With leaves no longer obstructing vision, it is easier to catch sight of the many owl species found here. Of these, eight species are found year-round in various parts of our province, while four others migrate and are here only from spring to fall.

Because the snowy owl visits southern Manitoba only in the colder months, it is probably the one people watch for most often at this time. For many bird-lovers, sighting a snowy owl brings excitement, and has come to symbolize our winters.

This species spends more of its time north of the Arctic Circle, on the breeding grounds of the tundra. But with the coming of colder weather, snowy owls frequently migrate farther south.

Some years the migrants are plentiful enough to be classed as “an irruption.” These numbers may be due to a very successful nesting period, with many young raised, or sometimes it might be because of a scarcity of lemmings, voles and ptarmigan on which they feed. Alternatively, early, deep snows in the Arctic might lead to greater numbers heading south.

Watch for snowy owls in open fields or pastures, or along power lines. Accustomed to the treeless tundra, they tend to avoid trees. Birders often watch from inside a car, so as not to disturb the birds. Male snowies are smaller than females and lighter in colour, tending to become almost pure white as they get older. The females are usually heavily speckled or barred with black. This colouring acts as a camouflage on the summer nesting grounds but may increase visibility in winter.

Other greats

A second owl species more commonly seen in winter is the great grey owl (photo up top). This large owl spends the warmer months in the boreal forest sections, so it is not as noticeable then, but winter often brings it to the edges of the forests and a little farther south into mixed open/forested areas. Although it is our provincial bird, this species is not sighted often in the southwestern part of Manitoba, but can be seen in Riding Mountain National Park, and especially in and around Whiteshell Provincial Park and the eastern forested sections. Its large size is impressive for those lucky enough to see it.

A third common owl species, the great horned owl, is perhaps more often heard than seen in winter. This is the owl whose signature call of “Hoo, hoo, HOO, hoo, hoooo” is recognizable to many people. Surprisingly, these owls often begin nesting as early as February. Sometimes even in January, birders-in-the-know may locate a great horned owl sitting on a nest. This is another large species, although smaller than the great grey.

Night owls and day owls

Other owls that live year-round in Manitoba include eastern screech owl, northern hawk owl, barred owl, boreal owl and northern saw-whet owl. Most of these hunt mainly at night or early evening and will be resting in treed areas during the day.

Conversely, the hawk owl is primarily diurnal (hunting during daylight hours) so it may be sighted gliding over open fields or perched on a prominent tree beside an open area. This species tends to be farther north in summer but frequents southern Manitoba in winter. Visitors to Oak Hammock Marsh often report seeing this bird.

Other owl species are less likely to be seen because they are smaller, spend their time in treed areas, hunt at night, and/or are well camouflaged. The barred owl and boreal owl live mostly in boreal forests so are more hidden. The screech owl and saw-whet owl are both quite small at about seven to nine inches (18-21 cm) and may be heard more than seen.

Owl species that are usually here only in warmer months include the long-eared owl, short-eared owl, burrowing owl, and only very occasionally the barn owl. Of these, the burrowing owl is usually in the very southwest grasslands corner of Manitoba, and is classed as endangered.

For anyone with a real interest in owls, winter tours are offered through agencies or individuals, although some of these will be fully booked already. Search the Internet for these. Or join the birding group at manitobabirds@groups.io to see pictures and general locations. Exact locations are usually not given to avoid crowds bothering the birds.

Remember: if you do locate an owl, do not approach too closely or disturb it if it is resting or hunting, and especially not on a nest.

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A team of international researchers reported that some of the world’s most important freshwater sources — from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia to South America’s Lake Titicaca — lost water at a cumulative rate of around 22 gigatonnes per year for nearly three decades. That’s about 17 times the volume of Lake Mead, the United States’ largest reservoir.

Fangfang Yao, a surface hydrologist at the University of Virginia who led the study published in the journal Science, said 56 per cent of the decline in natural lakes was driven by climate warming and human consumption, with warming “the larger share of that.”

Climate scientists generally think that the world’s arid areas will become drier under climate change, and wet areas will get wetter, but the study found significant water loss even in humid regions. “This should not be overlooked,” Yao said.

Scientists assessed almost 2,000 large lakes using satellite measurements combined with climate and hydrological models.

They found that unsustainable human use, changes in rainfall and runoff, sedimentation, and rising temperatures have driven lake levels down globally, with 53 per cent of lakes showing a decline from 1992 to 2020.

Nearly two billion people who live in a drying lake basin are directly affected and many regions have faced shortages in recent years.

Scientists and campaigners have long said it is necessary to prevent global warming beyond 1.5 C to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. The world is currently warming at a rate of around 1.1 C.

Thursday’s study found unsustainable human use dried up lakes, such as the Aral Sea in Central Asia and the Dead Sea in the Middle East, while lakes in Afghanistan, Egypt and Mongolia were hit by rising temperatures, which can increase water loss to the atmosphere.

Lakes in Canada’s Arctic were part of the drying trend, the study found, “partially because of changes in temperature and PET (potential evapotranspiration), which is in line with broader climate changes toward increasing evaporative loss due to higher lake temperatures and reduced lake ice extents.”

Water levels rose in a quarter of the lakes, often as a result of dam construction in remote areas such as the Inner Tibetan Plateau.

Declines seen in naturally occurring lakes were in part offset, the study found, by “precipitation- and runoff-driven LWS (lake water storage) gains” in others such as the Great Lakes and Lake Winnipeg.

In all, the study said, between 1984 and 2015, satellites have observed a loss of 90,000 square km of permanent water area — an area equivalent to the surface of Lake Superior — whereas 184,000 square km of new water bodies, mainly reservoirs, were formed elsewhere.

Trends and drivers of global lake water storage have remained “poorly known,” the study added, which “impedes sustainable management of surface water resources, both now and in the future.””

— Gloria Dickie is a Reuters climate and environment correspondent in London. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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“What we are seeing is a big change in the weather pattern. For most of January we’ve had some really warm temperatures,” Kehler said, noting this has been due to Pacific air flowing across the region.

“A lot of cold air that was previously contained in the Arctic is going to come south and bring us a prolonged period of extreme cold,” he continued, expecting the system to reach the Prairies late in the week or during the weekend, then sticking around for at least two weeks.

Kehler forecast highs in the upper-minus-teens to the low -20s. C The lows are to push down into the high -20s and low -30s C.

“The -30s is probably going to happen,” he said with temperatures in the -40s very unlikely. However, he warned the windchills could reach that cold, given the expected windspeeds accompanying this Arctic system could be rather brisk.

“Once the Arctic air becomes more entrenched, we switch to a high-pressure system,” Kehler explained, noting windspeeds would then decrease. “But when you get things that cold, it doesn’t take much wind to drag windchills into the -40s.”

He said temperatures that cold are rather uncommon on the Prairies, depending where one is. It’s been 15 years since Winnipeg had temperatures that frigid.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Well, it might be hard to believe, but last month the planet recorded its fifth-warmest April on record. There was only one major region on Earth that showed below-average temperatures, and you guessed it — it was across a large part of central North America. Lucky us!

What the heck is going on? You may recall discussions we have had in the past on the general setup of weather patterns on Earth. The equator is always warm, and the poles are always cold. Sure, the poles warm a little bit each summer, especially the north polar region due to the fact that it is an ocean, but compared to the equator it is cold. Now, this cold air over the poles does not always just sit nicely right on top of the poles, but it drifts around nudged in different directions depending on what is happening in the mid-latitudes. This year it just so happens that conditions around the globe resulted in some large ridges of high pressure building across Russia, which brought warm temperatures to that region but also helped to deflect some of the cold air usually over this region. The cold air had to go somewhere else, and, as it turns out, it ended up over us.

This southward displacement of arctic air is also what is helping to fuel the storm systems and resulting rains we have been seeing for over a month now. Just like with thunderstorms, areas of low pressure feed off temperature differences; the bigger the difference, the stronger the low can be. Add in the fact that the current setup across North American is allowing for a lot of Gulf of Mexico moisture to move northward, and the stage is set for rain, and lots of it.

OK, so that’s the ‘why’; the billion-dollar question is, ‘When will this pattern break down?’ Because to be honest, time is running out for farmers in some regions of Manitoba. Well, if you have already read the forecast then you know this wet pattern does not look like it is totally done with us yet. If you have not read the forecast, then maybe don’t. It does look like we should be transitioning into a warmer pattern, but the weather models are still hinting at keeping us wet. One positive view is that often when the weather pattern switches, the weather models can really struggle as they try to hang on to the current pattern. I will keep my fingers crossed that we are seeing the beginning of a pattern switch.

Compression

Now, on to severe summer weather and heat waves. To get those truly hot, long-lasting summer heat waves we need a ridge of high pressure to develop and then park or get stuck over our region. The ridge of high pressure allows for a couple of things to happen. First, the descending air in the area of high pressure inhibits the growth of clouds; this in turn means plenty of sunshine, and in the summer, sunshine means heat. On their own, sunny skies do not mean a heat wave; we see plenty of sunny days in a row without experiencing a heat wave.

The next part has to do with the strength of the high. When the high is strong, we get very strong subsidence or sinking of air. As this air is pushed downward, it hits the ground and is compressed. Now, anyone who has used an air compressor, or even just a hand pump, knows that as you compress air you are forcing the air particles closer together, which in turn increases the rate of particle collisions, and these collisions transfer energy which we feel as heat. Don’t believe me? Grab a bike pump, give it 20 or so pumps and then feel the bottom of the pump — it’s hot, due to the compression of air.

So, when there is a strong ridge of high pressure over us, the compression of sinking air can dramatically heat the air and give us some truly warm days. Now, if the upper high is not that warm, then all this compressing and heating of the air won’t do that much to give us record-breaking temperatures. If the upper high is warm to begin with, then this compression of air, combined with the additional heating of the sun, can really push the temperatures up.

That is about all I have room for in this issue. I will re-explore this topic in a little more detail soon. Hopefully, we will see some heat soon, maybe not record breaking — just imagine how it would feel if record-breaking heat moved in with all the water around. But some nice warm weather would really help improve the state of mind for many people.

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The data compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA also revealed that the last eight years were the eight hottest and the last decade was the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, officials said.

Global warming is “very real. It’s now, and it’s impacting real people,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview. Last year’s extreme heat wave in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, intense rains from Hurricane Ida and flooding in Germany and China were linked to global warming, he said.

A key indicator of climate change, the heat content of the world’s oceans, reached a record level in 2021, the agencies said. Oceans absorb more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in the earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases, and those warmer waters influence weather patterns and changes in currents.

“What’s scientifically interesting about that is it tells us why the planet is warming,” Schmidt said. “It’s warming because of our impacts on greenhouse gas concentrations.”

According to NOAA, 2021 average temperatures were 1.51 F, or 0.84 C, above the 20th-century average, putting it just ahead of 2018. NASA’s analysis, which uses a 30-year baseline period, showed 2021 temperatures tied with 2018 as the sixth-warmest year.

The greatest warming occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, both on land and in the Arctic. The Arctic is warming more than three times faster than the global mean, the agencies said.

In an overview of its report earlier this week, NOAA said last year was the fourth-warmest on record for the United States.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nichola Groom.

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“Happy to report the successful completion and departure of the first grain vessel of the season from Churchill,” Arctic Gateway said on Twitter and Facebook.

The vessel arrived at the port on Aug. 25, but loading was delayed due to adverse weather, according to reports.

Arctic Gateway described the shipment as “a really important first step in re-establishing the Port of Churchill as an important part of Canada’s position as an agricultural export leader in the world.”

When reached, Arctic Gateway officials declined to comment and said they would not provide any details on the cargo beyond the available social media posts on what was a “commercial transaction.”

According to Canadian Grain Commission data, there were 35,400 tonnes of durum and 11,500 tonnes of lentils in storage in Churchill as of Sept. 1.

Online tracking data shows a cargo ship named Federal Satsuki left Churchill on Saturday, with Sarroch, on the Italian island of Sardina, its next port of call. The vessel has the capacity to carry 43,561 tonnes of grain.

The Port of Churchill, on the shores of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, is Canada’s only deepwater Arctic port and a typical season runs from late July through October.

OmniTrax, the previous owner of the port and rail line servicing it, abruptly halted grain shipments in the 2016 season, after fewer than 200,000 tonnes moved through the facility the previous year. Grain movement had slowed since the demise of the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk in 2012.

Sections of the rail line washed out in 2017 and were left in disrepair until the Arctic Gateway Group took over in 2018 and began repairs.

AGG is a partnership of First Nations and other northern communities, Toronto financier Fairfax Financial Holdings and Regina-based pulse processor AGT Food and Ingredients.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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This is where in summer the American chef grows tomatoes, onions, chilies and other vegetables, taking advantage of the season’s 24 hours of daily sunlight.

During winter’s four months of darkness, when temperatures can reach -30 C (-22 F), Vidmar tends to microgreens — the leaves and shoots of young salad plants — and dozens of quails in two rooms beneath his home.

He is the sole supplier of locally grown food in the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen in the Svalbard archipelago. The North Pole is about 1,050 kilometres (650 miles) to the north; mainland Norway is about as far south.

Growing food in such conditions can be “mission impossible” but it is necessary, Vidmar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. He hopes to set an example for other remote towns in the region.

“We are so dependent on imports. Everything is by boat and plane,” said Vidmar, who comes from Cleveland, Ohio, and who has lived here for nearly a decade.

That makes the town vulnerable, he said. In 2010, stores in Longyearbyen stood empty after an Icelandic volcano erupted, bringing air transport to a halt. And the cost of imported food and its quality “is often disappointing.”

His company, Polar Permaculture, aims to produce enough food for the town and process all its organic and biological waste.

It sounds ambitious, but the firm, which received support from a government-funded body that helps startups, broke even last year, just two years in.

It was helped by the fact that he and his teenage son do not draw salaries, and Vidmar still cooks full time at a school.

‘Crazy’ to try

Vidmar’s produce now appears on many of Longyearbyen’s menus, including at Huset restaurant where intricate, multi-course Nordic-tasting menus are served in stately surroundings.

Alongside reindeer steak and tartare of bearded seal is a delicate dish of quail egg with dill, red onions and anchovies on flatbread.

“We would not use quail eggs unless they were local so we designed a dish as soon as we got the opportunity to try them,” said Filip Gemzell, Huset’s head chef.

Vidmar first stepped foot in Svalbard in 2007 while working as a chef on a cruise ship. One of his first thoughts was, “How can people live here?” but he was also intrigued.

“The sad part (in America) is you work so hard and you still have to worry about money. Then you come here and you have all this nature. No distraction, no huge shopping centres, no billboards saying, ‘buy, buy, buy.’”

A year later, he moved to the island and started working at restaurants and bars in Longyearbyen, a coal mining town turned tourist-and-research attraction.

He decided to grow his own food after becoming frustrated with the absence of fresh produce and the fact that a lack of treatment sites meant organic waste was dumped into the sea.

People thought he was “crazy” trying to grow food in the Arctic.

Initially he experimented with hydroponics — farming in water instead of soil — but that meant using fertilizer, which comes from the mainland. Eventually the city authorities gave him permission to bring in worms from Florida to do the job.

Now, whenever he or his son deliver a tray of microgreens to restaurants, they collect the previous tray and feed the soil to the worms, which break it down to produce natural fertilizer for bigger plants.

His next aim is to heat the greenhouse during winter using a biodigester — which generates energy from organic material — so he can use it all year round.

Sustainability

Vidmar also helps fourth- and ninth-grade students at Longyearbyen school to learn farming and sustainability. That has led older students to query the island’s supply chain, said teacher Lisa Dymbe Djonne.

“They question the transportation of food from the mainland to here and how expensive that is,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

“They’re going to interview some of the leaders… to figure out how much it costs for the island and if it is possible to grow our own food,” she added.

“It’s a question a lot of people up here have.”

Eivind Uleberg, a scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research in Tromso in northern Norway, said that fit a pattern of rising interest in locally produced food and sustainability in agriculture.

In a phone interview, Uleberg said that, although he was unaware of Vidmar’s undertaking, efforts to produce food locally in Norway were positive.

A short growing season and low temperatures are the main barriers to producing food in such latitudes, he said, but higher temperatures caused by climate change could help.

“There is definitely the potential to produce more vegetables and berries,” he said.

But there are also challenges, Uleberg added, including more rain in the autumn during harvest, and changing conditions in winter that could kill grasses crucial for animal feed.

For Vidmar, such obstacles and the unique conditions are the reason he is determined to produce “the freshest food possible.”

“We’re on a mission… to make this town very sustainable. Because if we can do it here, then what’s everybody else’s excuse?”

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Examining long-term trends for ice floating on the ocean since the 1950s, scientists in Germany and the United States projected the ocean around the North Pole would be ice-free in summers by the mid-2040s at current levels of emissions.

In the historical records, they found that every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere meant on average the loss of three square metres of ice in September, when the ice reaches a minimum extent before expanding in winter.

That made it possible to “grasp the contribution of personal carbon dioxide emissions to the loss of Arctic sea ice,” scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center wrote in the journal Science.

Each passenger taking a return flight from New York to Europe, or driving a gasoline car 4,000 kms, would emit about a tonne of carbon dioxide, they estimated.

A long-term retreat of Arctic sea ice is already causing profound changes, disrupting the lives of indigenous peoples while opening the region to more oil and gas exploration and shipping.

Scientists usually deal in more abstract terms such as billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases. “Here it’s more personal,” lead author Dirk Notz of the Max Planck Institute told Reuters.

Some other scientists said the study was simplistic.

“This sounds like a rather crude equation,” Peter Wadhams, a professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, told Reuters.

He said ice could disappear from the Arctic Ocean as early as 2017 or 2018 because of other factors triggered by man-made climate change, such as shifts in winds and rising sea temperatures.

In September 2016, sea ice shrank to an annual minimum extent of 4.14 million square kilometres (1.60 million square miles), matching 2007 as the second smallest in the satellite record behind 2012.

The study said goals set under the 2015 Paris Agreement for curbing emissions were insufficient to avert the loss of ice.

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Greenhouse gas emissions from industry left their first traces in the temperatures of tropical oceans and the Arctic around 1830, researchers wrote in a recent journal article, challenging widespread views that man-made climate change began only in the 20th century.

The Industrial Revolution began around 1750 in Britain, with a surge in the use of coal to power factories, ships and railways, and gradually spread around the world.

Greenhouse gases at the time were only a fraction of those now blamed for trapping excessive levels of the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, stoking more droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.

“Our findings show that the climate can respond very quickly to changes in greenhouse gases,” lead author Nerilie Abram, of the Australian National University, told Reuters of the findings published in the journal Nature.

The scientists detected a rise in temperatures in the 19th century by studying the growth of old trees, corals, the makeup of lake sediments and air trapped in ice cores in Antarctica.

Their computer models showed that natural factors — such as changes in the sun’s energy output or the Earth’s orbit — could not fully explain the warming trend.

The rising heat only made sense when factoring in an early dose of man-made greenhouse gases, they wrote.

Previously, many scientists have reckoned a small rise in 19th century temperatures was a rebound after a sun-dimming volcanic eruption of Tambora in Indonesia in 1815.

“This is further evidence that the climate has already changed significantly since the pre-industrial period,” said Ed Hawkins, a climate scientists at Reading University who was not involved in the study.

Last year, almost 200 nations agreed at a Paris summit to shift from fossil fuels and set a goal of limiting rises in average surface temperatures to “well below” 2 C above pre-industrial times, ideally below 1.5 C.

The Paris deal does not define pre-industrial. Temperatures this year, likely to set new records, are just over 1 C above levels in the 1880s, a widely used baseline in climate science.

Abram said using a baseline of 1800 would make the Paris Agreement harder to achieve by adding perhaps 0.2 C.

“We are frighteningly close already to 1.5,” she said.

— Alister Doyle is a Reuters correspondent covering environmental and climate change-related issues from Oslo.

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For this forecast period it will definitely feel warmer, but we’re still not done with arctic highs. As last weekend’s high drifts off to the southeast, another weaker arctic high is forecasted to drop southeastward through our region on Thursday and Friday. This high doesn’t originate as far north as the previous one, so temperatures will not be as cold. Expect a mix of sun and clouds from Wednesday to Friday with daytime highs in the -14 C range and overnight lows around -22 C.

Over the weekend, the weather models are trying to develop an Alberta clipper that will zip through south-central regions of Manitoba on Saturday, bringing milder temperatures along with some clouds and a quick shot of snow, especially over central regions.

Once this system moves by, another arctic high will begin to build in, but like the last high, this one doesn’t appear to be that strong and its origins are in the low arctic. This low is also currently forecast to move a little farther east, through northern Ontario, which would keep the coldest air to that region. Southern regions might see some clouds along with a few flurries on Monday as a weak system moves through the Dakotas. The weak arctic high will then bring us more sun than clouds from the middle of the week, along with nice mid-winter temperatures and highs expected to be around -12 C, with overnight lows in the -20 C range. It could be a little colder if the high tracks a little farther west.

Looking further ahead, the weather models begin to point to a switch in our weather pattern to a warmer but stormier one near the end of the month.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, -22 to -6 C; lows, -32 to -14 C.

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