CANUE’s Weather and Climate team met on May 8th | 2017 to review their research program and upcoming activities. Meeting slides are available here (CANUE Weather and Climate Meeting May 8 2017) and include:
- a brief overview of climate, weather and health linkages (Dr. Tim Takaro)
- a description of the PAVICS platform (pavics2016_eng) currently under development by OURANOS which aims to improve access to weather and climate data in Canada(Diane Chaumont and Blaise Gauvin St-Denis)
- a discussion of types of metrics that may be of interest and proposed next steps (Dr. Johan Feddema)
The near-term goal of the Weather and Climate team is to develop methods for producing weather and climate metrics using NRCAN’s 10km gridded dataset that may be relevant to human health, such as:
Base data
- daily temperature – minimum, maximum, average, range
- daily precipitation – total millimeters
Derived data
- weekly, monthly and annual summary metrics
- ‘health’ degree days – number of days above or below identified thresholds of high or low temperatures
- potential and actual evapotranspiration – indicates wetness or dryness and may indicate flood potential
The 10km downscaled dataset from BC’s Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC) was evaluated as well, however, modelled data after 2005 are not adjusted with observed levels and so may reflect model assumptions more than actual conditions.
Mahdi Shooshtari, CANUE’s Data Scientist, will be working with Diane Chaumont (Team Co-leader) and Blaise Gauvin St-Denis at OURANOS in early June to develop methods for producing indicators from the data holdings in PAVICS.
Visit the CANUE feedback page or Message Board to add your thoughts and advice!