Up an Atmospheric River Without a Paddle

Special guest Raymond Ford, specialist in Mass Spectrometry, joins Dr. Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith, and Regina Valdez as they discuss Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) and the other extreme weather events that have occurred during the past few years in British Columbia, Canada.

As a resident of Central British Columbia, Raymond has personally experienced some of the extreme weather events that have occurred over the last few years.

This video was recorded on December 10th, 2021, and published on January 14th, 2022.

Topics discussed include the following:

• The atmospheric rivers (ARs) that caused extensive damage to infrastructure and farmland
• The heatwaves and other extreme weather events that will accelerate in frequency and intensity as the climate continues to warm.
• The Lytton fire, which destroyed most of the town
• The numerous wildfires
• The mental health challenges brought on by these persistent extreme weather events in the last few years and their consequences
• The use of the Earth.nullschool.net web application as a tool to analyse extreme weather events
• The need to rapidly reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels
• The seeming contradictory nature of government policy that, on the one hand declared a climate emergency and on the other hand funds the construction of a pipeline

Links:

• Earth.nullschool.net

• Flammagenitus cloud

• Mudslide closes Highway 1 from Lytton to Cache Creek

• The Destroyed Highway 8 in British Columbia’s interior. #BCFlood #BCStorm #BCFloods

• Italy: 29 inches of rain in 12 hours sets new European record as extreme weather lashes country

• Brazil gets snow and ice, surprising residents

• Up to 10% of homes could now be ‘uninsurable’ because of flood risk. Yours may be one of them

• It will cost B.C. billions and billions to rebuild key highways for climate change

• Trans Mountain pipeline restarts after weeks-long closure due to B.C. floods, landslides

• How climate change affects mental health

• What are atmospheric rivers, and how are they affecting the B.C. floods?

• B.C. shatters temperature records as atmospheric river delivers warm, moist air

Special Guest:

• Raymond Ford – Specialist in Mass Spectrometry

Regular Panelists:

• Dr. Peter Carter - MD, Expert IPCC Reviewer and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute

• Paul Beckwith - Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University

• Regina Valdez - Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC. GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate

Video Production:

• Charles Gregoire – Climate Reality Leader, Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum

• Heidi Brault - Climate Reality Leader, BA(Psychology), Library & Information Technician Diploma - Video production and website assistant - Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP26 Team Lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum.

Attributions:

Background Music:

• Title: Through the City II
• Author: Crowander
• Source: Free Music Archive
• License: BY-NC 4.0

Image and Video:

• Image and Video Attributions