‘We need to get moving on this’: new report details how the changing climate will change northern Ontario | CBC News

A new report forecasts that by the 2080s, northern Ontario will have rainy, warm winters and hot, dry summers.

The study commissioned by the provincial government says that will mean new opportunities in agriculture, but the erratic weather will also threaten everything from power lines, to highways, to water treatment plants, to the forest industry.

“Things have already changed, right? It’s been changing for a long time. We’ve experienced extreme weather. We know what it looks and what it feels like,” said Al Douglas, one of the report’s authors and the Sudbury-based president of the Climate Risk Institute. 

“We need to get moving on this, because climate change is outpacing what we’re doing. No more of these pilot studies and small scale stuff. We need to be really ramping it up.”

It’s a change in the weather

The report predicts that by the 2080s, large parts of northeastern Ontario, including major cities like Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay, could see as many as 55 days a year with plus 30 temperatures, where currently it only gets that hot about 10 days a year.

Similarly, winters will be a lot warmer. The report forecasts that for the James Bay Coast, the number of days when the mercury drops below minus 25 could be cut in half to about 20. Other parts of northern Ontario could only get a handful of days each winter when it’s that cold.

Those warmer winters will mean a lot less snow. Currently, winter precipitation takes the form of rain in northeastern Ontario between 0 and 30 per cent of the time, while in 60 years, it could increase to be between 40 and 60 per cent.

Infrastructure in peril

With the shifting weather and an increased chance of wildfires and flooding, the Climate Risk Institute says there is a danger of basic public services being disrupted for long periods of time.

This includes the winter roads that communities in the far north depend upon, but also highways, railroads, and water treatment plants, that could be overwhelmed by floodwaters and lead to a risk of contamination. 

Experts have predicted that there will be a need for massive investment in new hydro lines across northern Ontario to help with the electrification of vehicles and other industries, but this report also warns that shifting weather could lead to frequent blackouts and brownouts. 

Changing plants and animals

The Climate Risk Institute predicts that northern Ontario’s ecosystem will continue to change along with the warming climate, with some species declining and others on the rise.

The report says warmer winters and less snow cover, could see a decline in the moose population and an increase for white-tailed deer, who are also likely to be found much further north by the 2080s.

Warmer water could also affect stocks of the popular sport fish pickerel, also known as walleye, which could hurt northern Ontario’s tourist industry, traditionally dependent on American visitors. 

Experts also say that certain species, including the dusky salamander and woodland caribou, could disappear from the north altogether.

The Secret is in the swamp?

The report does recommend possible solutions and actions the province can take, including some rooted in the north.

It notes that there is an “unprecedented opportunity” in northern Ontario, where there is still a lot of largely untouched wilderness, to create a “protected area network” of peat swamps and boreal forest.

Douglas says these lands would provide both desperately needed habitat for animals, including those whose migration options may become more limited, as well as serving as a huge carbon storage area.

“The more that we do now to lock in carbon, the more opportunities we’ll have to build resilience and slow climate change down, so that we don’t have to worry about it rolling on,” he said. 

“We’re already locked in. We’re already locked in to a certain degree of change.”