Browse "Climate"

Acid rain is the wet or dry deposition of acidic substances and their precursors on the Earth's surface. The ongoing industrialization of society has resulted in the increased release of acidic chemicals into the atmosphere.

For example, in British Columbia, the Coastal Western Hemlock Zone is one of 14 biogeoclimatic zones. It occupies high precipitation areas up to 1000 m elevation west of the coastal mountains from the Washington to Alaska borders and beyond.

In Canada the official national meteorological service definition of a blizzard is a period of 6 or more hours with winds above 40 km/h, with visibility reduced to below 1 km by blowing or drifting snow, and with windchills over 1600 W/ m2 (watts per square metre).

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on March 18, 2002. Partner content is not updated.

In Canada, the chinook belt lies almost exclusively within southern and central Alberta. The wind occurs in every season, but it is more distinctive and numerous in the winter, when the unseasonable warming it brings differentiates it from the normal cold winter weather.

Climate is often defined as average weather, when weather means the current state of the atmosphere. For scientists, climates are the result of exchanges of heat and moisture at the Earth's surface. Because of its size, Canada has many different climates.

Climate change occurs when long-term weather patterns begin to shift. These periods of change have occurred throughout the Earth’s history over extended periods of time. However, since the Industrial Revolution the world has been warming at an unprecedented rate. Because of this, the current period of climate change is often referred to as “global warming.” Human activities that release heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are largely responsible for this increased rate of change. The implications of this global increase in temperature are potentially disastrous and include extreme weather events, rising sea levels and loss of habitat for plants, animals and humans. In Canada, efforts to mitigate climate change include phasing-out coal-fired power plants in Ontario and instituting a carbon tax in British Columbia. (This is the full-length entry about climate change. For a plain-language summary, please see Climate Change (Plain-Language Summary).)

To the uninitiated, it looks no more exciting than a long, thin log of grey plasticene. But to scientists like Jeffrey Fox, a Texas geologist who oversaw its extraction last week from the bottom of a deep bay 16 km north of Victoria, the 9.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on September 2, 1996

 Environment Canada devised the climate severity index to rate a locality's climate according to human comfort and well being. The index has a range from 1 to 100, with a score of 1 representing the least severe climate and 100 the most.

Climate Severity Indexes for Selected Places Climate Severity Indexes for Selected Places Station Index (100*) Station Index (100*) British Columbia Saskatchewan Kamloops 20 Regina 49 Penticton 16 Saskatoon 42 Prince George 38 Manitoba Vancouver 19 Churchill 82 Victoria 15 Flin Flon 49 Yukon Territories Winnipeg 51 Dawson City 54 Ontario Whitehorse 46 London 41 Northwest Territories Moosonee 56 Alert 84 Ottawa 44 Inuvik 53 Sudbury 54 Isachsen 99 Toronto 36 Yellowknife 57 Windsor 37 Alberta...

  Cloud, visible suspension in the atmosphere composed of tiny water droplets or ICE crystals from about one to a few hundred micrometres in diameter.

During the prolonged darkness of winter, the air over the huge snow- and ice-covered surfaces of Canada may stagnate for weeks, radiating heat to outer space.

Drought is the condition of critically low water supply caused by persistently below-normal precipitation.

The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.

El Niño is a pronounced warming of the Pacific Ocean current off the coast of South America.