'Something's changed': Summer 2023 is screaming climate change, scientists say

Earlier this summer, two Canadians walked into a party in rural Germany.

"Canadians?" joked the host. "I thought you'd smell more like smoke."

It's been that kind of season. Floods, drought, warm waters lapping three coasts — but mostly wildfire smoke from sea to sea and overseas. Yes, this is climate change, scientists say, and expect more weather weirdness to come.

"It's been a wild ride," said Danny Blair, co-director of the Prairie Climate Centre at the University of Winnipeg. "It's been a season and a year of extremes."

Drought is one example. Canada's a big place and it's always dry somewhere, but not like this.

Agriculture Canada's June 30 drought map shows most of the country was abnormally dry. Large stretches of the Prairies were under at least a moderate drought, pushing to extreme in southern Alberta.

In British Columbia, once the "wet coast," 28 out of 34 river basins were at the province's top two drought levels. Ranchers were selling cattle that they couldn't grow enough hay to feed, and low streamflows were threatening salmon runs.

And it's been hot. Although the east was generally normal, the west wasn't.

From May through July, Kelowna, B.C., experienced 36 days of weather more than 30 C. The normal count is 16 C. Norman Wells, not far from the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, set a new record of 38 C on July 8.

Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips toted up the number of warm temperature records set this summer versus the number of cold records.

"If the climate was balanced, you'd have as many cold records as warm records," he said.

Nope. There were 372 new hot-temperature marks and 55 cold ones.

Nor is the heat restricted to the land. Phillips said waters off all three Canadian coasts have never been warmer.

Hudson Bay is up to 3 C warmer. The Pacific coast is between 2 C and 4 C warmer. Both the Atlantic and Arctic coasts are up 5 C from average.