What's Current Archives - Page 3 of 12

Observing Snow from the Sky: Breakthroughs in mapping tundra snow with drones

Written on February 26, 2020.

– By Branden Walker and Philip Marsh, Cold Regions Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario –

Snow is not evenly distributed across Arctic tundra landscapes. Strong winter winds and low-lying vegetation allow snow to easily be eroded, transported and deposited across the open landscape resulting in a heterogenous distribution of snow depth, snow density, and snow water equivalent (SWE). Understanding the distribution of snow in these environments is of upmost importance

Toward Quantifying Area-fugitive Greenhouse Gas
(GHG) Emissions from Open-pit Mines

Written on February 12, 2020.

– By Amir Nazem, Md. Rafsan Nahian, Ryan Byerlay, Manoj K. Nambiar, and Amir A. Aliabadi-

Conventional techniques to quantify area-fugitive Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from an open-pit mine have serious drawbacks. The bottom-up approach is based on inventory estimates, in which the emissions from different stationary sources across a mining facility are combined. This approach does not include the atmospheric measurements of GHGs or meteorology and relies on assumptions of the strength of each GHG source within a facility that may not be up-to-date.

In My Opinion: On greed, power and making the weather

Written on January 30, 2020.

– By Phil Chadwick, Meteorologist and Eco-Artist –

I figure if one is going to have an opinion about climate change, it had better be an informed opinion. I thought I was well informed but there is always something to learn too. The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery was published in 2005 just after Hurricane Katrina. Fifteen years later not much has changed – the politicians continue to dither.

A Message from the
Incoming CMOS Bulletin Editor, Nicole Renaud

Written on January 26, 2020.

Hello from Edmonton and Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people. I am thrilled to be joining the CMOS team as the new Bulletin Editor! My passion for the environment has been a life long build up, with my interest in water security emerging while I lived in Mexico’s Sonoran desert, in the Baja peninsula. While there, I saw locals unable to afford water contrasted against empty golf courses outside of tourist season being draped in water.

Searching towards creating a sustainable integrated mesonet for the Canadian Prairie Provinces

Written on January 13, 2020.

– By Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques¹, Aston Chipanshi², Trevor Hadwen², Allan Friesen¹, and David Sauchyn³ –

Due to the continental nature of the Canadian Prairie Provinces, their weather and climate are characterized by extremes. With this reality, the Prairie Provinces should benefit from high resolution weather monitoring from an integrated weather mesonet. A mesonet consists of any number of automated weather stations with an average spacing of 1 to 50 kilometers. This station spacing is much denser

Message from the CMOS President: Welcoming in a Decade for Climate Action

Written on January 8, 2020.

– By Kimberly Strong, CMOS President and Professor & Chair, Department of Physics, University of Toronto –

As 2019 ends and we welcome 2020, we have an opportunity to reflect on some of the events of the last year and where we are heading in the year to come, particularly on the topic of climate change, which has been front and centre in the news all year. Progress on climate action this past year was frustratingly slow for many, particularly given the disagreement at the December COP25 Conference in Madrid,

Canada’s Top Ten Weather Stories of 2019

Written on January 2, 2020.

– By David Phillips, Environment and Climate Change Canada (article source: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/top-ten-weather-stories/2019.html) –

Canadians are experiencing more and more extreme weather, from intense and lengthy heat waves, to suffocating smoke and haze from wildfires, to extreme flooding. Canadian scientists have made a clear link between climate change and extreme weather events. They tell us that while such events can and do occur naturally, much of what we are seeing is driven by human-induced climate change.

Message from the Editor: A Fond Farewell

Written on December 28, 2019.

– By Sarah Knight, CMOS Bulletin Editor –

As 2019 comes to a close, so does my time as Editor for the CMOS Bulletin. Three and a half years since I began, a different direction is calling to me, and it is with incredible gratitude for all that I have been a part of with CMOS that I take my leave to further travel down that other path.

MOPITT – Measuring Pollution in the Troposphere for 20 Years

Written on December 21, 2019.

– By Prof. James R. Drummond, FRSC, Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University –

Most scientific projects run for a few years and then the people involved move on to something else. The Measurements Of Pollution in The Troposphere (MOPITT) project has been running for over 30 years and on December 18th, 2019 we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the launch of the MOPITT satellite instrument.