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Pond hockey in Toronto, circa 1923.
Canadian university researchers blast their country’s obstructionist policies by invoking the Great Gretsky
By Summit Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — Pond hockey could be history in parts of Canada within just a few decades, according to a new report showing that warming temperature have resulted in a statistically significant decrease in the length of the skating season over the past half century.
The largest decreases in season length were observed in the Prairies and Southwest regions of Canada. By extrapolating their data to predict future patterns, the researchers said outdoor skating may not be possible within the next few decades in areas such as British Columbia and Southern Alberta.
Outdoor ice hockey is synonymous with Canada’s culture, but the researchers researchers the ice hockey stars of the future will have limited access to the frozen lakes and backyard rinks that have helped shape the careers of some of the greatest professional players, such as Wayne Gretzky; the Canadian considered to be the greatest of all time who started skating as a child on a rink in his backyard.
Evidence of this was seen earlier this year when the world’s longest skating rink, the Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa, was closed due to warmer-than-usual seasonal temperatures.
Their study, published today, 5 March, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, calculated the annual start date and length of the outdoor skating season (OSS) from historical weather data across Canada and recorded how these have changed since the 1950s in tune with global warming.
“There is not much akin to skating outdoors, and the creation of natural skating rinks depends on having enough cold winter days. It is hard to imagine a Canada without outdoor hockey,” said Damon Matthews, of Concordia University. “But I really worry that this will be a casualty of our continuing to ignore the climate problem and obstruct international efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.”
Using information from outdoor public ice skating rinks in various Canadian cities, the researchers created a set of weather criteria that marks the beginning, and determines the length, of the outdoor skating season..
Their definition of the beginning of the outdoor skating season is the last in a series of three days where the maximum temperature does not exceed -5 degrees celsius, since it takes several cold days to lay the initial ice on the rink. Subsequently, the researchers counted the number of viable rink flooding days to estimate the season’s length at each of the 142 stations.
Canada appears to have taken more of a hit from global warming compared to other countries in the world: since 1950, winter temperatures in Canada have increased by more than 2.5 degrees celsius, about three times the globally-averaged warming attributed to anthropogenic global warming.
Filed under: climate and weather, Environment, global warming, Summit County news Tagged: | Canada, climate, global warming, pond hockey, Wayne Gretsky
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Powder's falling at Monarch!! Have you reserved your spot yet?
Innovative energy underwrites coverage of energy stories.
If climate change is going to be that FAST, too bad we won’t have the time to act. Nations are to get together in 2015 and “hopefully” come to an agreement to START to cut emsiions in 2020!
Ya, right, like that’s going to happen!
Sorry kids, we blew it!
If this gets sufficient coverage in Canada, I am afraid we are doomed to being invaded and conquered by our neighbors to the north. Under a banner of “This will not stand!” they will swarm over the unprotected border and wrench our CO2 producing culture from our pudgy fingers, our only recourse being to to plead “Keep your stick on the ice, eh?”
See what you have done, Bob? You don’t want to mess with those guys, they wear knives on their feet and carry clubs for FUN! Guess we better stop pucking around clean up our carbon-belching act, eh? Hey, the air will get better, they drink good beer, and we will have ice rinks at elementary schools, all actions I fully support!
I know, right? Last week it was football players, this week it’s hockey … what’s next?
The only refuge of the doomed is humor and defiance.
I mourn the lack of bikini-clad girls to view caused by the loss of the ozone layer, the coming winter Olympics being run on slopes covered with astro-turf, and all of the tanning salons being put out of business because you can get the Brazilian look in ten minutes for free. I do not think SPF1000 suntan lotion will be a pleasant thing to wear.
I will not miss New York or Washington DC although I dread the fact that they will just move it to the Appalachian Islands using taxpayer bailout money.
We had better be careful or this thread might grow legs and overwhelm the servers. I am thinking that there is more than one reason to limit the sources of greenhouse gas, and this is a great place to discuss them. I still suspect hot air from political campaigns as a leading cause, but we could use less gasoline too.