Toronto in 2040- Hot and Getting Hotter!

Toronto's Future Weather & Climate Driver Study: Outcomes Report(12 page pdf, Summary of the Senes Consultants Ltd Study by Toronto Environment Office, Oct. 30, 2012)

Also discussed here: Toronto failing to act on alarming climate changes: Environmentalists(Tess Kalinowski, Toronto Star, Nov. 11, 2012)

 Canada’s largest city is expected to have four times as many days with a humidex above 40C (104F) by 2040. So says the report being reviewed today and prepared for the City of Toronto Council in order to decide on what preparations are needed to adapt to the future with climate change continuing to proceed at full speed because of inaction by the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, namely, the USA, Brazil, Russia and China- and on an emissions per capita basis, Australia and Canada. Past studies have linked heat waves with air pollution and health and higher mortality rates. We look forward to see what the response from city council will be.  

Key Quotes:  

“The study predicts triple the number of above-30C days from about 22 on average annually to 66. It forecasts five times as many heat waves in the average summer and it warns that the days when the humidex hits 40C or higher will increase from nine a year to 39 on average”

• “Though the number of storms that occur in winter decrease, the number of storms that occur in summer remains the same – but the maximum amount of rainfall expected in any single day and in any single hour more than doubles.
• The number of days when the humidex exceeds 40oC is expected to increase fourfold
• The number of "heat waves".. is expected to increase from an average of 0.57 occurrences per year, as in the period 1971-2000, to 5 occurrences per year in the period 2040-2050”

  “Imagine a summer where for two months the temperature does not go down below 30C. If that were to happen tomorrow there would probably be a significant number of deaths. Our electricity infrastructure would fail. We would have massive blackouts and, who knows what else would happen to the other urban infrastructure? I’m not sure that the city and this administration is taking any of this stuff seriously,”

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