Grants and Contributions

Following the Announcement of Opportunity published on Dec. 18, 2020, the CSA is providing funding via a Grant Agreement to the university to allow one of its scientists to participate in the Euclid mission in the role of co-investigator.

The Arctic is vital to Canada's societal and economic well-being, yet the region faces an urgent threat from climate change. Rapidly warming temperatures in the Arctic are bringing unprecedented changes to extreme events like snowstorms, melting polar ice, and wildfires, which profoundly impact the people and ecosystems of Canada's North. This project combines data from Canadian-supported satellite instruments and other observing networks, to improve computer models that are used to make forecasts of extreme weather and climate in the Arctic, and across the globe. We will also train the next generation of Canadian scientists in atmosphere and land-surface processes.

Terrestrial surface parameters such as soil moisture, vegetation, together with surface roughness, play significant roles in the forecasting and prediction capabilities of hydrological and atmospheric models. The overall objective of this project is to enhance our knowledge in the Earth system sciences, through improved analysis and modelling of combined SMAP and SMOS data along with RADARSAT Constellation Mission data. The new knowledge that will be generated has the potential not only to enhance our theoretical understanding in Earth system sciences, but also to provide information for practical use (crop monitoring, water resources management, etc.).

Stratospheric aerosols—tiny particles suspended 10-30 km aloft—play an important role in atmospheric radiative transfer. Perturbations to the stratospheric aerosol layer, from volcanic eruptions or forest fires, can have a significant climate impact. While satellite observations provide invaluable information on stratospheric aerosols, their radiative forcing remains uncertain. We will use OSIRIS and MAESTRO measurements of aerosol extinction and size distribution to inform improvements to the Easy Volcanic Aerosol (EVA) simple aerosol model. EVA output will be used in the SASKTRAN radiative transfer model and the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM) to improve understanding of stratospheric aerosol radiative forcing.

Current satellites capable of detecting soil moisture are well validated for low vegetation areas, however, they have less accuracy in forested regions such as the boreal forest. In this research we will perform a soil moisture measurement campaign in a boreal forest to improve soil moisture estimates from two satellite missions: NASA's SMAP and ESA's SMOS. Our improved soil moisture estimates will be used to update models used by Environment and Climate Change Canada for weather, drought and forest fire prediction.

In recent decades, relative humidity over land has fallen, significantly worsening drought and wildfire. However, how land dryness and air masses interact to induce drier climatic conditions is unclear. Recently, we developed a novel evaporation model that characterizes land-atmosphere feedback processes. In this project, we will adapt this model to satellite land dryness observations, allowing us to estimate evapotranspiration across Canada and globally, and investigate physical mechanisms inducing drier climate. We will also develop a robust drought index to aid in water management and fire risk identification, and in planning potential adaptation strategies to drier climatic conditions.

The project develops a new Earth system analytical model “CAN-TG” which utilises satellite data from a number of Canadian sensors or missions to predict carbon and moisture dynamics of key Canadian terrestrial ecosystems, including wetlands and at the northern tree line. Key strengths of new model is its fine spatial and temporal scale and its verification using existing Canadian datasets. This project has been developed as a collaboration between academia, the Canadian Forest Service and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

This project aims to develop a multi-variate data assimilation system to integrate the space-based soil moisture measurements from SMAP and SMOS and the terrestrial water storage observations from GRACE/GRACE-FO with hydrological modeling. The scientific objective is to exploit the potential of Earth observation, especially the scientific data collected through Canadian investments in space-based platforms in developing and advancing physically-based groundwater surface water computational models, thus providing evidence-based support for a better understanding of the physical processes that govern water movement in both the surface and subsurface domains of the Earth system.

TREx Auroral Transport Model

Verify the model used to interpret TREx with readings from satellites. TREx is a network of auroral cameras and radio receivers spread across Canada designed to study space weather.

Multi-instrument Studies of Ionospehric Structures at Extreme High Latitudes

Verify electron density measures taken by satellites, using an international network of radars called “SuperDARN”.