PEI

Almost half of Charlottetown's warmest months ever have come in the last 30 years

CBC
Sat, December 30, 2023 

Winter months have tended to see larger discrepancies from the average, leading to less winter ice in P.E.I. waters in recent decades. (Kevin Yarr/CBC - image credit)

An analysis of Charlottetown weather records going back to the 19th century shows that Prince Edward Islanders are twice as likely now to experience one of the province's warmest months ever than people were in previous decades.

Looking at records going back to 1872 in Charlottetown, CBC News charted the top five warmest of each of the 12 months of the year.

For example, the top five warmest Januaries in Charlottetown were, in order: 2023, 1956, 2006, 1958, 2021.

While this could be expected to provide 60 results, because of ties for the fifth-warmest months — three-way ties in three cases — we have 70.

Of those 70 months, 31 have occurred in the last 30 years. That's 44 per cent of cases in just 20 per cent of the years. Looked at another way, exceptionally warm months have been twice as frequent in the last three decades.

It's another indication that climate change has already come to P.E.I.

There was another relatively warm period in the middle part of the 20th century, but it falls short of what has happened recently in a number of ways.

The 30 years from 1929 to 1958 saw 19 of the warmest months, about two-thirds of the number of warmer months recorded in the last 30 years.

There is another clear signal shift in 1999. Before that year, there were a scattering of single months that made it into the top five, with three years where there were two such months.

In 1999, there were four months in the top five. That has happened again twice since, in 2010 and again this year, and there have also been three years where three months made the top five.