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Blog #1 Markham’s weather is getting weird…
Hey, we are students from Milliken Mills High School and our names are Thuvarakan, Shamar, Keason, and Tayjon. We’re trying to figure out what climate change looks like in Markham and how it is having an impact on our city. We have looked at examples of climate change events around the world and in some places in Canada that are more easily attributable to climate change and global warming, but what we must say up front is that we are not suffering much here, at least not suffering much in a consistent way that we could readily attribute to climate change.
Our Inquiry question that has been driving our research is focused around looking for the impacts of climate change in our own backyard and trying to determine if these are climate related or just historical weather patterns that are happening. The media in Markham has not really spent much ink on climate change but you would have to be living under a rock not to notice some strange things that have been happening here. The Toronto Star had this to say the other day - February 18th:
Toronto breaks 1984 record for highest temperature
The 33-year-old record high of 14.9C was broken on Thursday after temperatures hit 15.1C at 11 a.m. The temperature high for the afternoon is expected to reach 18C.
And on February 7th Blog TO wrote:
Freezing rain wreaks havoc on Toronto
These headlines come with a not so subtle message that may not be translating directly to the public: Climate Change is causing all of this. People on the ground are feeling the impacts but maybe still not connecting these weather events to GHG reductions. Note some of the tweets from the “ice storm” on the 7th of February:
Freezing Rain Warning remains in Effect: At this time many surface routes continue to experience delays due to icy road conditions.#TTC
- Toronto Hydro
- ✔@TorontoHydro
- We're experiencing an outage in the Bloor West Village area: Bloor/Lake/Humber River/Park Side Drive. ETOR is approx. 1.5hrs. #darkTO
- Follow
the ultimate @trixxybits
- Dude. Have you seen Toronto. At least for you its rain, we're under a freezing rain ice storm alert here. This rain hurts like hell.. https://twitter.com/DOMtheB0MB/status/829042161102393344 …
- Freezing Rain Covered The Trees
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10 Comment(s)
Here in Calgary its rather hard to notice climate due to our naturally stupid weather. Unlike all of you guys, since we are situated next to the Rocky mountains we get 'Chinooks' which can dramatically raise the temperature in the dead of winter. Thus we have had temperatures rise to the 20's in the middle of February, only to be followed by a week of -15 to -20. Which was nicely regarded as climate change brought on by the oil sands from good ole Leonardo DiCaprio. Even this week we had temperatures well above 0, for it only to drop a huge ton of snow on us today.
Though, I have been noticing more snow falls during the spring/summer here. In months like early September, May, and even June we've seen snow fall from the skies. I don't remember it ever snowing in May for the most part, but for the last 3 years it has.
Is freezing rain not common in Ontario?
Heyy!!
The weather has been crazy in toronto too. We are almost in April and we still have snow fall. I totally agree with your blog and i found it really fascinating when i read it. I think that this is an important issue that we all should discuss and research about it. Here's a link you might want to read over you might discover new facts you never would have figured out on your own ! Good luck with the rest of your research!!
Heyy!!
The weather has been crazy in toronto too. We are almost in April and we still have snow fall. I totally agree with your blog and i found it really fascinating when i read it. I think that this is an important issue that we all should discuss and research about it. Here's a link you might want to read over you might discover new facts you never would have figured out on your own ! Good luck with the rest of your research!!
I also live in Toronto and have been experiencing this crazy weather. I am researching the impact that climate change has on human health. Our topics are related because this crazy weather we have been having here in the gta has a direct impact on human health. I hope our research can help Toronto put a stop to climate change and this crazy weather.
I found this link that I think might help you with your research https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/understanding-link-between-climate-change-and-extreme-weather
Good luck with your future research. :) #Climate150
-Stuart Moffat
Hey guys, I found this blog very interesting because it's different, you guys have a different opinion and I respect that. You talked about how you see little climate change effects in Markham. I suggest being more specific on what occurred in your area, you guys said your not sure if the events happening in your area are results of climate change or just historical weather patterns, you should give an example of something that happened locally that was a little erratic or out of sequence. This would show us readers why you believe climate change has little relations with Markham’s weather patterns. Our inquiries show little comparison, because yours talks about climate change affecting local weather patterns, whereas mine is focused on climate change effects through Toronto's Transportation & Infrastructure. I also like how you used an article of climate change affects to support your inquiry, but try focusing on articles more locally to help build your blog.
It’s definitely difficult to notice the changes of climate change in your day to day life given how small they are but the ice storm was a good reality checking. Especially since I live in Toronto and saw it happen with my own eyes although it was breathtakingly beautiful after it was over it was painfully cold the night of. My power went out and I had to sleep in full winter attire, you think I was going on a expedition to the North pole. Here’s a link to a Toronto Star report about the ice storm of 2013.
I found this blog interesting in terms of focusing your research with personal surroundings and what they have noticed to do this research. I think you should be more specific in terms of what impacts you see in your backyard and how that relates to the impacts of climate change or historical weather patterns. This is different from what I have researched because I focused it on how transportation impacts climate change. It’s nice to see everyone’s focus and interest is different when coming to a solution with climate change. I also like how you have included examples from the past with articles.
Wow! With regards to the ice storm, I wonder how much damage the disruption in power supply or power outages causes in Markham or was it just in the areas mentioned in your post?
Also, I wonder if it would it be beneficial to interview a focus group of diverse Markham residents in your community on how they perceive the weather has been changing over the years?
Hey Keason,
You guys are right: I think the entire country is feeling the effects of extreme weather events.
This is a resource from NASA. I doubt you'll be able to find any information on Markham specifically, but it could be a starting point or complement the research you've already done: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temper... Check out the graph on the right hand side by sliding the cursor along the timeline. Quite worrisome, is it not?
I'll be following up to see what you guys have come up with in your Inquiry.
Cheers!
Jessica (program assistant @ GreenLearning)
I find it interesting that you can so easily see the effects of climate change through the weather in your own city. Regardless of where we live, we have all seen generally higher temperatures as well as severe weather occurrences. For us in Manitoba, we have experienced a week's worth of spring weather followed by three days of blizzards, blowing snow, and bitter cold. While we are both researching the local effects of climate change, your group seems to be focusing more on the environmental and weather aspect, whereas our group is focusing on the aspect of human lives and their well being. I look forward to reading your future blog entries.
Aaron
Apr 2, 2017