Climate | The Canadian Encyclopedia

Browse "Climate"

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  • Article

    Rainbow

    A rainbow is a coloured arc that occurs when sunlight shines onto falling raindrops and is refracted, then reflected back towards the observer. In this process, each drop acts as a tiny prism, splitting the sun's rays (according to wavelength) into their component colours.

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  • Article

    Rainfall Extremes

    The amount of rain or snow that reaches the ground can vary dramatically on any particular given day, even over short distances. Many people have experienced a near-deluge of rain in their backyard, while at the same time their front yard or their neighbour's home remains quite dry.

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  • Article

    Sea Ice

    Sea ice formed by the freezing of seawater and floats on the surface of the polar oceans. Its coverage varies with the seasons; in the Northern Hemisphere sea ice ranges from a minimum of about 9 million km2 in September to a maximum of about 16 million km2 in March. In the Southern Hemisphere the range is from 3 million to 19 million km2, with the minimum and maximum coverage occurring in February and September respectively. The thickness of sea ice can vary from a few centimetres for newly formed ice in protected locations to 20 m or more in ridges; however, typical thicknesses are about 3 m in the Arctic and about 1 m in the Antarctic.

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  • Article

    Snow

    The size of a snowflake is related to how far the snowflake has fallen from the sky and to how well colliding snow crystals stick to each other. The largest snowflakes are usually observed near 0° C because of the increased forces of adhesion at these temperatures.

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  • Article

    Solar Energy

    The energy contained in sunlight is the source of life on Earth. Humans can harness it to generate power for our activities without producing harmful pollutants. There are many methods of converting solar energy into more readily usable forms of energy such as heat or electricity. The technologies we use to convert solar energy have a relatively small impact on the environment. However, they each have disadvantages that have kept them from being widely adopted. In Canada, the use of solar energy to generate electricity and heat is growing quickly and is helping reduce pollution related to energy production. Despite Canada’s cold climate and high latitudes (which get less direct sunlight than mid-latitudes), solar power technologies are used in many places, from household rooftops to large power plants. The Canada Energy Regulator (formerly the National Energy Board) expects solar power to make up 3 per cent of Canada’s total electricity generation capacity by 2040.

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  • Article

    Station PAPA

    Station PAPA Ocean Weather Station "P" is commonly called Station PAPA after the code word for the letter P in the phonetic alphabet used by radio operators. Station PAPA is located in the N Pacific Ocean (50° N, 145° W) and has a water depth of 4200 m.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Station PAPA
  • Macleans

    Summer of Environmental Scares

    Having a nice summer? It's hard to imagine how: read a newspaper, watch TV, surf the Web, and you soon get the impression that the world is coming to an end. It's enough to make a person want to weep and hide.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on August 26, 2002

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  • Article

    Thunderstorm

    Thunderstorms usually occur on summer afternoons. While a thunderstorm typically affects a given locality for only an hour or so during its passage overhead, the entire lifetime may be as long as 6-10 hours, along a pathway of several hundred kilometres.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Thunderstorm
  • Article

    Time Zones in Canada

    There are six time zones in Canada covering four and a half hours. From west to east these time zones are: Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern, Atlantic and Newfoundland. From the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March these zones are referred to as standard time zones, and may be abbreviated as PST, MST, CST, etc. From the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November most of Canada follows daylight saving time. During this summer period the time zones may be abbreviated as PDT, MDT, CDT, etc. The boundaries of the standard time zones are not necessarily the same as those of the corresponding daylight saving time zones. For example, the Mountain time zone includes a portion of northeastern British Columbia in the summer, but not during the winter (see maps below). Boundaries shift because some municipalities choose not to participate in daylight saving time. Similarly, Saskatchewan follows CST year-round and, as of 2020, Yukon follows PDT, also known as Yukon Standard Time, year-round.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/new_article_images/TimeZones/NewTimeZonesEN.jpg Time Zones in Canada
  • Article

    Treeline

    The treeline is controlled by CLIMATE in interaction with SOIL. In the North, it is correlated generally with the modal (most common) position of the southern edge of the arctic front in summer, and with such temperature indices as the July 10°C isotherm.

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  • Article

    Vegetation Regions

    Canada has seven primary vegetation regions, in addition to the marine flora found along the country’s coasts. Vegetation regions are geographical areas characterized by distinct plant communities. Community composition, determined primarily by climate (e.g., temperature, precipitation and sunlight), may be affected by factors such as geology, soil composition and erosion, water drainage patterns and human interference. Each vegetation region supports a characteristic animal community that may also affect its composition. This is a full-length entry about Vegetation Regions. For a plain-language summary, please see Vegetation Regions (Plain-Language Summary).

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  • Article

    Weather

    WEATHER FORECASTING is the attempt to understand atmospheric patterns to predict the weather conditions that will occur at a specific place and time, including temperature, wind, cloud, precipitation and humidity.

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  • Article

    Weather Forecasting

    Most modern meteorologists attempt to cope with physical processes by expressing them mathematically, ie, by creating mathematical models of the atmosphere. Powerful computers are then used to solve problems.

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  • Article

    Weather Modification

    Weather modification has been used in an attempt to increase rainfall and snowfall, to suppress hail, to clear fogs, to modify tropical cyclones and to suppress lightning. The term "weather modification" is not normally used to describe inadvertent changes in our WEATHER.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Weather Modification
  • Article

    Weather Observations

       Weather in Canada ranges from the extreme cold of the Arctic to tornadoes and other severe weather in the southern regions; from the storms and fog of the Atlantic to the dry heat and majestic thunderstorms of the prairies.

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