Director of Environment With The Nuclear Innovation Institute Explains The Impact Of Climate Change On Huron County
by Bob Montgomery
Huron County is like anywhere else on our planet right in that we are affected by Climate Change, and the last few winters, with the exception of the last week or so, have certainly driven that point home.
But the Director of Environment With the Nuclear Innovation Institute says there are also a few things that make Huron County unique. One of them is the Great Lakes. Stephanie Keating says the Great Lakes is a very large body of water that tends to have its own ecosystem. And, she says one of things the Great Lakes impact in our area is snowfall. When the lakes, like Lake Huron, are not frozen and the cold air from the west reaches the lake, the warm water from the lake can rise up and form clouds and if that air continues to drift over us, it will bring a lot of snow fall. As we saw this past week. And as climate change continues to result in less ice on the lakes we can expect to see more lake effect snow.
Keating says a group called Climate Data Canada has done a lot of work in projecting the consequences of lowering greenhouse gases to various levels or not lowering them at all. But she says it's very difficult to make long-term predictions because it all depends on what we do to reduce greenhouse gases. She suggests it might be a little easier if we could get all of the countries in the world to agree on what would be acceptable, but we're not even close to that so predicting what we can expect in five or ten years is very difficult. And that becomes even more difficult because conditions change so dramatically in different parts of the world. Huron County and much of Central Ontario will not face the extreme flooding or droughts or forest fires that have become common in British Columbia, due in part because of the Great Lakes.
Keating says we have to continue to do out best to reduce the affect of climate change but in some cases the best we can hope for is adapting to some of those changes. The climate project was funded by Bruce Power and more information about the impact of climate change can be found at climateproject.ca.
