Description
The report summarizes observed climatic changes across Canada and Alberta. It briefly discusses the causes of climate change and the methodology for the detection and causal attribution of long-term trends and changes in the frequency or intensity of extreme events. The report summarizes observed and projected changes for more than 30 climate indicators, from the temperature of the coldest day of the year to average precipitation during the growing season. Future simulations are generated using a set of global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 5 (CMIP5), under higher (RCP8.5) and lower (RCP4.5) emissions scenarios, statistically downscaled to a high-resolution grid covering the entire province, and to 21 weather stations in Alberta. Local changes in the climate indicators are scaled to global mean temperature increases of +1, +1.5, and +2, +3 and +4OC.