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Declining availability of outdoor skating in Canada

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 2–4 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor —

Climate change is, and will continue, altering the supply of ecosystem services1,2. Cultural ecosystem services provide important societal benefits but are challenging to operationalize2,3,4,5. The impact of warming on these cultural activities, such as ice skating, are likely to be among the most broadly obvious and compelling impacts of climate change6. Here we report that the availability and benefits of skating on the world's largest outdoor ice skating facility: declined from 1972 to 2013, was strongly dependent on weather, and is projected to continue declining with an accelerated rate between 2020–2090.

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Figure 1: Historical and projected season length and skating days at the Ridea Canal Skateway.
Figure 2: Comparing different models of cultural ecosystem service benefit in terms of user numbers.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible due to financial support from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Donald Mackenzie Munroe Fellowship, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies. We would like to thank the National Capital Commission for providing their records, and Alain Nantel for consulting upon those data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Jeremy R. Brammer & Murray M. Humphries

  2. Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, Québec, Canada

    Jason Samson

Authors
  1. Jeremy R. Brammer
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  2. Jason Samson
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  3. Murray M. Humphries
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Contributions

J.B. conceived the study and gathered data from the National Capital Commission. J.S. simulated future weather data using MarkSim. J.B., in consultation with J.S. and M.H., conducted the analysis and wrote the manuscript. J.S. and M.H. edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jeremy R. Brammer.

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Brammer, J., Samson, J. & Humphries, M. Declining availability of outdoor skating in Canada. Nature Clim Change 5, 2–4 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2465

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