Close X
Thursday, November 28, 2024
ADVT 
National

B.C. Coast Should Brace For 'Monster' El Nino Year: University of Victoria Professor

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 22 Sep, 2015 12:46 PM
    VICTORIA — The "monster" El Nino weather system expected to hit Canada's West Coast later this fall and winter could lead to higher tides, flooding and erosion in low-lying coastal areas, says a professor at the University of Victoria.
     
    Ian Walker's warning comes out of part of a larger study by a group of researchers from five countries bordering the Pacific who looked into El Nino and La Nina weather systems. The study was published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
     
    Thirteen researchers from universities and government agencies tried to determine if patterns in coastal change, such as erosion and flooding, could be connected to major climate cycles, like El Nino and La Nina, across the Pacific.
     
    Walker, a geography professor whose specialties include beach and dune systems, coastal erosion and climate-change impacts, said he contributed data collected from the west coast of Vancouver Island, between Tofino and Ucluelet.
     
    "What makes B.C. kind of distinct in the broader Pacific Basin is that we see coastal erosion and flooding responses for both El Nino and La Nina," said Walker.
     
    "Now this year is a pretty monster El Nino, probably the largest ever witnessed. We know that in past El Ninos from here to California we've seen some of the highest historic rates of erosion. So we can prepare for that and we've seen that signal in our data."
     
     
    El Nino is a natural, tropical, ocean temperature phenomenon, in which warm water near the equator in the Pacific moves towards South America's northern coast and then turns northward, as far as Haida Gwaii and Alaska, said Walker. 
     
    "As warm things expand, we see a higher water level, on the order of tens of centimetres, depending on where you are," said Walker. "So that's super imposed on the tides and storms are then superimposed on top of that."
     
    The result can be higher ocean-water levels, he said.
     
    Contrast that to a La Nina, which typically follows an El Nino and is a phenomenon where the upwelling of cold water off northwest South American results in cooler coastal ocean waters along B.C.'s coast, said Walker.
     
    Less energy is available for storms and the ocean levels are lower, but what leads to erosion and flooding during a La Nina event is the track of the storms that plow directly into the central portion of Vancouver Island, said Walker. 
     
    "This is a big El Nino year, so we should be prepared but we should also be prepared as much for the La Nina which could follow in a couple years," said Walker. 
     
    The U.S. Geological Survey said in a news release that the research was important because the impact of El Nino and La Nina have not been included in studies about rising sea levels and coastal vulnerability.
     
    Other universities that participated in the study included the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales in Australia and New Zealand's University of Waikato.

    MORE National ARTICLES

    Charges Laid In Arsons, Shootings Targeting B.C. Justice Institute

    Charges Laid In Arsons, Shootings Targeting B.C. Justice Institute
    Two men have been arrested and charged for attacks on more than a dozen people linked, sometimes in the most tenuous way, to the institute that trains British Columbia's police officers

    Charges Laid In Arsons, Shootings Targeting B.C. Justice Institute

    Jarrod Sidhu Joins Vancouver Police, To Work With Father Police Sergeant Tej Sidhu

    Jarrod Sidhu Joins Vancouver Police, To Work With Father Police Sergeant Tej Sidhu
    Jarrod Sidhu is one of the 13 new recruits who joined the department on Thursday and is posted under his father, Tej Sidhu, who is a sergeant with the Vancouver police department

    Jarrod Sidhu Joins Vancouver Police, To Work With Father Police Sergeant Tej Sidhu

    Toronto Police Hunt For Indian-Origin Uber Cab Driver Amritpal Singh For Molesting Woman

    Toronto Police Hunt For Indian-Origin Uber Cab Driver Amritpal Singh For Molesting Woman
    Listed as Amritpal with the cab service company, he is described as a young man between 26 and 30 years of age, short black spiked hair and a short chin-strap beard

    Toronto Police Hunt For Indian-Origin Uber Cab Driver Amritpal Singh For Molesting Woman

    Apple Security Breach Could Impact Canadians With iPhones And iPads

    Apple Security Breach Could Impact Canadians With iPhones And iPads
    Apple Inc. has removed some applications from its app store after developers in China were tricked into using software tools that added malicious code to their work.

    Apple Security Breach Could Impact Canadians With iPhones And iPads

    Hundreds Stranded, Others Without Power As Slides Hit Northeast Of Pemberton

    Hundreds Stranded, Others Without Power As Slides Hit Northeast Of Pemberton
    Officials with the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District hope to gain a better idea today of how long it will take to repair roads and reach people stranded northeast of Pemberton

    Hundreds Stranded, Others Without Power As Slides Hit Northeast Of Pemberton

    B.C. To Increase Wolf Cull, Says It's The Best Plan To Save Endangered Caribou

    B.C. To Increase Wolf Cull, Says It's The Best Plan To Save Endangered Caribou
    British Columbia is aiming to increase the number of wolves it kills this winter in the second year of a plan to save endangered caribou, prompting criticism from celebrities 

    B.C. To Increase Wolf Cull, Says It's The Best Plan To Save Endangered Caribou