Online Resources

This document provides information on online resources available to the electricity sector in Canada. They are public portals and websites that offer reliable and authoritative climate information and data.

ClimateData.ca

The ClimateData.ca online platform offers a wide range of resources related to the past and future Canadian climate data, as well as analysis tools and a large quantity of educational materials to support the assessment of climate change impacts and the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The site allows users to visualize climate projections over Canada and download a number of datasets, notably Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD), future building design values, Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) rainfall data and observations from Canadian stations. The site also include information on IDF Curves, infrastructure design in the context of a changing climate, seasonal forecasts as well as a series of resources on climate science and climate data, amongst others.

Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure (CRBCPI): An Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Climatic Design Data in Canada

The “Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure: An Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Climatic Design Data in Canada” report by Environment and Climate Change Canada examines how historical climate variability and future climate change are altering climatic design data that guide infrastructure planning, design, and performance in Canada. It assesses observed changes and projected trends in key climate variables that inform design standards, such as temperature, precipitation, wind, and freeze-thaw cycles, and evaluates how these changes affect design parameters used for buildings and core public infrastructure under changing climate conditions. Appendix 1 includes tables of projected changes for each climatic design variable under different global warming levels. A summary of the report is available here.

Design Value Explorer

The Design Value Explorer is a web-based technical tool from the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC) at the University of Victoria that provides engineers, planners, and infrastructure professionals with access to both historical and future-projected climatic design values relevant to the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 2015, Table C-2) and the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC/ CSA S6 2014, Annex A3.1) for any location across Canada. It allows users to view maps of historical design values, extract local design values and their projected changes for different global warming levels relative to a 1986–2016 baseline, access values at specific locations listed in the Code’s official tables, and download customized maps and data tables. The tool’s underlying data combine interpolated station observations and regional climate model outputs. It was developed to operationalize and share the climate-adjusted design values assessed and produced as part of the Canadian government’s Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure (CRBCPI) 2020 report.

PAVICS

PAVICS is a virtual laboratory facilitating the analysis of climate data. It provides access to several data collections of station observations, reanalyses and climate projections. PAVIC’s Python programming environment gives the user access to on-premises computational infrastructure for the analysis of this data without the need to download it, thus reducing the need for local storage capacity and high-bandwidth data transfers. The working environment is constantly updated with the most efficient libraries for climate data analysis, in addition to ensuring quality control on the provided data and associated metadata. Finally, PAVICS also offers a suite of tools to streamline the analysis of climate change’s impacts on hydrology through the hydrological modeling framework Raven.

Information on upcoming tutorials goes here.

Registration is free. For more information, contact pavics@ouranos.ca.

Climate READi Climate Data User Guide

EPRI’s Climate Data User Guide is a technical resource for electrical system planners, regulators, and stakeholders that explains how to select, interpret, and apply climate and weather data for physical climate risk assessment relevant to energy systems. It describes sources and types of observed and projected climate information, outlines statistical concepts and methods for analyzing historical records and future projections, compares major climate models and emission scenarios, and provides guidance on choosing appropriate datasets and metrics for specific planning and resilience applications. The guide also discusses the relevance of different climate variables and extreme events to energy infrastructure performance and reliability and highlights common data limitations (e.g., downscaling and interpolation issues). The guide also outlines how to choose appropriate climate projections and datasets for specific planning applications, discusses climate change impacts on energy infrastructure performance and reliability, and provides references and practical guidance to support the use of climate information in resilience planning. The focus of the guide is on the United States, but much of the information is also relevant for Canada.

Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS) Support Desk

The Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS) Support Desk provides expert assistance to help Canadians find, understand, and use climate data for adaptation decisions. Users can contact support via email at ccsc-cccs@ec.gc.ca, phone at 1-833-517-0376, or through the online web form. The service assists with data interpretation, tool navigation (like ClimateData.ca), and accessing resources.