Weather: Appearance before the Standing Committee – December 14, 2023

Extreme weather events and alerting capabilities

Q1. Who is responsible for alerting the Canadian public of severe and extreme weather?

• ECCC is Canada’s authoritative voice for impact-based forecasts, warnings and services related to weather, water quantity, climate, ice, and air quality conditions across Canada on a 24/7 basis.
• Other alerts fall within the responsibility and jurisdiction of other federal partners, or provincial, territorial, or municipal authorities supported by ECCC expertise and information. For example, provinces and territories are responsible for flood forecasting, issuing of flood warnings and emergency management activities within their jurisdictions, with enhanced support from ECCC.
• ECCC’s prediction and warning services are essential to facilitate the role of federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal organisations to anticipate, manage, and adapt to the risks created by rapid hazards such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, and extreme heat, as well as slow on-set hazards such as droughts, coastal erosion, and sea level rise.
• ECCC’s Warning Preparedness Meteorologists work directly with public authorities at the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal levels to provide decision making support before and during severe and extreme weather events. This expertise extends to the provision of advice on potential actions that can be taken to mitigate impacts, save lives and reduce property damage.
• ECCC disseminates a variety of weather products, statements, watches, and warnings to Canadians through multiple channels including weather.gc.ca, social media (X and Facebook), and the WeatherCAN mobile app. For life-saving alerts on radio, television, and cellphones dissemination also take place through the National Public Alerting System (NPAS), and for a specific set of meteorological phenomena, namely extreme thunderstorms of a certain magnitude, and tornadoes, a broadcast intrusive alert is issued. NPAS is overseen by federal, provincial, and territorial emergency management officials, with federal leadership provided by Public Safety Canada.
• ECCC provides daily weather information and support to the Government Operations Center (GOC). Additionally, when Public Safety Canada activates the GOC in response to events affecting the national interest, ECCC provides specialized products, shares strategic assets/resources, and provides Subject Matter Experts and Liaison Officers to the GOC, as required to support analysis and response.

Q2. How is severe and extreme weather impacting Canadians today?

• Canadians are experiencing more frequent and intense extreme and severe weather and environmental events. In today’s changing climate, insured catastrophic losses now regularly reach $2B annually where in the decade before 2008 these same costs averaged $450M per year. Extreme weather events experienced across Canada over the past several years have shown how climate change has already altered our reality and put the safety, security, and economic prosperity of Canadians at risk. For example:
  • In 2023’s record Canadian wildfire season, over 18 million hectares burned, which is over seven times the 10-year average;
  • Between 2022 and 2023, Canada saw several disruptive and damaging hydrological events: summer storms caused flash flooding in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; extreme low water levels on the Mackenzie River disrupted shipping activities in the North; and the entire Winnipeg River basin experienced historic flooding;
  • In 2022, Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec, with the Maritime provinces receiving the bulk of the currently estimated $804M in insured damages;
  • In 2022, Quebec and Ontario were impacted by a derecho (a severe, fast-moving wind and thunderstorm) that caused 10 fatalities, and is currently estimated to have caused over $1.1B in insured damages;
  • In 2021, British Columbia experienced an unprecedented summer heat wave which set record high temperatures for the west coast and caused the deaths of 619 people, as well as a devastating precipitation and flooding event which caused up to $675M in insured damages; and,
  • In 2021, the Calgary region of Alberta experienced a powerful hailstorm resulting in over $600M in insured damages. Only a year prior, Alberta was impacted by another hailstorm that caused over $1.1B in insured damages.
• Strong weather and environmental prediction services are critical to help Canadians prepare and respond to increasingly unprecedented weather and its impacts.

Q3. What is being done in Canada and around the world to help people prepare and respond to the increasing frequency and severity of severe and extreme weather and climate events?

• The United Nations has recognized the importance of protecting the global population from the effects of hazardous weather using Early Warning Systems, setting a target of 100% coverage worldwide by 2027.
• Early warning systems are a critical tool for building resilience and for adaptation; they save lives and help to protect critical infrastructure – at minimal cost.
• We are continuously strengthening delivery of services, advice and alerts to Canadians, including last-mile initiatives, and we are exploring development of an Early Warnings Strategy for Canada.
• Canada, as it works to improve the effectiveness and reach of domestic information and warnings, is also a key contributor to the World Meteorological Organization’s global efforts to achieve the above target.
• In addition to sharing our scientific and technical expertise with the WMO, our contributions include funding support to:
  • The Climate Risk Early Warnings Systems (CREWS) initiative which undertakes work to establish warning systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
  • The Systematic Observations Financing Facility, which seeks to fill gaps in the global basic observation network (GBON) focusing again on SIDS and LDCs for monitoring infrastructure investments.
  • Investing in CREWS and SOFF will improve emergency preparedness and build resilience around the world, and will help avert, minimize and address loss and damage in LDCs and SIDS.

Investments in Canada’s hydrometeorological services

Q1. What do recent investments in Canada’s Hydro-Meteorological Services enable?

• ECCC is receiving $52.1M in supps B for 2023-24 to strengthen Canada’s hydro-meteorological services. This is part of funding received in Budget 2023 in the amount of $643.5M over ten years and $62.33M ongoing, to reinvest in Canada’s Hydro-Meteorological Services.
• This funding specifically renews sunsetting initiatives and supports incremental improvements to ensure continued access to hydro-meteorological data, information, and services that Canadians need to make decisions on a daily basis that support economic activity, environmental stewardship, as well as individual and community safety.
• These investments will allow ECCC to continue delivering mission-critical operations, address first order capacity gaps and infrastructure rust-out, and keep its technologies and systems up to date.

Q2. Why are further investments in Canada’s hydro-meteorological services needed?

• The Government of Canada regularly invests in hydro-meteorological services to keep pace with evolving operational requirements and advancements in science and technology. Previous investments made through Budgets 2013, 2018, 2022 (FES) and 2023 have secured the foundation of the robust hydro-meteorological services we rely on in Canada today.
• In light of the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and their direct impacts on Canadians and communities, there is a need to continue to evolve our hydro-meteorological services.
• Average temperatures in Canada are rising at twice the worldwide average, with the north seeing increases up to three times this global rate. Indeed, extreme weather events experienced across Canada over the past several years have shown how climate change has already altered our reality and put the safety, security, and economic prosperity of Canadians at risk. For example:
  • In 2023’s record Canadian wildfire season, over 18 million Hectares burned, which is over seven times the 10-year average;
  • Between 2022 and 2023, Canada saw several disruptive and damaging hydrological events: summer storms caused flash flooding in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; extreme low water levels on the Mackenzie River disrupted shipping activities in the North; and the entire Winnipeg River basin experienced historic flooding;
  • In 2022, Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec, with the Maritime provinces receiving the bulk of the currently estimated $804M in insured damages;
  • In 2022, Quebec and Ontario were impacted by a derecho (a severe, fast-moving wind and thunderstorm) that caused 10 fatalities, and is currently estimated to have caused over $1.1B in insured damages;
  • In 2021, British Columbia experienced an unprecedented summer heat wave which set record high temperatures for the west coast and caused the deaths of 619 people, followed by devastating precipitation and flooding event which caused up to $675M in insured damages; and,
  • In 2021, the Calgary region of Alberta experienced a powerful hailstorm resulting in over $600M in insured damages. Only a year prior, Alberta was impacted by another hailstorm that caused over $1.1B in insured damages.
• The significant socio-economic impacts of these events underscore the urgent need for Canadian communities to adapt to this new reality, which cannot be achieved without periodic investments in Canada’s world-class hydro-meteorological services. Recent events have also highlighted the need to invest in climate-proofing Canada’s own monitoring instruments and infrastructure, which are not immune to the impacts of climate change.
  • During the 2021 west coast heat wave, temperatures occasionally exceeded the operating range of sensors and associated quality control mechanisms while several hydrometric stations were washed away during the subsequent intense precipitation and flooding in British Columbia.
• Extreme weather events will continue to occur with increasing frequency and intensity because of climate change. Transforming and evolving weather and environmental prediction services is needed to support Canadians as they face the consequences of increasingly unprecedented weather.

Q3. What are the expected outcomes of new investments in Canada’s hydrometeorological services?

• Investments in Canada’s highly integrated system of monitoring, modelling, prediction, and forecasting will support the production and dissemination of critical weather, water quantity and environmental information that Canadians and public authorities need to adapt and to become more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
• More specifically, investments will help ECCC predict extreme weather and weather-induced conditions and their impacts at the local level with more certainty and greater lead-time.
• In turn, this will support decision-making by Canadians and public authorities in taking action relating to whether they should travel, closing roads, deploying first responders to a specific area, and relocating specific communities, all with the goal of reducing the impacts—and costs—of weather-related events.
• Additionally, the information produced using updated and new technologies, alongside more powerful environmental models, will provide the information needed to review warning thresholds and risk assessments that underpin emergency preparedness for both rapid onset weather events and events that evolve slowly (such as droughts).

Weather stations and weather forecasts in the North

Q1. What are some of the Government of Canada’s assets and investments related to weather stations and weather forecasting in the North?

• The Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) observation assets in the Arctic (North of 60°) include 83 automated weather stations (81 in the Territories and 2 in Northern Quebec), 2 Co-operative Climate Network (CCN) stations, 11 upper air balloon launch stations, 10 lightning detection instruments, 1 satellite receiving station, 2 seasonal moored marine buoys, 207 hydrometric (water quantity) monitoring stations (with 4 new stations being added in the Northwest Territories in 2024/2025 to support flood forecasting and modelling) and 21 active drifting buoys North of 60° (no geographical delineation). The MSC has also equipped a number of ships operating in the Arctic with weather observing equipment that provides valuable weather observations data from the Arctic waters.
• ECCC provides marine weather forecasts and sea ice information for the navigable waters of Canadian territory and fulfils Canada’s international obligation by providing marine weather and ice information for a broad swath of international waters north of 60⁰—an area that includes all Arctic waters from north of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska to the North Pole.
• Hourly surface weather observations are collected at the Eureka research facility, including upper air temperature, wind and humidity information from weather balloon launches (twice daily), data from automatic weather station observations, and other detailed weather condition reports from human observers. The site supports the MSC’s core responsibility of predicting weather and environmental conditions, including those in the North.
• Eureka, a Crown-owned real property asset, was the first Joint Arctic Weather Station established on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut. ECCC sought funding of $87.2 million over 5 years, beginning in 2019-20, for infrastructure investments at Eureka and surrounding facilities. These investments are necessary to maintain critical polar-region environmental observations, climate monitoring activities, and maintain Eureka as a key hub for Government of Canada operations and research in the Arctic.

Q2. Has there indeed been a decrease in the number of weather observation stations in the North compared to 20 years ago? If so, what are the reasons for that?

• The MSC operates a wide array of meteorological and hydrological networks to monitor and collect weather, water, climate data from the ground and above from satellites. The MSC collects data from 7 different observing networks including surface weather stations, upper air radiosondes, satellite-based observations, lightning detection, hydrometric stations, weather radars and marine buoys. In addition to automated collection of environmental data from weather stations, the MSC also intakes data from human and volunteer weather observers.
• MSC’s networks have changed over the years with the transition from traditional manual weather observing stations to automatic meteorological observing networks. The number of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) has been increasing, and the number of volunteer-run manual stations in the Co-operative Climate Network (CCN) has been decreasing. Over the last 20 years (2003-2023), the Arctic AWS network has increased by 18 stations (there are 83 AWS today). Over the last 20 years, the number of CCNs in the Arctic has decreased from 24 (2003) to 2 today (2023).
• Co-operative Climate Network (CCN) stations record weather observations (maximum, minimum and average temperature, precipitation amounts, and sometimes snow on ground) as part of a volunteer observer network and are therefore observed on a voluntary basis. The number of CCN sites has been decreasing with the transition to automatic meteorological observing networks. The decrease of manual observations over time is a worldwide phenomenon. Many factors contributed to the transition from manual to automatic including technology advancement; improvement of weather data applications; users requiring improved data latency, frequency, and resolution; requirements for additional parameters; decreased commitment from observers; observer retirements; end of land agreements; and end of collaborations.

Q3. Does Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) use data from community weather stations, or collect on-the-ground weather data?

• The MSC operates a wide array of meteorological and hydrological networks to monitor and collect weather, water, and climate data from the ground and above from satellites, including from areas across the Arctic.
• In addition to automated collection of environmental data from weather stations, the MSC also intakes data from human and volunteer weather observers.
• Co-operative Climate Network (CCN) stations record weather observations (maximum, minimum and average temperature, precipitation amounts, and sometimes snow on ground) as part of a volunteer observer network and are therefore observed on a voluntary basis. The number of CCN sites has been decreasing with the transition to automatic meteorological observing networks. The decrease of manual observations over time is a worldwide phenomenon. Many factors contributed to the transition from manual to automatic, including technology advancement; improvement of weather data applications; users requiring improved data latency, frequency, and resolution; requirements for additional parameters; decreased commitment from observers; observer retirements; end of land agreements; and end of collaborations.
• ECCC works closely with McGill University and the Nunatsiavut Government on a field project on the Labrador coast to provide sea ice and weather information to local communities and study the dynamics of landfast ice cover. Such valuable information is used by local communities for fishing, hunting and travelling, and contributes to the improvement of ice prediction models.
• The MSC partners with territorial weather monitoring network operators as part of its Collaborative Monitoring Program which aims to maximize collective monitoring investments by addressing common monitoring gaps. Through this initiative, ECCC has established Collaborative Monitoring Memorandum of Understanding with the Yukon and Northwest Territories. These agreements support increased data exchange, and to date have resulted in data from an additional 90 weather stations being made available to MSC forecasters and Numerical Weather Prediction systems. The MSC has also recently signed a Collaborative Monitoring Memorandum of Understanding with the Cree Nation Government in Northern Quebec as part of a pilot to inform future investments and collaborations with Indigenous and northern communities.

Q4. How do weather radar, satellites and high-resolution computer modelling factor into weather forecasting in the North, and what are some challenges ECCC has encountered in forecasting the weather in the North?

• ECCC relies on made-in-Canada high resolution computer models to provide weather, climate and environmental forecasts, across Canada’s vast geography and wide range of weather conditions. Areas across Canada, including the North, are modelled 4 times a day at a resolution of 2.5 km to generate forecasts on upcoming conditions.
• ECCC’s scientists work to improve high-resolution computer modelling, products and services, including for the North. For example, the Canadian Arctic Prediction System, which couples models for the atmosphere and ocean, was tested recently in research mode as part of the World Meteorological Organisation’s Polar Prediction Project.
• Satellites provide important data to strengthen weather and climate monitoring in the North where in situ observations can be challenging. Currently, weather forecasting north of ~55° relies on data from polar-orbiting meteorological satellites operated by foreign partners, including the USA and the European Union. ECCC also operates satellite ground stations that receive and process data from polar orbiting international weather satellites. To ensure continued access to critical satellite data from new polar orbiting satellites, ECCC will install new satellite data-receiving infrastructure in Alberta, Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut in the next three years.
• ECCC relies heavily on satellite technology and data from the orbiting RADARSAT Constellation Mission for operational near-real time monitoring of sea ice, marine winds and marine oil spill pollution. These satellites are expected to be in service until at least 2027. The Canadian Space Agency has initiated a process to ensure continuity of this data with the next generation of RADARSAT satellites. The MSC recognizes the need to increase observations of the Arctic region so we can improve weather forecasts and situational awareness for northern communities and aviation and maritime navigation sectors and strengthen our ability to predict and prepare for extreme weather events.
• While existing polar-orbiting satellites provide essential data used for monitoring weather in the North, these satellites must orbit Earth multiple times to image the entire Canadian Arctic. To address the resulting spatial and temporal gaps in Arctic satellite data, ECCC, in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency and U.S. collaborators (NASA and NOAA), is advancing a novel satellite mission concept known as the Arctic Observing Mission. The AOM would use a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) to generate data at unprecedented frequency and quality to monitor weather, greenhouse gases (GHGs), air quality and space weather to understand the changing environment at mid to high latitudes (from 45° to 90° N).

Q5. Does ECCC support NAV CANADA in the provision of forecasting services to communities in the North (including small airports)?

• ECCC provides the aviation weather forecasts on behalf of NAV CANADA for Arctic airports, and provides daily weather forecasts for communities across the North as well. ECCC provides specialized, meteorological decision support services to emergency management authorities to help them manage weather-related risks.