The Surface Climates of Canada - Volume 4

Climate, particularly physical and surface climate, plays an important role in landscape pattern and diversity in Canada.

Focusing on climatic processes at and near the earth's surface and on how these processes interact with the natural and human-modified landscapes, the text reveals the interrelationship between Canada's surface and its climate.

In the opening chapters contributors lay out the large-scale context of the physical climate of Canada, introducing the processes, balances, and dynamic linkages between the surface and atmosphere that create and maintain the diversity of surface climates found in Canada as well as outlining the nature of the physical processes that operate near the ground's surface.

Individual chapters are dedicated to snow and ice - the almost universal surface cover in Canada - and the other major natural surface environments of Canada: ocean and coastal zones, fresh water lakes, wetlands, arctic islands, low arctic and subarctic lands, forests, and alpine environments. The final part of the book considers those surface environments that have been strongly influenced by human activity, such as agricultural lands and urban environments, and examines the prospects for future climate change.