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10 CLIMATE CHANGE ALBERTAS BIODIVERSITY Albertas climate is changing recent climate trends and future climate projections8 have been summarized for the province by Richard Schneider 2013. Over the last 100 years the provincial mean annual temperature has increased by 1.4C with much of that increase occurring since the 1970s from increases in winter and spring temperatures. Theseobservedtrendsareprojectedtocontinue overthecourseofatleastthenexthundred yearsevenifgreenhousegasemissionsstabilize whichisunlikely.Bytheendofthiscentury Albertasmeanannualtemperatureispredicted toincreasebyatleast2Cfromthe1961-1990 average.Dependingontheglobalclimatemodel andgreenhousegasemissionsscenariousedto forecastfutureclimateconditionsthisincrease couldbeashighas4-6CFig.1. In addition to continued warming most climate models also project an overall increase in provincial annual precipitation by about 10 on average. Warming temperatures will result in increasing evapotranspiration which will lead to an overall decline in available moisture especially in mid-summer despite the small projected increase in precipitation. Alongside changes in average conditions extreme weather events like heavy rainfalls or very dry years are likely to become more frequent as well.9 8 HamannA.etal.2013.Acomprehensivehigh-resolutiondatabaseofhistoricalandprojectedclimatesurfacesforwesternNorthAmerica. BulletinoftheAmericanMeteorologicalSociety9413071309. 9 e.g. Karl T. R. G. Meehl C.D. Miller S.J. Hassol A.M. Wapole and W.L. Murray eds. 2008. Weather and climate extremes in a changing climate Regions of focus North America Hawaii Caribbean and US Pacific Islands. Synthesis and Assessment Product 3.3 Report by the US Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research.