LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – “Hell or High Water – A Canadian Perspective” was an engaging and entertaining climate talk by accredited meteorologist and award-winning television host and weather presenter Claire Martin. She used years of science, politics at play, and humor to share with an audience at the Lake Tahoe Community College’s Duke Theatre.
Not only do the United States and Canada share the largest undefended border, they also share the effects of climate change since weather does not stop at the border. Climate change is not just in one country, said Martin.
“It’s our common problem,” said Martin. “We need to work together since weather and climate knows no boundaries.”
Canada is experiencing a widespread drought, melting permafrost that is releasing methane, and higher temperatures than ever before experienced. But since change knows no seasons, the country is also seeing rainier, snowier, and windier storms. Martin said the melting of the permafrost is the number one problem and causes more problems than do increased population or vehicles. There are now cruise ships going through Canada’s Northwest Passage to visit the Artic Ocean and Northwest Territories. They can now tour year-round as the ice is melting and ships are not being blocked on their journey.
Martin acknowledged the words “climate change” can be divisive, no matter what country one is in, and even in Canada the hate mail comes out when those words are used. She said she knows climate change has become political but education is key in dealing with nay-sayers.
“Weather and climate won’t change, but politicians and leaders will,” said Martin.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), the jobs of meteorologists on Martin’s team got easier. AI used all of their data over the last four decades to develop forecasts, leaving meteorologists to work on the “big stuff” and leave the little things like daily forecasts to AI.
In Canada, January is normally their snowiest month. When Florida received snow recently, their one-day total surpassed that of most of the cities across Canada, by far.
In 2021, the Western North American heat wave stretched from Northern California to British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon, The temperature anomalies killed over 1,400 people in Canada, 616 of them in just British Columbia between June 25 and July 1. About 600 deaths across Oregon and Washington were attributed to that heat wave. One day after Lytton, British Columbia experienced the hottest day on record in Canada (121.3F) a wildfire swept through, destroying the town.
The extreme heat also damaged road and rail infrastructure, forced closures of businesses, disrupted cultural events, and melted snowcaps, in some cases resulting in flooding. The heat wave also caused extensive damage to agriculture across the region, resulting in substantial loss of crop yield and the death of 651,000 farm animals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated that the heat wave caused at least $8.9 billion (2021 USD) in damages in the USA.
This was just one year, but looking at the data since 1850, the global mean temperature of the world has been on a steady upward trend. 2024 was the warmest year on record, above the pre-industrial levels, and the past ten years have all been in the Top Ten. Martin said this is an extraordinary streak of record-breaking temperatures. (See photos below)
Martin said Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and Canada’s Arctic is warming nearly four times as fast. Besides the degrading permafrost, Canada is having more hot extremes, heatwaves and wildfires; shifting rainfall patterns and heavy downpours; reduced ice cover and glacial retreat; and more intense wave seasons along their three coasts.
As part of her duties with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) as its senior advisor to the director general of the Prediction Services Directorate, Martin represented the country at COP21, the 21st session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Paris, France in 2015. It was there that the Paris Agreement was created, the legally binding international treaty to combat climate change.
Besides being with the ECCC (from which she is now retired), Martin is an award-winning television meteorologist and was named Best Weather Presenter in the World in 2000 (Paris, France), 2001 (Quebec City, Canada), and 2003 (Zagreb, Croatia).
She was at Lake Tahoe as a guest of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority as part of the 28th Operation Sierra Storm, an annual national weather conference that brings scientist leaders and television meteorologists together. This year, there were 28 attendees from multiple television markets who provided live and taped shots from major drive and air service markets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Tampa, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Orlando, Cleveland, Charlotte, Nashville, Lansing, South Dakota, Alabama, and Reno.
