Existing Climate Change Assessments
Several reports have provided insight into the overall trends in climate changes and climate change projections, globally and for BC and the BC coastal region. These include global reports from the IPCC. In 1998, Environment Canada released the first national scale assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation, The Canada Country Study [24]. Within that report, a chapter specific to BC highlights key impacts to the coastal region and suggests effective adaptation actions [25]. Also at the national level, the Government of Canada has produced a recent series of climate change assessments that identify observed and predicted impacts to Canada’s economy, society, and ecosystems, as well as recommended practices to support adaptation to those impacts. These assessments include:
- Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation: A Canadian Perspective (2004)[26]
- Canada’s Marine Coasts in a Changing Climate (2016) [27]
- Canada in a Changing Climate: Sector Perspectives on Impacts and Adaptation (2014) [28]
The Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC) at the University of Victoria provides regionally adjusted (downscaled) climate change projections at the scale of BC through the publicly available Plan2Adapt tool. These projections are currently available for three future time horizons across the province based on an averaged set of climate models from the IPCC (2020s, 2050s, 2080s). Projections over both terrestrial and ocean areas are included for some key climate change variables. These data were used in this report as well as in the regional and sub-regional tables (see Tables section). Additional projections for ocean biochemistry are available from Environment Canada’s Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada has released reports on the impacts to climate change in the NSB and for the coast of BC [4,29,30]. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), completed a report in 2014 on climate change impacts and vulnerabilities in Canada’s Pacific marine ecosystems [6]. In addition, EcoAdapt completed a report of vulnerabilities specific to the MaPP region [31]. The report included maps on current or projected changes in sea level rise, sea surface temperature, and ocean acidification for the MaPP sub-regions and region. Here we update their report with more recent climate projections, with potential risks and vulnerabilities for particular sectors and sub-regions.
