rondeau said when reporters visited Jarry Park and found the park’s three ice rinks closed. he told AFP.

“It’s a shame. It disrupts our tradition a little bit,” the teacher explained, nostalgic for going skating with her family as a child.

“When people see this, they inevitably say there is a link to global warming, but now I’m already seeing the difference and it’s worrying,” said Juliet, who went for a jog instead of her usual skating.・Rugery said.

“People can relate.”

Because of Canada’s geographic location, it is warming faster than other parts of the world, and in recent years it has faced extreme weather events that are increasing in intensity and frequency due to climate change.

In addition to last summer’s record fire season, this year also delayed the opening of ice road networks connecting remote communities in the north.

Last year’s warm winter in the capital, Ottawa, prevented the opening of the world’s largest Rideau Canal skating rink.

“Winter is always coming to us,” said Mitchell Dickau, a doctoral student at Concordia University who published research on the effects of global warming on outdoor ice rinks in 2020. “But the ice skating season is definitely going to look a lot different.”

“In the 2010s, the skating season was about 55 days each year.₂) Even if we cut emissions to net zero and limit temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius, we would still see an 11 to 15 day decline in the skating season, he said.

“However, if we continue without doing anything to reduce CO2,₂ Taking into account emissions, seasons could be reduced to just 11 days by the end of this century. ”