Montreal, QC, Canada has a series of climate controls. Climate controls can be defined in a series of meso-scale and micro-scale levels. It is important to have these two distinguished when speaking abut Montreal's climate. Meso-scale, is"The intermediate size; especially: of or relating rot a meteorological phenomenon approximately 10 to 1000kilometers in horizontal extent"(Merriam Webster) or it is also defined as regional level climate controls. Micro-scale is small or a more local and site specific type of climate control. Montreal, like many other weather stations are affected by micro and meso scale levels. The weather station i choose is right on Montreal, QC canada and weather data goes back up to the 1980s. Its long trace of data is significant in identifying the major and minor factors that influence the climate of Montreal, QC, Canada.
The climate of any place is influenced by factors that include the latitude, elevation, bodies of water, ocean currents, topography and vegetation and prevailing winds. Montreal's location is located near some bodies of water , and also not too far from the Atlantic Ocean. Montreal however is considered continental because of its climates are always variating in temperature. Continental means that there are usually winds that come from over land and are at higher elevations in parts of the world. In specific Montreal is affected by Continental Polar and Continental Arctic. According to the Koppen Classifications we can try to distinguish the difference in temperatures and try to correlate somewhat of a pattern for Montreal, QC, Canada.
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http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/present.htm
The classification that the Koppen Geiger gives us explains that Montreal, QC, Canada falls under Dfa, Dwa which means cold winters and hot summers. It can also be said that Montreal is Dsa and Dsb that is usually under continental climates and exist at high altitudes. Most of the classifications that have been made however do not give a good idea of the climate in the areas, this is because it can sometimes be changed depending on seasons and on years basis. In the information i received from NOAA there was a high average of rainfall within the last 25 years, but there were some years that rainfall was not so abundant.The Koppen classification explains that the Dfa and Dwa are climates that have about "average temperatures above 50 degrees Fahrenheit in warmest months and experience drops of about 0 degrees in its coldest months"(Lutgents,track and Tassa, Pg 542).Group D are considered to be continental and micro thermal climates.
Meso-Scale (Regional Level)Montreal, QC, Canada is located near the atlantic ocean and it's weather station's location is at approximately 45.5 degrees latitude and about 74 degrees North longitude. It is important to recognize that the weather station experiences significant precipitation in the winter and its summers are not heavily precipitated. The small range of mountains near Montreal help in blocking off the maritime air, and in receiving precipitation.
Canada is currently trying to obtain more information on a mesoscale level of data from Montreal. Some of there government's website states "The one-way nesting of limited area models (LAMs), suitably designed as Regional Climate Models (RCMs), within General Circulation Models (GCMs) is becoming a valuable downscaling technique for simulating the climate of a limited domain. They allow physically based and computationally affordable long-term integrations at high spatial resolution. RCMs are now been used in many climate research centres around the world. The Canadian RCM (CRCM), which can be set up to run on a domain covering any part of the globe, first emerged from combining the semi-Lagrangian semi-implicit MC2 (Compressible community mesoscale model) dynamical kernel with the CCCma atmospheric GCM physics parameterization package." TO READ MORE ON THIS ARTICLE AND INFORMATION ON THIS OUTBREAK FOLLOW THE LINK TO --> http://www.cccma.ec.gc.ca/data/crcm.shtml
Micro-Scale ( Local, Site Specific)
Many of the classifications however do not seem useful when it comes to recording climate over long periods of time. The weather is always changing and this will affect the climate in areas or regions. Thus far, there has not been any kind of perfect classification for the kind of climate over large areas, since we can easily see noticeable changes. We can simply turn to air masses for more accurate information in the kind of temperature and moisture a Country or region receives. Montreal per instance is affected by Continental Polar (cP) in the summer and Continental Arctic (cA) in the winter.
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| http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/findstation |
Montreal, QC, Canada's weather station is located on a land mass close to a large river. This is important to note because the location of the weather station can easily affect the temperature that it is recording. There are also a series of weather stations near Montreal, Canada and their recording temperatures can also be somewhat different. Though i was not able to obtain the information from the other weather stations, i am guessing that the climate is somewhat simulate because they are influenced by most of the same land masses, air masses and bodies of water.
Anthropogenic (Non-Natural Human Caused)
This weather station is located near the city of Montreal. As i looked up the weather station i found a possible picture of what it looks like. This is exciting! It is somewhat secluded from the large population and large city.
Historical Temperature Trends
Montreal is a humid continental climate, with warm summers, and severe winters. It very rarely experiences dry seasons, but has a strong seasonality. According to its historical temperature trends we notice that The coldest months are in January through March and Montreal begins to experience warmer weather from May al the way up to September, then its Temperature begins to decrease again in october. We also see that there is much more rain fall in the months of July and August. Montreal, Canada is a very heavily precipitated area. In the information received from the NOAA, there is a progression of the temperatures being slightly higher on present day than they were before. It is important to recognize that because of present day factors and other areas that surround Montreal, QC, Canada.
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| http://www.montreal.climatemps.com
The average annual temperatures are approximately 42.6 Degrees Fahrenheit, this indicates that it is continental.
In the Winter temperatures are about 24.6 degrees Fahrenheit. in the spring the temperatures are about 51.3 degrees Fahrenheit. The annual precipitation is about 40 inches annually. The |
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The information i received from NOAA tells me that that the average high for January 1991 was about 34 degrees Fahrenheit and the average low for that year was 15.3 degrees Fahrenheit and in July the average high was 90 degrees fahrenheit and the average low was about 79 degrees fahrenheit. In January of 2014 the average high was approximately 35.4 degrees Fahrenheit and the average low was approximately 19.6 degrees fahrenheit. The Average high in July was approximately 89.9 degrees Fahrenheit and the average low was approximately 78.2 degrees Fahrenheit( NOAA Monthly Summary). Through the 25 years there has been a decrease in temperatures and we can see that most of the temperatures have dropped within the last 25 years
Comparison to Another Blog
I chose to compare my blog to Christian Sausser, on Okinawa, Japan, our locations are completely opposite and on different parts of the world. This drew to my attention because extreme locations might call for more extreme differences, but it might could be exciting to view what similarities they have even though their locations are different. Christian refers to Okinawa as "The Sweat Box" and its bowen ratio less than one. This right away is different from Montreal, because Montreal, QC Canada has an approximate bowen ratio of about 2. The variations in average annual temperature is also different Christian states that " Okinawa’s temperature varies from 55 degrees Fahrenheit to 90 degrees, rarely ever descending below 50 degrees, or rising beyond 92 degrees. Before considering humidity into the equation, for those who have never been to the island, one could make the assumption these temperatures seem quite tolerable for an average human." In Montreal the average temperatures are not that extreme and usually range from about 35 degrees to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in Montreal, QC, Canada is much more tolerable than that of Okinawa.
Though the temperatures are not the same there does seem to be some correlation that Japan and Montreal have some what high humidity levels. Montreal has relative humidities throughout the year of approximately 44-52 % and Okinawa falls right in between of a range of 49%- 93%. Okinawa's humidity is much, MUCH higher, and it's low is Montreal's highest humidity. The best way to compare both cities is through the climographs. In Okinawa we can see that the precipitation is much higher in the summer while in Montreal, QC,. Canada the precipitation is constant throughout the year. okinawa shows that its weather is much more constant and usually in the highs while as Montreal, usually has it's high temperatures in the Summer.
I am sure that the main reasoning for the extreme temperature differences would have to do with air masses. It is also important , However, to notice that Japan is way more down south than Montreal, and as we move closer to the equator the temperature increases. Montreal is about 40 degrees north latitude from the equator. It is also important to note that the current near Okinawa is a warm current whereas the current near Montreal is a cold current. Ocean currents affect much of the precipitation and temperatures near these Cities. Christian mentions that his location is most susceptible to typhoons. That is almost impossible for a location like Montreal, QC Canada because of the location. Christian is affected by Maritime Tropical, while Montreal is affected by Continental Polar. The kind of air mass that affects Okinawa is very prone to those typhoons, while Montreal, QC Canada might be more affected by snow storms. Okinawa would probably never experience a very severe snow storm because of its location and air Masses.
Our locations have probably not many other things in common due to its extreme different locations.
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| Just a typical rainy day in Montreal, QC, Canada |
Citations
-- http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mesoscale
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datasets/GHCNDMS/stations/GHCND:CA007024745/detail
http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/present.htm
Lutgens,Frederick K., Edward J. Tarbuck and Dennis Tasa. The atmosphere introduction to meteorology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification#GROUP_D:_Continental.2Fmicrothermal_climates
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/environnement-canada-weather-station-in-montreal-city-pierre-leclerc.html
