Message from the CMOS President: Communication, Partnership and Change

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

At this time of year, as we enjoy the beautiful fall colours and brace for winter, thoughts of CMOS members also turn to spring as we plan ahead for our annual Congress. The 54th CMOS Congress will be held in Ottawa from May 24 to 28, 2020 with a focus on “Building Societal Resilience to Changing Weather, Climate, Oceans and Environment”. The Local Arrangements Committee, chaired by Bruce Angle, and the Science Programme Committee, co-chaired by Leonard Barrie and Gordon McBean, are hard at work putting together an excellent programme that we expect will attract as many as 700 participants.

Proposals are now invited for scientific or technical sessions that relate to eight broad themes:

• Risks and Impacts of Climate Change on the Resilience of Major Sectors
• Tornadoes and Other Extreme Weather Events Impacting Canadians
• Oceans and Ice in a Changing Climate
• Floods and Water Crises in Canada and Globally
• Impacts of A Changing Climate in the Arctic
• Climate-Weather-Water and Food
• Pollution of the Air, Water and Ecosystems
• The Cryosphere – Impacts Locally to Globally

The call for sessions (due November 28) is posted at https://www.cmos.ca/site/sessions_submission and additional information about the Congress will be posted on http://congress.cmos.ca – please keep an eye on this website and plan to attend the Congress next May.

Climate change loomed large in the recent federal election. It is sure to be prominent in the 43rd Parliament and is an issue that is now with us for the long haul. Holding our Congress in Ottawa will give CMOS members an excellent opportunity to communicate their work to policy makers and to highlight how it can contribute to reducing risk and increasing resilience to extreme weather, climate change, and other environmental events.

Related to this, CMOS is a member of the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE), which is a cooperative association of national Science and Engineering organizations whose objective is to raise awareness of science, technology and innovation issues among federal decision-makers. We recently renewed our membership, which means that all CMOS members also have an affiliation with PAGSE. I encourage you to visit their website (www.pagse.org) to read about PAGSE activities, including the Bacon and Eggheads breakfasts with parliamentarians, the annual submission to the House of Commons Committee on Finance, and the SciEng Pages on topical issues. I welcome suggestions for a CMOS-related SciEng topic.

CMOS also has a number of other partners, which strengthen our Society and its wider impact. These include the Canadian Consortium for Research (CCR, https://ccr-ccr.ca/), which is the largest umbrella organization in Canada whose primary concerns are the funding of research in all sectors and support for post-secondary education. I would particularly like to remind you that as a CMOS member, you can join the American Meteorological Society (details of our recently renewed agreement are here) and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (details here) as Affiliate Members, which entitles you to benefits associated with these societies. We are also in the process of establishing a similar partnership with the Royal Meteorological Society. Continuing this theme, October means that it is time to renew your CMOS membership. I encourage you to renew online at http://www.cmos.ca/ and to recruit a new member or two. You may find some inspiration in the Bulletin’s engaging profile of Haowen Qin, our youngest member!

Finally, I am delighted to report that Environment and Climate Change Canada has accepted our invitation to be the CMOS Tour Speaker this year. Several ECCC scientists will be involved and all will be speaking about Canada’s Changing Climate Report released earlier this year. Watch for an announcement from your local CMOS Centre.

As always, I invite you to contact me (president@scmo.ca) if you would like to get involved in any area of CMOS activities.