According to an
article by Dean Beeby of the
Canadian Press, "Arctic rangers want better equipment to deal with climate change." The
Canadian Press used the
Access to Information Act to obtain a report from the
Canadian Forces which apparently detailed concerns the Rangers -- "largely aboriginal reservists who patrol the North" -- have regarding the Arctic's changing climate.
I requested a copy of the original report from Beeby, and he referred me to the
Canadian Forces citing report A-2014-00573. No reply from the
Canadian Forces was received regarding my request. If journalists are going to be discussing public sector reports already obtained by FOI requests, they should also release the report so the public can check the claims made. Consider it acting in the public interest.
Some statements by the Rangers in this
Canadian Forces report warrant a critical examination:
"'The elders used to be able to predict the weather by looking at the clouds; they can't do that anymore. You can't predict the weather anymore,' was a typical comment on the impact of climate change, which has reduced snow cover, led to earlier springs and generated fiercer winter winds.
Snowmobiles are becoming less available as the snow disappears, making it harder to travel.
'We never used to have forest fires. Now we have more and more each summer,' said one participant ...
'Polar bears used to be fat and tasty,' said one ranger. 'They taste different now.'"
Given the great difficulty in predicting the weather using modern scientific methods, it is highly doubtful that elders used to be able to reliably predict Arctic weather simply by looking at the clouds. These types of unscientific assertions are made without any validation, and warrant no serious role in Canadian policy making. We simply cannot determine the extent of climate change in the Arctic via claims that weather prediction from looking at the clouds is more difficult now than it purportedly was in the past. The same applies to the taste of polar bears. This information is too subjective to be relevant for national defense planning.
What about claims that the Arctic never used to have forest fires, and that now they are having more and more each year? This is entirely incorrect. As I have
previously shown, there is no significant trend in either the number of annual fires or area burned each year for either the Northwest Territories or the Yukon since records start in 1970 within the
Canadian National Forest Database. Indeed, "the Northwest Territories, supposedly the poster child for climate change impacts on forest fires, doesn't have any significant trends in either the number of forest fires or the area burned. In fact, the correlations for both these variables are negative (towards decreasing forest fire numbers and area burned), not positive." Nunavut is almost entirely above the tree line, so forest fires are not a significant issue there.
Thus, the regions of the Canadian Arctic with trees have always had forest fires, in contrast to the claims in this Canadian Rangers report, and they are not becoming any more frequent or damaging in recent decades according to the historical data sets.
As for claims about "the impact of climate change, which has reduced snow cover, led to earlier springs and generated fiercer winter winds," of the 21 climate stations from the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut with surface wind speed data in the
Environment Canada Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD)
database, only one site (Inuvik) has a significant increasing trend over the past three decades in winter wind speeds. Compare that to four sites (Mayo, Fort Smith, Hay River, and Norman Wells) with significant declining trends in winter wind speeds over this time frame, and the remaining 16 sites with no significant trends. Overall, it appears winter wind speeds in the Canadian Arctic are declining, or -- at the very least -- not changing.
Among these same 21 climate stations throughout the Arctic, only 7 have significant increasing trends in average spring temperatures over the last 30 years, all located in Nunavut from the eastern Arctic. The remaining two-thirds of the stations -- including all in the western Arctic -- have no significant trends in spring temperatures. Only two of the 21 sites (Fort Smith and Baker Lake) have significant declining trends in annual snowfall, and one site (Hay River) has a significant increasing trend. The remaining 86 percent of the sites have no significant trends in annual snowfall.
Finally, I had a quick look at three representative sites (Yellowknife, Inuvik, and Iqaluit) in greater detail to see if their snow packs were being reduced. At none of the sites was there any significant trend in snow depth on April 1 of each year -- a common metric -- during the last three decades, and at Yellowknife and Inuvik, there were also no significant trends in the date at which the snow pack disappeared (i.e., the first day of spring on which it dropped below 1 cm depth). Iqaluit did have a significant trend towards earlier disappearance of the snow pack.
Thus, we find the objective scientific results are far more complex than the subjective generalizations quoted from the Canadian Rangers report -- which the mainstream media failed to critically examine. Many general claims are made about climate change in the Arctic. Few are accurate, and accurate claims are what we need coming out of the Canadian military, and what we require upon which to shape coherent policy.
The Rangers do need to be provided with the most modern equipment available in order to protect and promote Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. But the public also needs to know that the individuals making up this critical organization are applying the principles of scientific reasoning when examining the world around them. The Canadian Forces does need to establish a suite of new bases throughout the Arctic, but they will need to be staffed with traditional military personnel that remain focused solely on the national security objectives relevant to their employment.
