Climate Change

• Human Activities Leading to Emissions
• Stress to the Atmosphere
• Climate Warming
• Potential Impacts
• Societal Responses
• Future Options

What is climate change?

As a natural process of the climate system, the Earth's climate has been forever changing. Climate change in the last 100 years, however, is thought to have been caused by human activities, in particular greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Early signs of this change, such as increased mean annual temperatures and thinner sea ice, have been observed in many regions of the world. According to global climate models, continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions will cause further changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climate variables, with the global mean temperature likely to rise by about 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. While these changes may bring about such potential benefits as longer, warmer growing seasons, improved navigation in ice-covered waters, and lower space heating costs for the regions with a cold climate, it is expected that their negative consequences for human beings and wildlife could be overwhelming, including an increase in droughts, floods, the spread of diseases, and the disruption of the environment. To stabilize the level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and, thereby, minimize climate change, the global human community is facing a challenge of sharply reducing its annual greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.

A more detailed introduction to climate change can be found in The Issue of Climate Change.

For more in-depth information on climate change, please refer to the Natural Resources Canada's Geographical Portal for Climate Change. It features a data-searching tool that allows the user to search for climate change related data that are registered into the metadata base of the Discovery Portal of GeoConnections.

This series of maps

This map series aims to provide policy makers, researchers and the general public with a geographical perspective to climate change. The series also attempts to integrate human activities and the environment, and links science and government policy. Structured under six subtopics, this first phase of this map series has 45 maps and three animations available, as follows:

• Climate Warming: This subtopic has 18 maps portraying climate change scenarios (12 maps at the global scale and six maps for Canada) and two animations showing temperature and precipitation changes for Canada from 1991 to 2070.
• Potential Impacts of climate change (physical environment): This module has seven maps depicting the likely effects of climate change on the landscape such as on coastal areas and river regions, and on landscape processes such as forest fires and wind erosion. The three forest fire maps are also presented in a single animation.
• Stress to the Atmosphere (greenhouse gas emissions): Currently three maps are included in this module, showing greenhouse gas emissions, provincial trends in these emissions and the relationship of the emissions to the nature of provincial economies.
• Human Activities leading to GHG emissions (transportation): This subtopic includes 15 maps showing average fuel efficiency and market share of new light duty vehicles for the year 1990 and for the projected changes from 1990 to 2010 (1990 and 2010 are the base year and target year of the Kyoto Protocol).
• Societal Responses (renewable energies): In this subtopic only one map is provided in this phase, showing case studies currently underway across Canada for the development of renewable energies, the long-term strategy for reducing GHG emissions.
• Future Options (potential effect) This subtopic has a single map: it represents the response of vehicle fuel efficiency to potential fuel price increases across Canada. This map also serves as a showcase for using geospatial information in support of greenhouse gas reduction policies.

Details on the conceptual construction of this map series can be found in Conceptual Framework for the Climate Change Map Series.

Future activities for this map series

The second phase of this map series will expand the themes above, especially in the human dimension of climate change. Additions to each of the subtopics are intended to be as follows:

• Climate warming: include national climate change maps based on simulations made with regional climate models
• Potential impacts of climate change: represent potential environmental, economic and social consequences of climate change for ecosystems, sea ice, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and for human health
• Stress to the atmosphere: cover other GHG sources and carbon sinks, and expand the scale to the globe
• Human activities leading to GHG emissions: expand the scale to the globe, and expand the scope to cover many sectors of the economy, including industrial, commercial, residential, agriculture, waste production, and land use patterns
• Societal responses: represent other major actions that Canadians are undertaking, such as the federal government's Technology Early Action Measures, Fuel Efficiency Incentive Program, the Voluntary Challenge and Registry Program and the program of EcoCommunities as well as global actions if data are available
• Future options: portray the potential effects of various future options for reducing GHG in Canada, and their regional implications, based on the assessments conducted by the Analysis and Modelling Group of the National Climate Change Process

Principles of this map series

Uncertainties exist with virtually all knowledge on climate change. Based on extensive partnerships with the climate change community, the creation of the Geographical Perspective to Climate Change uses the general principles of the Atlas, namely:

• Use authorative knowledge if it is available
• Use the best knowledge available
• Use multiple knowledge sources if they are all considered best knowledge
• Emphasize complete coverage of the Canadian landmass

To ensure the application of these principles, the creation of this map series was based on broad consultations with the climate change community about the themes of concern. An advisory group has also been formed to undertake the review of the first phase of this map series, and to provide advice for the following development.