What would be the effect of Global Warming on Vancouver Island, BC?

[masmdu]

Thinking of moving from central NC (about 4 hours drive to the coast) to Nanaimo, a costal city half way up Vancouver Island, BC.

What might be the effect on such a place as global warming continues?

[Lisa]

1. water shortages ...

Victoria (and much of the east coast of the Island) are in a rainshadow, so during the summer dry season on the West coast, there are already some water use restrictions. This might become even more evident with global warming.

There's also the sea level rise issue if you are looking at coastal property (some damage to shorelines and infrastructure predicted).

And in some of the outlying areas, where new housing is being built in forested environments, there might be a higher fire risk with warmer/drier conditions.


Linkage to BC government climate change info (the current government is kind of in denial about global warming -- my landlord works for them and says that it's been hard to get impacts studies done when they don't think there's a problem).

http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/index.html


Here is the federal site:

http://adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/posters/reg_en.asp?Region=bc


Actually these are the kinds of topics I'm researching now, for my work on global change. From what I have seen, this is actually one of the "better" places to be, since being near the Pacific will moderate some of the projected changes (much more extreme in the middle of the continent, and further north). Besides the water issue, another potential problem is the fact that most of the older houses around here don't have air conditioning, so we aren't really prepared for extremely hot days. But I imagine that newer homes will be equipped.