Climate change | The days suitable for outdoor skating are melting away

The number of days suitable for skating rinks in southern Quebec has gone from more than sixty to barely forty per winter. A decrease of 30% in the space of half a century.

“It doesn't freeze enough anymore,” says Marie-Michelle Crevier from the outset when asked why it is no longer possible to skate on the Mille Îles River, behind the Saint-Eustache church. The municipality's communications assistant explains that the skating rink could not be open in winter 2020-2021. It has not reopened since. It has been possible to skate there since 1987.

In a file published by The Press On Sunday, researcher Robert McLeman specified that the ideal temperature for an ice rink is -5°C.

Read the file “Traditional neighborhood skating rink: skaters looking for ice”

We therefore collected historical data from 19 weather stations throughout southern Quebec. At each station, we counted the number of days where the maximum temperature was below -5 degrees over the past 50 years.

Great winters give way to terrible winters. In the last half of the 1970s, each winter had an average of 62 days with a maximum temperature colder than -5°C.

Over the past five years (2019 to 2023), this average has fallen to 43, a 30% decrease over a 50-year period, for all the stations we examined.

In general, the further north a weather station is located, the less ice time it loses. In Chibougamau, for example, we went from 100 days colder than -5°C in the 1970s to 86 between 2019 and 2023, a decrease of 14%.

In the stations located in Abitibi and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, the decrease was of the order of 20%. It was around 25% for the stations on the North Shore (Baie-Comeau and Sept-Îles).

In Saint-Hyacinthe, you could skate on the Yamaska ​​River between 1990 and 2010, according to archives from the Saint-Hyacinthe Courier. Sarah-Maude Cloutier, from the city's recreation department, explains that it became impossible to offer citizens safe conditions. The ice rink on the river could only be open 12 days per winter in recent years.

Halving in Montreal

Further south, the decrease exceeds the Quebec average. In Montreal, it is even close to 50%.

If there were 53 days per year suitable for skating rinks in the metropolis between 1975 and 1979, this number had decreased to 27 during the period 2019 to 2023.

To see what to expect over the next few years, The Press made two projections on data from the last half century. The results provide an idea of ​​when there will be no days left with ideal temperatures for skating outdoors in the city where ice hockey was invented.

In one case, this situation arises from 2036. In the other, we have a reprieve until 2101.

Strategic Rideau Canal

But organizations are already adapting. “Our priority in recent years has been to adapt our operations,” confirms Maryam El-Akhrass, communications advisor for the National Capital Commission (NCC), which manages the famous Rideau Canal skating rink.

“Certain strategies have already been implemented, such as the use of lighter equipment, and advanced techniques that allow us to create ice earlier in the season […] which could contribute to faster ice formation. »

Watering, which has already started, should allow the canal to welcome skaters this winter. However, the ice thickness must reach 30 cm for conditions to be safe. In 2023, the NCC had to give up on opening the canal to skaters for the first time since its opening in 1971.

“We open 90 days, in winter, and we have always adapted to the weather,” says Marc-Antoine Binette, responsible for the frozen labyrinth at Domaine Enchanteur, in Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, in Mauricie. The forest cover in which skaters can circulate already offers some protection against rain or strong sun. Despite everything, Mr. Binette remains optimistic and does not see the day when the outdoor skating rink will have to cease operations due to too mild winters.