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Record-breaking warmth for October

Grise Fiord beats previous record high by 11 degrees

JANE GEORGE

A combination of record-breaking warm weather and strong winds shocked residents in some Nunavut communities this week who were expected snow squalls instead of warm winds.

On Monday, Oct. 16, in Pangnirtung, the temperature peaked at 11.3°C, breaking 2003’s high of 11. Along with this warmth came winds of between 50 and 100 kilometres an hour.

The blustery, warm weather was a big change from conditions in 1998, when there were already 31 centimetres of snow on the ground in Pangnirtung.

The normal temperature range in Pangnirtung for this time of the year is a low of -10°C to a high of -3°C.

In Grise Fiord on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 16 and 17, winds blew a boat around, while ice was melting everywhere.

On Tuesday, the high reached 6°C, which is a full 20 degrees higher than the average high for that date of -14. This high also broke the previous record, -5°C, set back in 1973.

But it’s not the first time Grise Fiord has experienced a big wave of warm weather in October. On Oct. 18, 2003, the temperature in Grise Fiord reached 7.5°C.

In Iqaluit, the temperature reached 6.8°C on Sunday, Oct. 15, and 6.9°C on Monday, Oct.16, also a record-breaker for that day. The next highest temperature for that date, 5.4°C, was set in 2001. In 1976, the temperature on Oct. 16 was -21.7°C and there was already 20 cm of snow on the ground.

According to Environment Canada’s Arctic Weather Bureau in Edmonton, Alberta, the situation is unusual but not unexpected when storms move across the Arctic.

“You’re starting to get into the transition season. You see a lot of severe storms in the Arctic, so this is the time of year you see the fluctuations,” said meterologist Mel Lemmon.

Lemmon said Environment Canada wants to have a remote weather station in Grise Fiord so it can better record what is happening to its weather there.

But do two recent October melt-downs in Nunavut’s most northerly community prove climate change is happening? Lemmon said it’s very difficult to link any one event to changes in the environment.

However, Environment Canada is predicting another warm winter for 2006-07.

So is sun-watcher Wayne Davidson of Resolute Bay, whose past predictions, based on the shape of the sun, have been dead-on. His projection for early winter: the same as 2005, just as warm, and perhaps with identical weather patterns.

Canada experienced its warmest winter ever in 2005.

Scientists noted then that ice in the Arctic failed to re-form for the second consecutive winter. Satellite measurements of the Arctic areas usually covered by sea ice showed that, every month last winter, the sea ice did not make up for recent losses due to melting.

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