Sierra Club focuses on Arctic global warming

MONTREAL — The Sierra Club of Canada, a well-known environmental lobby group, has launched a new television commercial that highlights the impact of global warming on the Arctic.

The commercial shows the disastrous effect of receding sea ice on polar bear populations, and the hardship that more snowfall brings to the endangered Peary caribou.

“Our way of life is on the edge of extinction. Plants and animals are dying,” said Rosemarie Kuptana, a former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference who was recruited to host the 30-second spot.

The commercial’s release last week coincided with the release of Environment Canada’s annual weather bulletin.

It confirmed that in 1999, Canadian temperatures were above normal by 1.5 degrees C., making it the third warmest year of the past 52.

The 1990s were the warmest decade on record in Canada, followed by the 1980s. Canada’s warmest year ever was 1998.

Yet this doesn’t mean that the eastern Arctic has recorded significantly warmer temperatures — yet.

“If you look at weather patterns for the next 40 years, you’ll see a significant warming in the Eastern Arctic, but mainly in the winter,” said Brian Paruk, a meteorologist with Environment Canada’s Arctic Weather Centre.

He said the two main influences on Arctic weather to date have been the “incredible retreat” of the sea ice and the resulting increase in precipitation.

More open water produces more rain, and due to the lower temperature of this open water, summer temperatures also dipped, particularly along the Davis Strait.

In fact, in the 1990s some areas of the eastern Arctic experienced one of the “top ten coolest years” recorded in the past 50 years. Nunavut had its fifth wettest year since 1948.

Paruk said that ice conditions are expected to return to near normal this year.

For Nunavut, this means that the long-range forecast is for a cool spring and warmer-than-average summer.

Temperatures next fall should also register below average, although the onset of frigid weather could be delayed.