Ottawa’s Rideau Canal and Climate Change
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- Ottawa’s Rideau Canal and Climate Change
Two years ago the winter in Ottawa was so warm that the canal did not open for the first time since it became a winter skating rink.
Then last winter, it was also very mild but the canal did open for 10 days or so, with very poor ice conditions.
Fast forward to 2025. Just today, at 8 am on Saturday Jan 11th the canal opened, and I went skating. It was packed.
What really helped with the timing of this opening this year, along with the cold weather in the last few weeks is the lack of snow cover. Ottawa has had very little snowfall this winter, and snow is an extremely good insulator. During canal freeze-up, if there is a lot is snow on top of the ice then the thickening process is greatly slowed down.
With almost no snow on top of the ice, it can freeze very rapidly. Also, there were lots of maintenance people drilling holes through the ice and pumping water upwards to cover the top of the ice surface at night. This effectively doubled the rate of the ice thickening, and since the pumped water didn’t encounter any snow on the surface it could freeze quickly and smoothly, making an excellent ice surface.
Enjoy your vicarious ice skate on Ottawa’s famous canal along with me. Also, thanks to the amazing image stabilization technology built into the iPhone16, you can follow along without getting queasy or vertigo!!
Enjoy!!!
Ottawa’s Rideau Canal and Climate Change
Two years ago the winter in Ottawa was so warm that the canal did not open for the first time since it became a winter skating rink.
Then last winter, it was also very mild but the canal did open for 10 days or so, with very poor ice conditions.
Fast forward to 2025. Just today, at 8 am on Saturday Jan 11th the canal opened, and I went skating. It was packed.
What really helped with the timing of this opening this year, along with the cold weather in the last few weeks is the lack of snow cover. Ottawa has had very little snowfall this winter, and snow is an extremely good insulator. During canal freeze-up, if there is a lot is snow on top of the ice then the thickening process is greatly slowed down.
With almost no snow on top of the ice, it can freeze very rapidly. Also, there were lots of maintenance people drilling holes through the ice and pumping water upwards to cover the top of the ice surface at night. This effectively doubled the rate of the ice thickening, and since the pumped water didn’t encounter any snow on the surface it could freeze quickly and smoothly, making an excellent ice surface.
Enjoy your vicarious ice skate on Ottawa’s famous canal along with me. Also, thanks to the amazing image stabilization technology built into the iPhone16, you can follow along without getting queasy or vertigo!!
Enjoy!!!
Much fun! Thanks for taking us along. Naysayers might point to this as proof against what we know to be true.
Thank you for taking us all along!
Thanks for the nice report on the skateway this week. We’re driving to Ottawa this weekend for the sole reason of skating on the canal, so hoping it continues to stay cold! Your comment near the end of the video made me laugh… New Yorker 🇺🇸 here who loves Canada 🇨🇦 as a beautiful, unique, and sovereign nation! 🍁
I hope you had a lovely time!
Ottawa is now one of the largest urban municipalities in Canada, the site of significant growth since the late 1990s. That’s why the temperatures have moderated. All of those buildings, asphalt and concrete store heat and / or radiate heat. Makes for warmer winters and hotter summers.
Far canal, that's great fun Paul.
That looks a lot of fun. Very sad that it probably won’t be possible for much longer. Unless Canada stays cold under AMOC collapse or something.
I was walking on a river near me yesterday, In SW VA. It only freezes every 5 years or so. Covered in snow though, so no skating.
Normally, we have snow at my house in January. But T shirt weather this year!
Thank you for sharing! ❤ That was fun sitting in 19°C outside - at my place we should have max7to12°C this time of year :/ - and watching icy sightseeing tour through Ottawa ^.^ (Awwww poor puppy ó.ò a virtual hug to {{{Newton}}} =D)
That's really nice! Wish its gonna freeze in Holland here too
Very crunch ice
Hello Paul! I'm Tim from Virginia, and I've been watching your channel ever since Hurricane Helene, which promted me to start looking into the affects of climate change. Did you get an increase in subscribers following the great flood of 2024? The California wildfires will get more peoples attention too, hopefully. Thank you for providing me with the latest in-depth information on climate change, and it's consequences.
Finally. But its freezing 🥶
Cold and Famine is the future
MORE ANTI-AMERICAN BIAS FROM PAUL? - Thanks for sharing this, Paul, but not as special as the video from another winter when you skated on a winding circuit through the trees. Ice skating on lakes, rivers and canals is a magical thing. As a boy, I had the privilege to be coached by the infamous Don Cherry at his summer hockey camp outside Boston, and the greater fortune, years later, to go skating in the early morning hours after overnight shifts. With everyone else off to school of work, the silence of falling snow broken by my blades carving then gliding, and by the creaking of the deep ice emanating out across the lake... then stopping to take it all in, bestowed upon me a memory of pure transcendence - skating with God. The fact is, Paul, millions of us dastardly Americans raised in the northern states and New England share Canada's love of hockey and skating, even perhaps a greater number than in Canada, so there's no problem there if our nations end up fusing together at some point after all. On the other hand, the "ice skating" cab drivers of Montreal and other Candian cities are a different story, slipping and sliding through traffic with a wizardly skill unknown in any Americam city as far as I know. You should post a video of THAT if you have a chance.
Frogs, pot, boiling