Canadian Climate Change Scenarios Network - National Node

EC - GC

Background

The CCCSN was originally launched in February 2005 with support from Environment Canada, the Climate Change Adaptation Fund (CCAF) and the University of Regina. Since April of 2005, it has been wholly supported by Environment Canada and the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division (AIRD), along with university and other partners.

The CCCSN is based upon the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division (AIRD) network, which links development of the site with ongoing research at various AIRD nodes. The CCCSN continues to support climate change impact and adaptation research in Canada and other partner countries through the provision of GCM scenarios, RCM scenarios and downscaling tools. In addition, the CCCSN can provide high level technical support for downscaling and impacts and adaptation research, access to existing research, access to new research tools as they are developed at the AIRD nodes and training in the use of these tools. The CCCSN supports academic researchers as well as other stakeholders outside of academia who require scenario information for decision-making.

The CCCSN staff would like to acknowledge the contributions of the Canadian Climate Impacts Scenarios project (CCIS) to impact assessment research in Canada and the support CCIS provides to climate impact assessment in British Columbia.

A number of individuals and organizations have helped in the development of the CCCSN website. We thank them all for their efforts and contributions to the site.

The Network

Click on a region on the national map to go to that regional node contact (The content of the regional nodes is under development)

The CCCSN consists of six separate nodes, each representing a region of Canada. Each node is hosted by a partner in collaboration with the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division (AIRD).

• Arctic Region
• Pacific and Yukon Region
• Prairie Region
• Ontario Region
• Québec Region
• Atlantic Region

Arctic Region
This node is in initial development.

Pacific and Yukon Region
The Pacific and Yukon Region node is located located at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Prairie Region
The Prairie Region node is located within the Environmental Systems Engineering Program offices, at the University of Regina, under the supervision of Dr. Guohe Huang, the Associate of Dean of Research and External Linkages in the Faculty of Engineering.

Ontario Region
The Ontario Region and National nodes are located within the Centre for Environment at the University of Toronto.

Québec Region
The Québec Region node is located within the Centre for Climate & Global Change Research at McGill University.

Atlantic Region
The Atlantic Region node is located within Environment Canada’s offices in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, under the direction of Gary Lines.

What is the CCCSN?

The CCCSN will maintain Canada's reputation for preserving a leading-edge scenarios facility that will become one of the premier sources for Canadians and international researchers seeking information on climate change scenarios and impacts and adaptation research.
The content of the network includes:

• Canadian climate change scenarios derived from GCM (Global Climate Model) simulations, (particularly the Canadian model, available at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis (CCCma), those scenarios recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) project. In addition, this website will provide regional scale/high resolution output from the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM), through collaboration with the Ouranos consortium, along with information on other relevant GCM downscaling methods;
• Bioclimate profiles for Canada;
• Scenarios and impact and adaptation research documents from within and outside of Canada;
• Links to IPCC guidelines on scenario use and interpretation;
• On-line instructions for using scenarios and downscaling tools: the Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM), the Automated Downscaling Tool (ASD) and a weather generator (LARS-WG);
• Links to other tools used in impacts and adaptation research; and
• Scenario Reports and selected scientific publications related to climate scenarios and impacts and adaptation research.

The network also allows the user to:

• Visualize GCM and CRCM experiments, either as maps or through the use of graphical displays of data;
• Facilitate the analysis and comparison of available simulations from GCMs and the CRCM, when comparable simulations are available for the same experiments;
• Develop all relevant derived atmospheric variables based extremes to consider plausible anticipated changes in duration, frequency and intensity of weather extremes; and
• Extract and download all available parameter data for a particular location or region.

Environment Canada - Government of Canada Important Notices and Disclaimers Created : 2007-01-19 Modified : 2007-05-08 Reviewed : 2007-05-08 Url of this page :