“Exceptional”, “worrying”, “abnormal”: eastern Canada shattered heat records this week, coming close to 30 degrees, worrying experts and the population who are experiencing increasingly extreme episodes, exacerbated by the climatic changes.
“This is unheard of for a day in October,” explains Jean-Philippe Bégin, meteorologist for Environment Canada.
The mercury reached 29.3°C on Wednesday in Montreal, surpassing the record for October of 26.7°C set in 2005.
At the top of Mount Royal, in the heart of the Quebec metropolis, the red leaves of the trees recall the beginning of autumn and yet, a summer air reigns among the onlookers, crushed by the heat.
“It’s certain that it raises questions,” confides Marcello Barsalou, backpack filled with water and black cap on his head, adding that “it’s abnormal,” before resuming his run to take advantage of the last sunny days before winter.
Marveling at the panorama of the city, many tourists “did not expect” such heat for the month of October.
Although the good weather is welcome, so much heat, “it makes us weird, especially in Canada,” says Christine Boileau, originally from the Paris region, while not far from there, André Martin, a 78-year-old from Marseillais accustomed to Montreal , finds this “really worrying”.
Expected flakes
For three days in a row, records were broken in Quebec as well as in adjacent provinces. But it won’t last.
By the end of the week, temperatures should drop below seasonal norms, with “snowflakes” expected in certain regions, underlines Jean-Philippe Bégin.
This demonstrates the “extreme nature” of these events, the intensity of which is likely to increase in the years to come because of climate change, warns the meteorologist.
The historic fire season that hit Canada from east to west is a prime example, experts say. More than 18 million hectares, or a third of mainland France, have burned this year, and 774 fires are still active.
Same story at the global level, where temperatures continue to crush records: after an unprecedented summer and a month of September that “beyond comprehension”, 2023 is now the hottest year ever measured out of the first nine month.
From January to September, “the global average temperature is 1.40 °C above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900)”, before the effect on the climate of greenhouse gas emissions from the humanity, the Climate Change Service (C3S) of the European Copernicus Observatory announced on Thursday.
And this average, already 0.05°C higher than for the record year of 2016, could further increase over the last three months of the year, given the strengthening of El Nino. This cyclical weather phenomenon over the Pacific, synonymous with additional warming, generally peaks around the Christmas period.