Canada Warmed 2.0°C Since 1948, New Climate Report Finds

Canada has warmed by 2.0 degrees Celsius since 1948, nearly twice the global average rate, according to the newly published Canada's Changing Climate Report 2026 from Environment and Climate Change Canada. The Canadian Arctic warmed even faster, by 2.6 degrees over the same period, a rate the report attributes overwhelmingly to human influence. Under current policies, the report projects Canada could warm by a further 5.0 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, rising to 6.9 degrees if no additional climate action is taken. The 1,448-page assessment, an update to the 2019 edition, draws on an expanded observational dataset and new attribution methods to quantify how much of Canada's warming and its downstream effects on water, ice and extreme weather are driven by human emissions rather than natural variability.

 

Warming Already Exceeds Global Rates and Is Overwhelmingly Human-Driven

 

The report finds that human influence alone warmed Canadian temperatures between 2015 and 2024 by 2.2 degrees above the 1850 to 1900 pre-industrial baseline, double the global average warming attributable to human activity over a comparable period. Annual average temperatures have exceeded the 1961 to 1990 baseline in 30 of the past 33 years, and most of the warming recorded since 1948 has occurred since 1970, with Canada warming nearly twice as fast as the global average over that more recent period and the Canadian Arctic warming three times faster. The report assigns very high confidence to the finding that this warming is dominated by human influence rather than natural climate variability.

Precipitation has shifted alongside temperature. Annual precipitation across Canada increased 9.7 percent between 1949 and 2023, with the country's north seeing an 18.9 percent increase, both changes occurring far faster than the global land average and attributed mostly to human influence. The report also documents a shift in the balance between rainfall and snowfall toward rain, alongside increased atmospheric river activity and higher-intensity precipitation extremes, changes consistent with a warming atmosphere holding and releasing more moisture.

 

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Extreme Weather and Ice Loss Are Accelerating Together

 

The frequency of extreme heat is rising sharply with each additional increment of warming. At 1.0 degree of additional warming, the report finds rare hot extremes occur 1.7 times more often; at 2.0 degrees, 2.5 times more often; and at 4.0 degrees, 8.5 times more often. Fire seasons have already lengthened, with high confidence in increasing frequency and intensity of extreme fire weather across most regions, while summer droughts are projected to become longer and more intense across central and southern Canada, with once-in-a-decade droughts potentially occurring three to ten times more often by late century in some areas.

The cryosphere findings are similarly stark. Every glacier examined in western Canada has thinned and lost mass over the past two and a half decades, and the report projects 55 percent of that glacier ice will disappear by 2100 even if warming is held to the international 2-degree limit, rising toward 75 percent loss under a current-policies trajectory. Permafrost thaw is already reshaping the landscape across northern Canada through ground settlement, pond formation and thaw slumps, and the Arctic Ocean has a greater than two-thirds probability of becoming ice-free during most Septembers under current policies.

 

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Sea Levels and Ocean Conditions Are Shifting at Uneven Rates

 

Global sea levels have risen approximately 20 centimetres since 1900, with the rate of rise accelerating over the past three decades. The report finds Atlantic Canada and the western Arctic are experiencing among the fastest local rates in the country, up to 34 centimetres per century, while parts of British Columbia are seeing slower relative rise due to ongoing land uplift. Ocean temperatures around eastern Canada and Hudson Bay have warmed most sharply in summer, and marine heatwaves have become more frequent and intense since the 1980s, a trend the report attributes with high likelihood to human influence. Ocean acidification has increased around all Canadian coasts and is expected to continue rising with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

The report models three emissions paths to 2100 with materially different outcomes. Under current policies, Canada would warm 5.0 degrees above pre-industrial levels with a 13 percent increase in precipitation and a 40 percent rise in extreme precipitation events. Without further climate action, warming would reach 6.9 degrees. Under a net-zero emissions pathway, warming stabilizes after 2050 at 3.5 degrees, roughly half the no-policy outcome, though the report notes that glacier melt and sea-level rise would continue for decades even after temperatures level off. That lag is central to the report's framing: decisions made in the next few decades determine which of these three trajectories Canada ends up on, but some physical changes, particularly to ice and sea level, are already locked in regardless of the emissions path chosen from here.

 

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)