The Impacts of Climate and Climate Change on Aviation in the Canadian North

• Main Author: Leung, Andrew Chi Wai
• Other Authors: Gough, William A, Physical and Environmental Sciences
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: aviation; climate change; fog; soil temperature; visibility; wind; 0768; Arctic; Canada; Hudson; Hudson Bay; Kuujjuaq; Nunavik; Climate change
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/95919

Aviation is inherently linked to meteorology as severe weather is often responsible for flight delays, cancellations and sometimes accidents. Climate change is expected to change the Arctic environment and the warming rate in this region is greater than most locations on Earth. With a changing climate, the risks of flying will also be changing. In Canada, many Arctic communities in Hudson Bay, Nunavik in northern Quebec and western Labrador rely heavily on aviation to transport passengers, mail and groceries because they lack road networks or railway to access larger settlements and shipping is limited to brief periods in summer. Using historical hourly and daily climate data, this thesis examines four topics related to flying: 1) wind pattern changes (1971 to 2010) at seven locations around Hudson Bay, northern Quebec and western Labrador; 2) fog and visibility trends at 16 Hudson Bay communities (1953-2014); 3) historic long-term soil temperature trends at 5 to 150 cm depths and future projections under three greenhouse gas concentration trajectories at Kuujjuaq, Quebec; 4) appearance and climate conditions for frostquakes. The results of these topics are: 1) an increase in hourly average and daily maximum wind speed around Hudson Bay region and declining trends in western Labrador, plus prevailing wind direction changed at two communities; 2) fog and ice fog frequencies declined but reduced and low visibility trends varied spatially within the Hudson Bay region; 3) soil warming at approximately 1oC per decade from 1967 to 1995 and future soil temperature will be above 0oC under all projected trajectories at Kuujjuaq; 4) identified that water-saturated soil, minimal snow cover and rapid temperature drop to below freezing causes frostquakes and that observations were somewhat dependent on the density of the observational network. Passengers travelling to and from Hudson Bay will benefit from the results of this research to better understand the risks associated with flying to these communities. Pilots, airport operators and airlines will improve their awareness of this issue and increase their understandings of the risks caused by climate change in this area. Improved safety will be achieved by anticipating, adapting to and mitigating these changes. Ph.D.