Climate Change Claims on the Cheticamp River

No matter what the issue today, climate change is to blame. Your car broke down? Blame climate change. Slight breeze out of the southwest? Blame climate change. Slip in the bathtub? Blame climate change. Blaming climate change has become as much a part of the Canadian lexicon as "how's it going, eh?"

Which leads us to a recent Parks Canada press release from Nova Scotia, where we read the following (note the last quoted sentence with emphasis added):

"The Honourable Peter MacKay, Regional Minister for Nova Scotia and Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of the Environment and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, today announced that Parks Canada and the Cheticamp River Salmon Association are restoring the main channel of the lower Cheticamp River in Cape Breton Highlands National Park to a more natural width and meander. This restoration work will protect the salmon run in the Cheticamp River by creating fish-passable depths for migrating salmon. The Cheticamp River has one of only two healthy spring salmon runs in Nova Scotia. Currently, the over-widened section of the lower river is creating passage problems for migrating salmon. Many factors contributed to the current unnatural widening of the river, from past logging to former bridge structures. Warmer and drier springs are also having an impact on fish passage because water depths are already compromised by unnatural widening."

Rene Aucoin from the Cheticamp River Salmon Association is also quoted in the Parks Canada press release: "In order to ensure conservation, live release of all Atlantic salmon on this river has been in effect since the mid 1980s. Unfortunately, today's salmon face a different set of challenges caused by climate change; less snow and earlier melting and dryer springs." A corresponding story in The Chronicle Herald newspaper from Nova Scotia also blames climate change for some of the problems in this river:

---

"Erosion from logging and tree clearing has widened the river, and climate change has reduced the spring rains, lowering the water level and stopping the fish at the mouth of the river. 'Twenty twelve was the biggest drought on record,' said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. 'It was the year all the flashing lights came on.'"

The climate change flashing lights came on in 2012? This story appears to provide another textbook example of how -- despite being in office since 2006 -- the Conservative Party has failed to clean up the federal science bureaucracy. I would also suggest Ministers MacKay and Aglukkaq pay closer attention to what is going in departments they are affiliated with. There is a nearby long-term climate station at Sydney, Nova Scotia in the Environment Canada Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD) database. Over the past century, there is not even a slight hint of a significant trend in spring temperatures for this region. In the past decade, five of the last 10 years have had spring temperatures below the century-long average. Warmer springs due to climate change? Over the last century, there is a significant increasing trend in spring precipitation for the area. Yes, springtime is getting wetter in the region over the last 100 years, not drier. During the past 30 years, there is -- admittedly -- a trend towards drier springs, but this is just a recent short-term pattern within a longer term trend of overall increasing spring precipitation. The average spring precipitation over the past three decades has been substantially higher than the century-long average (i.e., springs are still wetter now in the region than they were a century ago). The spring of 2012 was only the ninth driest in the last 100 years -- hardly a crisis. Compare this with the fact that four of the ten wettest springs during the last century have come within the last 20 years, and 10 of the last 20 years have seen above average spring precipitation. It is details like these which represent the type of science communication to the public that Parks Canada and the media should be engaged in. And the claim that "Twenty twelve was the biggest drought on record,' said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. 'It was the year all the flashing lights came on'" seems odd. Looking at the climate data for nearby Sydney, it appears that 2012 had total precipitation above the century-long average -- in other words, it was a wetter than normal year for the area. During the last 100 years, there is a massively significant trend towards increasing annual precipitation in this part of Nova Scotia. Furthermore, there isn't even a statistically significant trend in annual temperatures for the area over the last century, just a cycle whereby the region warmed from the 1910s to the 1940s, cooled from the 1950s to the 1980s, and has warmed over the past few decades -- but not yielding an overall significant trend. There is also an Environment Canada hydrometric station on the river (01FC002: Cheticamp River above Robert Brook) with data up to 2008 (the latest year with complete data available). Over the past 30 years, I see no significant trends in annual average, minimum, or maximum flows, nor in the average flows for any single month -- including and especially the springtime period. It looks like Parks Canada needs to be much more careful when it comes to assessing climate change. Rather than jump to the knee-jerk activist type press release statements, instead take the time to analyze the data and accurately communicate the results clearly and in detailed form to the public without any over-generalizations.