Why do Alberta autumns feel so warm?
Bella Coco, News Editor |
Alberta residents know all too well that the weather in September and October can vary from 20 degrees to minus five degrees in a matter of hours. As the season transitions from summer to autumn, sometimes the warm weather reports make the days as if time should be spent out on the lake rather than in the campus library.
Answering the seemingly endless questions about weather and climate seem to involve many factors such as climate change, geography, topography and weather trends.
Susan Reid, an associate professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Mount Royal University says that to start exploring the vast topic of weather and climate, one can start with knowing that while Alberta weather is predictable and easy to understand, it is variable.
“We’ve got west coast warmth that can blow in. We can get cold winds from the north and so on. And other times of year we’re getting warm, moist air that actually makes its way deep into the interior of North America from places like the Gulf of Mexico,” says Reid.
“It’s extremely variable. And if you’ve lived in Calgary for any length of time, we know that it could go from plus 20 one day to minus 20 the next day.”
While climate change does play a part in warming the planet, for Alberta in particular, it is not the only culprit for an uncharacteristically warm autumn. Alberta is known for its vast environment, from the flat prairies to the slippery mountain slopes.
“These mountains on the west kind of form this barrier and it keeps certain weather conditions on one side of the mountain versus the other. It creates an area where this warm moisture that comes actually up into the interior of North America from places like the Gulf of Mexico can meet this cold, dry air that’s coming down from the Arctic and it kind of hems it all in and we get really interesting weather here,” Reid says.
When it comes to comparing past years and former weather trends, Reid highlights that climate scientists consider time periods as long as 30 years. However, just looking at weather data with a map can reveal amplifications of climate change on Earth.
“Here in Alberta, at least over the last 10 years, I don’t think there’s been a lot of change from what I’ve been able to look at in terms of data. We certainly do get warm periods, but we get some extremely cold periods as well. And there’s a lot more that could be said about that, but it involves a big discussion of physical geography, weather and climate.”
“There’s a lot of factors that go into this, that’s for sure,” Reid says.
When it comes to a potential solution to a warming planet, there isn’t one set thing people can do to reverse the effects of global warming. While Reid is hopeful about innovation in the future, she knows it will take a lot more than buying an electric vehicle or putting out your green bin every week.
“People have a lot of different perspectives on this and there are definitely things that individuals can do to reduce their use of energy in general. They can make choices in their daily lifestyle. I don’t want to come across as negative, but a lot of those changes are really small. They are probably not going to incrementally add up to a whole lot. It’s going to be a massive change in the way we as humans get our energy and are able to do all the things that we do in our daily lifestyle. It’s going to have to be a big shift in how we get our energy,” Reid explains.
As for the big picture, big environmental change can move past more individual efforts and get political on an international scale.
“These ideas of mitigation strategies versus adaptation. Those are kind of the two buzzwords when it comes to climate change. Yes, we need to mitigate, right? We need to reduce our emissions and all of that. But a lot of countries aren’t doing that. And Canada’s right there. We’re not making the emission cutbacks that had been promised under some of the international agreements. With the changing of the political guard that might be coming, there could be impacts for Canada’s climate policies as well. Regardless of all that though, there’s still adaptation,” Reid says.
Despite what can feel like an overwhelming amount of factors in warmer weather and the ever-ominous shadow of climate change, Reid considers herself an optimist for the fate of the planet.
“I think I’m a technological optimist. I have faith that human beings are intelligent, creative and innovative. They can come up with ideas that can help the situation. I’m not one of those people and I probably don’t have that ability. But I’m confident that there are people that can help, that we can do things better and that things can improve.”
Bella Coco is the News Editor for The Reflector 2024-2025. She aims to inform the public of current events and hold officials and organizations accountable in the media. Bella’s interests include her work as a writer (fiction or nonfiction), cinema, and music of all kinds.
