The Sixth Estate

With a couple of major headline posts out of the way, for a while now the main contributions of the Canadian Climate Survey will be the publication of pages tracking historical and average temperatures in cities and towns across the country, as part of an effort to put something of a local face on global climate change. And for that reason, it seemed logical to begin with the centre of the known universe Toronto.*

Trend: During the 1980s, the 10-year average annual temperature was 9.0 ˚C. This increased by 0.7 ˚C to 9.7 ˚C during the past 10 years.

Temperature Extremes: Since 1840, Toronto has experienced 15 years in which the average temperature was 9.9 ˚C or more; 10 (67%) of Toronto’s hottest years have occurred since 1990, including the seven hottest years on record. In contrast, of Toronto’s 100 coldest years, none occurred since 1990. The coldest year since then, 1992 (at 8.5 ˚C), was Toronto’s 103rd-coldest year on record.

Long-Term Consequences: Assuming this reflects a steady rate of increase, the annual average temperature in Toronto will rise by 3.2 ˚C to 12.9 ˚C by the year 2100, and then to 26.9 ˚C by the year 2500.

* Data for this chart was taken from the Environment Canada homogenized data archive.