Canada’s ClimateData.ca portal

Canada’s climate continues to change at a rapid pace. As referenced in Canada’s Changing Climate Report, this warmer climate could intensify and increase extreme weather events such as wildfires, urban floods, droughts and heatwaves. The Government of Canada is helping Canadians adapt to the impacts of climate change, which are already affecting our families, homes, communities, and economies. This is in addition to the work underway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address the root cause of climate change.

In June 2019, the Government of Canada launched ClimateData.ca, a new climate data portal. It was developed for users such as public health professionals, engineers, and planners, who require more than general climate change information to help understand and adapt to climate change.

In order to better support their needs, ClimateData.ca provides:

• Historical and projected climate data at the daily level available to view and download at a resolution of about 10 × 10 km
• Over 25 different indicators for temperature and precipitation across Canada including extremes
• Updated historical Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) curves

Climate change threatens the health of Canadians. The new ClimateData.ca portal includes a specific health section with data useful for health authorities to support and inform health adaptation strategies and planning.

Providing high-resolution climate data to help decision-makers build a more resilient Canada

ClimateData.ca will continue to evolve and provide additional resources as more climate datasets become available and as feedback is received from user engagement. Sector modules will be added to provide data and information tailored for the unique needs and considerations of different sectors.

The creation of ClimateData.ca was supported by the Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS), in collaboration with national and regional climate service providers, including Ouranos, the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, and the Prairie Climate Centre. The development of the software solutions behind ClimateData.ca was undertaken by the Computer Research Institute of Montréal (CRIM) in collaboration with Habitat Seven.

ClimateData.ca is part of the CCCS collaborative approach to providing climate data and information to Canadians to support the incorporation of climate change into planning and decisions. In addition to launching its own webpage and giving access to select ECCC climate datasets, CCCS is leveraging leading-edge work already being done by other organizations and bringing together available climate data to establish a suite of portals with different functionalities for a diverse set of users.

Other portals included in the suite include the Climate Atlas of Canada, which provides more general educational tools and less detailed climate data, and PAVICS (Power Analytics for Visualization of Climate Science), which offers sophisticated scientific tools for expert users. ClimateData.ca bridges the gap between these other portals providing tools and information for technical users.