The Impacts of Climate and Climate Change on Aviation in the Canadian North by Andrew Chi Wai Leung A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences University of Toronto © Copyright by Andrew Chi Wai Leung 2019 The Impacts of Climate and Climate Change on Aviation in the Canadian North Andrew Chi Wai Leung Doctor of Philosophy Department of Physical and Environmental Science University of Toronto 2019 Abstract Aviation is inherently linked to meteorology as severe weather is often responsible for flight delays, cancellations and sometimes accidents. Climate change is expected to change the Arctic environment and the warming rate in this region is greater than most locations on Earth. With a changing climate, the risks of flying will also be changing. In Canada, many Arctic communities in Hudson Bay, Nunavik in northern Quebec and western Labrador rely heavily on aviation to transport passengers, mail and groceries because they lack road networks or railway to access larger settlements and shipping is limited to brief periods in summer. Using historical hourly and daily climate data, this thesis examines four topics related to flying: 1) wind pattern changes (1971 to 2010) at seven locations around Hudson Bay, northern Quebec and western Labrador; 2) fog and visibility trends at 16 Hudson Bay communities (1953-2014); 3) historic long-term soil temperature trends at 5 to 150 cm depths and future projections under three greenhouse gas concentration trajectories at Kuujjuaq, Quebec; 4) appearance and climate conditions for frostquakes. The results of these topics are: 1) an increase in hourly average and daily maximum wind speed around Hudson Bay region and declining trends in western Labrador, plus prevailing wind direction changed at two communities; 2) fog and ice fog frequencies declined but reduced ii and low visibility trends varied spatially within the Hudson Bay region; 3) soil warming at approximately 1oC per decade from 1967 to 1995 and future soil temperature will be above 0oC under all projected trajectories at Kuujjuaq; 4) identified that water-saturated soil, minimal snow cover and rapid temperature drop to below freezing causes frostquakes and that observations were somewhat dependent on the density of the observational network. Passengers travelling to and from Hudson Bay will benefit from the results of this research to better understand the risks associated with flying to these communities. Pilots, airport operators and airlines will improve their awareness of this issue and increase their understandings of the risks caused by climate change in this area. Improved safety will be achieved by anticipating, adapting to and mitigating these changes. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor William Gough, for allowing me to combine my pursuit for research and my passion in aviation. I would like to express my gratitude for his unwavering support and guidance in my research. I would also like to give my thanks to the Ph.D committee members: Professor George Arhonditsis, Professor Yuhong He and Dr. Tanzina Mohsin. Their input and suggestions helped with the development of this thesis. In addition, I would like to recognize Prof. Ken Butler for his assistance with programming and statistics. I am grateful for Dr. Angela Masson who took the time to provide expert knowledge in the aviation field and comments from a pilot’s perspective. I would like to recognize my colleagues in the Archive and Data Services in Environment and Climate Change Data for assisting with the acquisition and quality control of various climate data which form the backbone of this thesis. Also, I would like to acknowledge all the individuals who offered help and assistance at some point during my doctoral research. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for supporting my graduate journey along the way. iv Statement of Co-authorship At the time of the thesis submission, Chapters 2 to 4 are research manuscripts that are currently in revision for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Chapter 5 was published as a peer-reviewed book chapter in Citizen Empowered Mapping by Springer Nature in 2017. For each chapter, they serve as standalone research projects. In each chapter, I was the lead author responsible for identifying the research objective, collecting data, conducting statistical analysis and writing the manuscript. In Chapters 2 to 5, Prof. William Gough supervised the research and provided helpful suggestions to explain key research findings. Prof. Ken Butler provided assistance with data processing, statistical methods and interpretation of the results in Chapters 2 and 3. Prof. Tanzina Mohsin provided feedback and suggestions for the manuscript in Chapter 2 and assisted with the statistical downscale modelling in Chapter 4. Mr. Yehong Shi produced the GIS maps and identified the clusters of observations in Chapter 5. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Statement of Co-authorship ............................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Importance of Aviation Climatology Research ................................................................ 1 1.2 Wind Study ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Fog and Low Visibility .................................................................................................... 7 1.4 Climate Change Impact Assessment on Soil Temperature .............................................. 9 1.5 Frostquakes..................................................................................................................... 11 1.6 Research Objectives ....................................................................................................... 12 1.7 References ...................................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: Wind Analysis ............................................................................................................. 17 2.1 Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 17 2.2 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 18 2.3 Methods .......................................................................................................................... 21 2.3.1 Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Wind Speed ............................................................................................................. 23 2.3.2.1 Calm Wind ....................................................................................................... 25 2.3.3 Wind Direction........................................................................................................ 25 2.3.4 Aviation Perspective ............................................................................................... 26 2.3.5 Uncertainties and Assumptions............................................................................... 26 2.4 Results ............................................................................................................................ 28 vi 2.4.1 Average Daily Wind Speed .................................................................................... 28 2.4.2 Maximum Daily Wind Speed ................................................................................. 32 2.4.3 Time of Daily Maximum Wind Speed.................................................................... 37 2.4.4 Calm Wind .............................................................................................................. 40 2.4.5 Wind Direction........................................................................................................ 44 2.4.6 Aviation Perspective ............................................................................................... 54 2.5 Discussion ...................................................................................................................... 57 2.5.1 Average Wind Speed .............................................................................................. 57 2.5.2 Maximum Wind Speed ........................................................................................... 62 2.5.3 Calm Wind .............................................................................................................. 66 2.5.4 Wind Direction.......................................................................................................