Flood Risk and Vulnerability Analysis Project - Atlantic Climate ...

Area
Labrador West Central East
Summer 2020 0.8 1.0 0.9 0.9
Summer 2050 1.5 1.8 1.8 1.7
Summer 2080 2.9 3.7 3.7 3.6
Winter 2020 3.2 2.1 2.1 1.9
Winter 2050 4.7 3.0 2.9 2.7
Winter 2080 8.7 5.7 5.6 5.3
Table 3-9. Change in temperature ( o C) relative to 1961-1990 average
temperatures.
While Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves/values were not calculated for the various time
periods into the future, it is reasonable to expect the IDF values for the various return periods
and durations to increase by the proportion as the values listed in Table 3-8 compared to
current IDF values. This will be explored more in Section 3.4.2
3.4.1.3 Other Studies
There have been few academic publications and little climatic downscaling work dealing with
anticipated temperature and precipitation changes resulting from global warming in
Newfoundland and Labrador. The typical discussion point for climate change in the region in
and around Newfoundland and Labrador is usually concerned with predicted changing pressure
patterns and/or the expected changes to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). However, while
pressure patterns and the NAO are important drivers of precipitation and temperature, they will
affect the different parts Newfoundland and Labrador in different ways. The NAO will be
specifically commented on in Section 3.4.5. Most available documents that discuss expected
changes to temperature and precipitation over the province are typically Government of Canada
publications. Even then many of these documents discuss Atlantic Canada as a whole or
Quebec/Labrador [Catto, 2010]. Three documents that discuss Newfoundland and Labrador
specifically are Richter and Barnard (2004) Lines et al. (2008) and Vasseur and Catto (2008).
Richter and Barnard (2004) examined a variety of model scenarios for the province as a whole
for the 2020 time period and broke the results into whether they were the wettest/driest and/or
coldest/warmest etc. They found that in 2020 the temperature during the summer months
would increase by approximately 1 o C to 2 o C depending on the model run and for the winter
months approximately 0.5 o C to 3 o C depending on the model run and the month involved. These
are comparable to the results shown in Table 3-9. Correspondingly, Richter and Barnard (2004)
found that in 2020 the precipitation could change by anywhere from -10% to +20% depending
on the model run. The “middle of the road” model run suggests a neutral or slightly negative
change in precipitation during summer and an increase of up to 10% during fall. Only the
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