- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
- Guardiola claims Premier League won't delay season for Man City
- Israel to mark October 7 attack as Gaza war spreads
- Gauff fights back to reach China Open final
- Recovering Stokes ruled out of first Pakistan Test
- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
Warming world dampening winter sports in Canada
Christmas was without snow, then temperatures seesawed throughout January in much of Canada, as the increasing effects of climate change drastically dampen the country's winter sports season.
January is historically the coldest month of the year, but at Ignace-Bourget Park in Montreal, hockey nets had yet to be installed mid-month.
Instead, workers took advantage of a rare day when temperatures plunged below freezing to apply a thin layer of water to thicken new ice.
"I've been working for the city of Montreal for 20 years, and it's really unusual to have ice rinks opening so late," Martin Letendre, wearing a fluorescent orange coat and crampons on his boots, told AFP.
With his team, he works day and night to ready rinks for skating. But weeks after the Christmas holidays, most of the city's approximately 250 outdoor ice rinks remained closed to the public.
"Normally, we aim to open them before Christmas, on December 21 or 22, but this year unfortunately, it is later," he laments.
The mercury must drop to -4 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) or below and hold steady for three consecutive days to achieve a proper thickness of around fifteen centimeters (six inches), Letendre explains.
"This year, it's been even longer before the cold set in," Charles-Antoine Rondeau told AFP when reporters visited Jarry Park and found its three ice rinks closed.
"It's unfortunate, it upsets our traditions a little," explained the teacher, nostalgic for skating outings he went on with his family when he was a child.
"When we see that, we inevitably say that it has a link with global warming, and it's worrying because we can already see the difference now," said Juliette Rougerie, who went jogging because she was unable to go for her usual skate.
- 'People can relate' -
Canada, due to its geographical location, is warming faster than the rest of the planet and has been confronted in recent years with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency have increased due to climate change.
In addition to a record-breaking forest fire season last summer, the ice road network connecting remote northern communities was also slow to open this year.
In the capital Ottawa, a mild winter last year prevented the opening of the Rideau Canal skating rink, the largest in the world.
"We're always gonna have winter," said Concordia University doctoral student Mitchell Dickau, who published a study in 2020 on global warming's impact on outdoor ice rinks. "But we're gonna see the ice-skating season change drastically for sure."
"In the 2010s, we saw the skating season was about 55 days each year. If we bring our (CO2) emissions to net zero and limit warming to two degrees (Celsius), we're still gonna see an 11 to 15 day drop in the skating season," he said.
"But if we continue on and don't do anything to abate our CO2 emissions, we could see the season decline to as little as 11 days by the end of the century."
According to the researcher, this year started off as "definitely an anomaly."
"The length of the outdoor skating season... is an indicator of climate change that people can relate to a bit better than degrees of warming," he commented. "People can see how skating seasons will have changed in their lifetime."
To get around this problem, outdoor ice rinks on chilled concrete slabs are becoming more popular, some covered to reduce snow build-up or protect from rain, as alternatives to natural ice. But these refrigeration systems don't come cheap, starting at several thousand dollars.
Dickau noted that the shortened outdoor skating season is not unique to Montreal. "We're seeing the season decline everywhere where there is skating across Canada," he said.
F.Ferraz--PC