New climate change tool will help keep Canadians safe
Posted: September 27, 2017 6:00 a.m.
Dr. Gordon Huang, professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, has developed a new climate change tool called the Canada Climate Change Data Portal. U of R Photography
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Researchers at the University of Regina have recently launched a new climate change tool designed to help project future climate changes.
The tool, called the Canada Climate Change Data Portal (CCCDP), was developed by researchers in the University of Regina’s Institute for Energy Environment and Sustainable Communities (IEESC).
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| Click here to access the Canada Climate Change Data Portal. |
Dr. Gordon Huang, executive director of the IEESC and professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, says this GIS and web-based data portal is the first coordinated effort for projecting climate change in Canada using high-resolution regional climate simulations.
According to Huang, this free, easy-to-use data portal is a one-stop-shop for government, academia, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to access information needed to enhance community resilience and to mitigate and prevent disasters, such as floods, droughts, forest fires and winter storms.
“This research will help decision makers assess the impacts of climate change in different scenarios, and plan adaptation strategies to reduce various risks associated with climate change,” says Huang.
Dr. Xander Wang, a former University of Regina PhD student who worked on the project, says ultimately the intent of the technology is to help keep Canadians safe.
“Our portal increases our understanding of the climate and helps to strengthen emergency readiness and security management,” says Wang. “One of the challenges in climate change impact assessment is the lack of high-resolution climate data. The CCCDP has increased spatial resolution, improved simulation accuracy and extended assessment of the impacts of climate change on Canadians’ security at regional and national levels.”
Huang says that the CCCDP has more than 40 dynamically-downscaled climate parameters presented as continuous hourly data for the upcoming century, with a spatial resolution of 25 km or 50 km which can be further statistically downscaled to 1 km. The tool also supports climate trends and variability analyses, and offers weather hazard projections.
“This information provides a scientific basis for developing an early warning system of extreme climatic events. This portal offers state-of-the-art tools to evaluate the impacts of climate change on various human activities and to address and quantify related risk and security issues, such as those related to human health, energy development, urban and rural infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystem stewardship,” says Huang.
Huang says the portal’s advantages include: gridded maps of climate data with corresponding geographical information; climate variables such as temperature, precipitation, wind and solar radiation; and data at daily and hourly time periods.
“Canadians now have the latest information about the future climate to the year 2100 at their fingertips,” says Huang.
Please click here to access the Canada Climate Change Data Portal.
To visit the University of Regina’s Institute for Energy Environment and Sustainable Communities please visit here.
This research is supported by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Research Chairs Program, Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.
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