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(CNN) First there were ski resorts that couldn’t be operational due to the climate crisis. Now the world’s largest outdoor ice rink faces the possibility of the season closing entirely due to a lack of ice.
Recognized by Guinness as the world’s largest naturally frozen ice rink, Ottawa’s Rideau Canal Skateway attracts more than a million visitors each year.
The 4.8-mile skateway is actually part of the Rideau Canal, a 125-mile UNESCO World Heritage Site that connects Ottawa to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The Skateway is the portion of the canal that runs through central Ottawa, from downtown to Dow’s Lake.
Each year, typically from early January to early March, around a million people flock to the site to skate, shuffle, or walk or hike the trails that run alongside it. In January, CNN Travel named Ottawa one of its 23 destinations for 2023 thanks to the Skateway.
However, the opening times are always weather dependent.
The skateway is open to the public when the ice is at least 12 inches thick — just under 12 inches.
According to the National Capital Commission, which manages the site, that type of thickness requires 10 to 14 days of “consecutive cold weather.”
For this task, “cold” is defined as -10 °C to -20 °C or 14 to -4 F. Pros prepare for the start of skating season by flooding the (already deep) ice to further thicken it.
But this year there is not enough ice to build the skateway.
Ottawa is experiencing one of the warmest winters on record as temperatures have remained mild in the normally very cold capital. With climate change accelerating, winters around the world are getting hotter and hotter. The past eight years have been the warmest for the planet on record.
The ice isn’t thick enough to open the skateway yet.
“Continued above-average seasonal temperatures and current ice conditions are preventing us from opening the Rideau Canal Skateway this week,” an NCC spokesman told CNN in an email.
“We continue to hope that we can welcome skaters to the skateway this year. We will reassess the conditions at the end of the week.”
On February 3, the NCC had issued a safety alert telling the public that the ice was “dangerously thin” and the water was as deep as 14 feet below.
“The presence of work crews on the channels in the coming days should not be taken as a sign that the ice surface is stable,” she explained.
“The team consists of professionals who know how to manage the risks involved in their work.”
A professional team is monitoring the ice in hopes they can open the site.
Once the skateway is ready, green flags will appear to signal that it is safe. And once it’s open, every night (weather permitting) the surface is swept and the ice is flooded again to smooth out cracks. Around 22,000 skaters go onto the ice every day.
The NCC is already working to keep the skateway operational despite the climate crisis.
In 2022, it partnered with Carleton University to address the impact of climate change on the site. In a four-year project, the first two years will be spent collecting data and then modeling to predict future ice behavior. Finally, the scientists will propose solutions to adapt the skateway.