St. Albert will likely have eight times as many heat waves by 2060 than it does today due to global heating, a new report predicts — heat waves the city should take steps today to protect people against.
The City of St. Albert published its Climate Adaptation Plan online Aug. 19. The 80-page document outlines how global heating is likely to shape the city’s climate by the 2060s, and steps the city should take to prepare for such changes.
Sturgeon County published a similar report earlier this year. Both reports stemmed from the Municipal Climate Change Centre’s Climate Adaptation Challenge program and were written with the help of the All One Sky Foundation.
Scorchers ahead
Data from the Climate Atlas of Canada suggests average annual temperatures in St. Albert will more than double by the 2060s to 7.3 C from 3.1 C, the report reads — a shift of roughly four degrees, similar to the one projected for Sturgeon County.
Four degrees is the difference between today’s conditions and an ice age, noted Jeff Zukiwsky, director of climate adaptation and resilience with the All One Sky Foundation. Earth has already warmed about 2 C from pre-industrial levels due to rising greenhouse-gas emissions, with northern regions such as Canada warming at about twice the global rate.
Without substantial cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions, the report found that St. Albert will likely have about three times as many “summer days” of at least 25 C weather a year on average by 2060 (73.4 versus 28.1) and about 19 times as many “extremely hot” days of at least 32 C (13 compared to 0.7). St. Albert will experience about 3.2 heat waves (three-plus days of 30 C or more) a year on average by the 2060s, or eight times the number it has today.
“The summer months are going to be longer, and they’re going to be hotter,” Zukiwsky said.
More heat results in more extreme weather such as thunderstorms, Zukiwsky noted. The report found St. Albert would get about three heavy precipitation days a year on average by the 2060s where at least 20 millimetres of rain or snow would fall — a 30-per-cent increase from the historic average.
These climate shifts could mean trouble ahead, the report found. More precipitation could mean more urban flooding as catch basins are overwhelmed, while hotter summers could put more seniors and infants at risk of heat stroke. St. Albert could also have a longer growing season, though, and fewer pothole-making freeze-thaw cycles.
Adaptation now
While it is important to reduce global heating by reducing fossil fuel use, St. Albert still must adapt to the warming that does occur, said Bill Marsh, chair of the city’s environmental advisory committee (which helped write the climate adaptation report).
“What do you do if you’re in a heat wave and you’re in a park and people start getting heat stroke?” he asked as an example.
The report recommends that the city create designated clean air and cooling shelters residents could use in the event of extreme heat or forest fire smoke. Last July, city officials identified St. Albert Place, the Jensen Lakes Library, and Servus Place as designated cooling locations.
Other measures listed in the report include partnering with greenhouses to develop city-wide urban agriculture, selling traction aids at city facilities, and using goats to combat invasive weeds.
Goats do like to eat weeds and could be used for weed control, but the city would have to study the potential costs of hiring a goat herder, Marsh said. He is personally interested in wastewater reuse for irrigation or industry, which is a practice the report recommends.
Administration has accepted the report and will update it regularly, city spokesperson Nicole Lynch said in an email.
The report is available at stalbert.ca/city/environment/reports/climate-adaptation-plan.
