James Taylor is certainly not the only person to have seen fire and rain. This summer, Nova Scotia residents have suffered severe losses to the ravages of wildfire and torrential rain.
Hina Alam reporting for The Canadian Press describes to Global News correlation between wildfires and flooding in Nova Scotia.
Kent Moore, an atmospheric physics professor at the University of Toronto, Nova Scotia is about two degrees warmer than usual for this time of the year, Moore said. And as Nova Scotia and the rest of the planet heat up, the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour increases, he added.
“Water vapour is what produces clouds, and also produces rain. It is like an engine for weather.’
The last time Nova Scotia got more than 250 mm of rain — 296 mm fell on Aug. 15-16, 1971 — hurricane Beth hit the province. But Nova Scotia might not have to wait another 50 years for a similar weather event, Moore said, as extreme weather becomes more frequent.
“Scientists have predicted for many, many years that as we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we’re going to see a warming, and that will probably lead to more extreme conditions,” he said.
“When we talk about global warming, the impacts of that changing or increasing temperature, is we’re going to see more fluctuations, we’re going to see extreme events — extreme dry events, and also extreme rain events. And that’s what Nova Scotia has seen so far this year.” (Alam, 2022)
John Paul Tasker of CBC News reports that wildfires have already burned approximately 13.4 million hectares of land in Canada.
The "monumental fires" in Quebec and unusual fires in Nova Scotia have been "challenging" for the country's firefighting resources, Michael Norton, the director general of the northern forestry centre at the Canadian Forest Centre, said.
Federal data reveals just how devastating this wildfire season has already been with more than 5,500 fires reported so far — events that have burned approximately 13.4 million hectares. That stunning figure is significantly more than the 10-year average of 2.2 million hectares burned in any given year.
It also easily dwarfs the previous record of 7.6 million hectares reported in 1989 — and the season isn't even over yet. (Tasker, 2022)
Fire, Flood, and Fiona have been very costly to residents of Nova Scotia. Emergency action to mitigate and adapt to these climate crisis scenarios is immediately required by government, industry, and commerce.
References
Alam, H. (2022, August 30). Climate change: Correlation between wildfires, flooding in Nova Scotia. Global News. Retrieved July 25, 2023, from https://globalnews.ca/news/9854680/ns-flooding-climate-change-wildfires/?utm_source=%40globalhalifax&utm_medium=Twitter
Tasker, J. P. (2022, October 2). Wildfires have already burned approximately 13.4 million hectares of land. CBC News. Retrieved August 18, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-wildfire-season-worst-ever-more-to-come-1.6934284?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
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