Abstracts: CMOS Ottawa, 2007-2008
(in language given)
Stieb/Henderson: The Air
Quality
Health Index (AQHI) was developed by Health Canada and Environment
Canada,
in collaboration with governments and health and environment
organizations,
to empower Canadians to plan, on a daily basis, to modify their
behaviour
and reduce the personal risk associated with air pollution. The
development
of the AQHI reflects the results of Canadian and international research
linking daily air pollution levels to acute health impacts associated
with
local air quality in urban communities.
In 2007, the
federal Ministers of Health and Environment committed $30M
over four years to transition the existing MSC Air Quality Forecast
Program
towards providing AQHI forecasts and to support, through provincial and
local partnerships, the adoption of the index nationally. This joint
presentation
will outline the fundamentals and future of the AQHI and forecast
program.
Hudson: In his talk
"Arctic Weather",
Ed hopes to instill some "arctic" to your weather consciousness. He
will
show things that influence the weather in the Arctic and vice versa and
the resultant climatology such as that for blizzards. He will share
some
of the interesting, newsworthy, or award winning meteorological moments
that he experienced or witnessed during his arctic career such as polar
lows, sacrificial beaches, and extreme wind events. From the
perspective
of an operational arctic forecaster, he will contrast where we were in
the 1970s, where we are now in 2008 and where we can go in 2008/2009
and
beyond with respect to forecasts and monitoring in the north with an
emphasis
on surface data, polar orbiting satellites, and buoys on ice in the
arctic
basin. A segment of the talk will look at activities in the north and
the
weather information that is available to support them.
Cantwell: The relative speed
and significance
of environmental change to the global commons is arguably greater today
than in any period of recorded history. Knowledge about such change in
advance is required in order to better adapt and/or mitigate the
impacts
to and from humanity's complex integrated economic, social, and
environmental
systems. Fortunately, advancements over the last decade in science and
technology as well as inclusive participatory approaches to
collaboration
may now be brought together to produce more useful predictions of
likely
or conditional states of these complex systems. The implications for
developing
and harnessing this predictive capacity may be enormous benefits to
humanity
by allowing more informed and integrated decision-making concerning the
protection of the natural world and the enhancement of human health,
safety
and prosperity. Yet these advancements in S&T and governance are
only
now catching the attention of government, industry, and civil society
around
the world.
This
presentation
will discuss the nature of environmental prediction
- its definition, scope, and potential benefits. The presentation will
propose a strategic approach to enhancing EP and its usefulness in
Canada
by setting out objectives, principles, and processes in a Canadian
context.
It will present a non-traditional way for bringing together the S&T
and decision-making communities to produce more useful knowledge about
the future in order to better manage the cumulative risks and
opportunities
of a changing world.
Manore: Earth
observations are especially
important to Canada. Our immense land mass, vast oceans, inland waters,
and atmosphere require a wide array of observations and measurements in
order to monitor and understand their current condition and to predict
their future states. The first Earth Observation Summit in 2003
initiated
the creation of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) - an
intergovernmental
body with the 10-year goal of implementing a Global Earth Observing
System
of Systems (GEOSS). The GEOSS is envisaged to provide coordinated,
comprehensive
and sustained observations and information products to support decision
and policy making on issues of key societal and global importance. In
Canada,
the Canadian Group on Earth Observations (CGEO) was formed with the
goals
of managing Canada's engagement in the international process, and more
importantly to advance coordinated Earth Observation domestically. The
presentation will summarize the history, recent developments, and
accomplishments
of GEO from both a domestic and international perspective.
Macdonald: The Canadian
International Polar
Year (IPY) was launched in 2007 with 80% of the funding to be spent in
the first two years of this 5-year program. In many ways, IPY is timely
in that the Arctic is undergoing unprecedented change in ice climate
with
as yet less clear consequences for biology and geochemistry.
In this talk,
some
of the issues we face in a changing Arctic Ocean
will be discussed and the major oceanographic programs that have been
funded
in western Canada will be reviewed. These studies, now under way,
provide
wide geographical approaches to the issue of Arctic climate change.
The studies
also
include sampling and the combination of atmospheric,
oceanic and biogeochemical components. IPY will produce a large harvest
of data which will require a commitment for many years down the road.
Stone: The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change is currently completing its Fourth Assessment Report. An
intergovernmental
meeting to accept the Synthesis Report will be held in Valencia, Spain
from November 12 to 16, 2007. As with previous Assessments, only a
handful
of conclusions in any one Working Group significantly advance the
science
or the policy debate. In this talk, key conclusions will be discussed
and
a synthesis presented. Evidence from the Working Group reports that was
not included in the Summaries for Decision-makers, and that suggests
climate
change is accelerating, will also be discussed.
Grimes: MSC is in the final
year of a modernization
program aimed at strengthening its base in terms of infrastructure and
staff. There is a need to build on this and renew the focus on its
mandated
responsibilities, given a changing environment and society. This
presentation
examines a few of MSC's key ongoing issues and outlines the shape of
future
activities.
Mr. Grimes
will
include results of public opinion surveys about Canadians'
use of weather information and describe new ways to deliver weather
services.
He will emphasize the increased frequency of weather-related disasters
and the ways in which MSC services are used to mitigate the impacts of
these events.
Gower: The European
optical imaging sensor,
MERIS, has a role similar to the US Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) in wide-area imaging of water and land. However, MERIS uses a
different
design, which has a partly Canadian heritage. MERIS has advantages, one
of which is a unique spectra band that greatly improves detection of
plankton
blooms and floating vegetation.
A system has
been
set up to use this capability for regular global monitoring
of ocean and coastal waters. The work has already resulted in the first
satellite imaging of extensive patterns of floating Sargassum, and of
"superblooms"
of phytoplankton amongst Antarctic ice. We will show examples of these,
and of bloom events which are regularly detected along the BC coast,
but
not so far in eastern Canadian waters.
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