On August 19, 2021, Conor gave an invited talk entitled, “Detection and description of spatiotemporal patterns in multi-day extreme weather events across Canada” at iSPEAC seminar series at the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough.
Here is the description of his talk:
Abstract: As the global climate continues to warm, changes in the characteristics of prolonged “blocking” weather events (periods of days or weeks with similar weather conditions) have been observed. This work-in-progress study examines the incidence of hot, cold, or mild days across Canada, to detect multi-day cold snaps, heat waves, and wintertime “warm spells” using novel station-specific thresholds for local extreme temperatures. We show that–over the period from 1986 to 2020–stations across Canada experienced multi-day (2+) periods with temperatures above their local relative extreme temperature thresholds, with apparent regional correlation among the events. We did not identify obvious temporal or spatial patterns in heat waves or wintertime warm spells. However, our Mann—Kendall analysis shows cold snaps to be shorter, fewer, and warmer, particularity in Atlantic Canada. We believe that the local relative extreme temperature mechanism represents an interesting metric for further study and refinement.
Link here