Changing Environment: The Future of Canada’s ...web.sca.uqam.ca/~wgne/CMOS/5.29.12_tue/grand...

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Changing Environment: The Future of Canada’s Meteorological and

Hydrological Service

2012 CMOS Congress

David Grimes

President of WMO

Assistant Deputy Minister / MSC

Canada’s weather services challenge…a large country with a modest tax-base• Vast area of responsibility• Little infrastructure North

of 60• Country of significant

weather and climate extremes

• Weather-sensitive industries such as transportation, energy, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, outdoor recreation, and tourism

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recreation, and tourism generate about $150B of Canada’s GDP

• Significant challenge to be an effective Service requiring presence from Sable Island to Haida Gwaii to Alert to Pt Pelee and all points in between!

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Canada's Meteorological Services: 140 Years of Service

• Over the years, the Service took every opportunity to adapt and develop leading-edge technologies and science to expand and improve its monitoring, prediction, and

i iwarning services

• Today, the Service is recognized as one of the most advanced and respected Meteorological and Hydrological Organizations in the world

• We continue to produce timely and relevant products and services for Canadians


Canadians

• Our primary public good mission to protect the safety and security of Canadians and to support the Nation's Economy is well aligned with the Government of Canada priorities

1st Key Consideration:Society is becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather, climate and water events

• An Increasingly Urban and Aging Population– Population intensification & migration to coastal regions

are increasing; Today more than 80% of Canadians live in urban areas

– Trends show record number of Canadian seniors highlight importance of information for health, mobility, and municipal infrastructure services

• Global Food and Fresh Water Security– G20 Ministers called for global agricultural monitoring to

assess impacts of weather water and climate on food


assess impacts of weather, water and climate on food supply

– Stresses on water supplies will have consequences on governments for water allocation and sustainable use policies

• Results of IPCC Special Report on Extreme Weather

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2nd Key Consideration:Application of weather, climate and water information contributes significantly to economic growth

• Energy– Clean energy objectives - Renewables

– Oil and Gas / Pipelines

– International decade for Sustainable Energy for ALL

• Resource development in Canada’s North– Offshore, Mining, forestry, and fisheries

– Infrastructure development

• Transportation– Over-the-poles air travel


Over the poles air travel

– Extended international shipping in Arctic waters

• Development will introduce increased environmental risks and vulnerabilities

3rd Key Consideration:Meteorological and Hydrological Services Development is dependent upon international cooperation• World Meteorological Organization Priority Areas

– Global Framework for Climate Services

– Disaster Risk Reduction – community resilience

– WMO Integrated Global Observing System

– WMO Information System – internet access

– Aviation Meteorology – competence and quality

– WMO Polar Agenda

– Earth System Prediction – Future Earth

– Capacity Development

• Group on Earth Observations


Group on Earth Observations– Brings geospatial common infrastructure

(interoperability)

– Organizes interdisciplinary community to focus on socio-economic benefit areas including weather, climate and water

– Links to the community on Earth Observation Satellites

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Global Framework for (Improving) Global Framework for (Improving) Climate ServicesClimate Services

Users, Government, private sector, research, agriculture, water, health, energy, construction, disaster reduction,

• World Climate Conference 3

• Objectives , , gy, , ,environment, tourism, transport, etc

User Interface

Climate Services Information System

Observations and Research Modeling

– Enhance capacity of those in most need

– Advance knowledge and understanding of climate system

– Improve access to climate predictions and information

– Improve linkages with the decision-making community

I d lit f


Observations and Monitoring

Research, Modeling and Prediction

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

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• Improve access and quality of climate services at medium and long terms

• Critical input for climate change adaptation decisions

WMO 2011

WMO Polar Agenda– a decadal endeavour

• Establishing the Antarctic Observing Network (AntON)

– improving the understanding of its climatology

• Implementing the Global Cryosphere Watch– 100 countries

• Improving predictability in polar regions on weather and climate timescales; Global Integrated Polar Prediction System▪ Supports adaptation and decision-making

• Enhancement of weather and climate


• Enhancement of weather and climate services in polar regions to serve the needs of communities

– Improved weather forecast and warning services for polar regions

– Polar climate center and outlook forums

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4th Key Consideration:Harnessing the benefits of the significant advancements in science and technology


Relative Importance of Observation Systems

UK MO ECMWF 2010 System


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Making progress over the decades……in Observational Systems

IABP RBSN

AWS

AntOn IPA

Sea Ice


AMDAR

AWS

Joint Programmes• GAW• WCRP• Arctic HYCOS• GCOS (GOOS, GTN-P, GTN-G)

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5th Key Consideration:Role of our people in maximizing relevance and benefits of our services for Canadians

• Our people will need to play a more active role in ensuring that Canadians continue to be better informed of the impacts of a changing climate on their health, safety and security.

• As we become a more impacts based organisation, we will need to enhance and diversify the various skills and roles of our people to:

– Better understand and communicate with clients;

– Enable adaptability and responsiveness to client requirements;

– Support effective decision making by enabling the forecast of impacts; and

– Make the best use of other disciplines and expertise (e.g. sociology, economy, psychology)

• This approach can be achieved by:


This approach can be achieved by:– Learning from current initiatives, such as the work of Warning Preparedness

Meteorologists and the success of the Air Quality Health Index;

– Partnering with universities and organizations, such as CMOS; and

– Developing strong human resource strategies

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All in the Face…• … of a changing climate …

– Canadians are becoming more vulnerable as a result of a changing climate with growing frequency and severity of severe weather combined with increasingseverity of severe weather, combined with increasing societal reliance on built infrastructure and technology.

• … and a changing economic context– Canada continues to recover from the 2008

economic downturn, and needs to manage within fiscal constraints.

– The deficit reduction action plan focuses on further improving the efficiency and effectiveness of


p g ygovernment operations.

– Performance of natural resource based economies are largely sensitive to changes in the environment –good foresight can be a positive forcing.

Moving Forward and Facing Challenges

• A changing environment means we are entering unfamiliar territory

– Science is needed to inform adaptation

Monitoring research and prediction of– Monitoring, research and prediction of climate change and its impacts will provide early warnings to reduce risk and increase opportunities.

• Our collective way forward will need to be:– Focused – by addressing priority

infrastructure initiatives that are the most critical to the integrity of the weather, water and environmental enterprise;


enterprise;– Innovative – by rethinking the use of

our current resources and how we share knowledge and capabilities;

– Partnered – by making choices with respect to when, where and with whom we engage.

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Meeting the needs of Canadians today, tomorrow and into the future

• Vision: To be a world leading organization that understands and predicts changes in weather, water, climate and air quality over varying time scales, with an increased emphasis on informing and reporting on the impacts of changeschanges

• As a result:– Canada’s weather, environmental and science services will enable resilience in Canadian society

against significant weather, climate and water risks

– Canadians will make informed decisions to improve their security, health and safety, economic prosperity and environmental quality

– Canada will be well positioned to contribute on and receive benefit from the international stage


The Roadmap to Get There…

• To ensure our sustainability, success, and relevance into the future, we need to transform our organization through:through:

1.10 Year Strategy : – Rebuilding through investments: Budget 2011 – Internal Transformation for the future (Signature Projects)

2. International Engagement


3. S&T Strategy

4. MSC People Plan

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10 Year Strategy

• The 10 Year Strategy addresses growing challenges and risks to the integrity of the weather enterprise, both in terms of infrastructure and services.

• Through this Strategy we are rebuilding and transforming:

• Rebuilding the integrity of the service through investments: Budget 2011 provided support for priority items in pursuit of the 10 Year Strategy through a reinvestment in MSC’s infrastructure.


• Transforming for the future through our Signature Projects: Enabling us to become the Meteorological Service of tomorrow, while marshalling advances in S&T.

The Signature Projects

• Doing what we currently do differently to better position ourselves to meet the evolving needs of Canadians in the face of changing environmental conditions.

• Successful delivery of these projects and the transformation of our weatherSuccessful delivery of these projects and the transformation of our weather and environmental services is underpinned by science and technology and relies on the engagement of all staff.

The three dimensions of our Signature projects:

1) Ensuring the integrity of our system through targeted investments:

o Networks of Networks – A Modern Day Monitoring Strategy - modernizing and sustaining core monitoring systems, creating collaborative, multi-participant observing networks, and improving the di bili ibili d f l f d


discoverability, accessibility, and usefulness of data.

o METAREAS – providing marine weather and ice information to the international maritime community through the expansion of MSC’s domestic marine and ice services with an aim at providing around-the-clock weather, ice, and sea-state services in the Arctic.

o Air Quality and Health Related Services – providing key prediction services related to health associated with the meteorological parameters.

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METAREAS

Key accomplishments 2011-2012 Key accomplishments 2012-2013


The Signature Projects (cont’d)

2) Transforming the organisation for the future:

o Reengineering the Weather Warning and Service Delivery System – improving the quality and reach of weather alerts, and providing better decision-making advice and support to users.

o Next Generation Weather Forecasting System - enhancing the production, dissemination, and practicality of forecasts; developing and implementing new tools and processes to support forecasters; and capitalizing on advances in numerical weather prediction (NWP), enabled through the High Performance Computing (HPC).

3) Developing our science and services to achieve our vision:

o Water and Climate Services – ensuring the timely production and delivery of essential water and climatic data, information, predictions and knowledge to decision-makers.

S


o Environmental Prediction Science – developing an integrated environmental prediction system to represent the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of terrestrial and aquatic environments.

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Reengineering the Weather Warning and Service Delivery System


Next Generation Weather Forecasting System


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International Engagement• Through our bilateral and multilateral relationships, we

are advancing the following priorities:

– Polar Issues:

▪ Improvements to meteorological observations, h d i i th A ti t dresearch and services in the Arctic, to advance

Canada’s Northern Strategy

▪ Arctic Council Chairship (2013-2015)

▪ Executive Council Panel of Experts on Polar Observations, Research and Services (EC-PORS)

– International Polar Year Legacy : Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) and Global Integrated Polar Predictions System (GIPPS)

– Climate Adaptation:

▪ Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) – ensuring greater availability of, access to, and


use of climate services for all, with a focus on developing countries.

– Global Data Sharing and Earth Observations

▪ Ensure international and domestic access to open data and Earth observations

▪ WMO Information System (WIS) / WMO Integrated Global Observations System (WIGOS)

▪ Group on Earth Observations (GEO)

Science and Technological innovation is critical to achieve our future• Science and technology advancements will underpin our success,

and it is the scientists who play a critical role to ensure this by:– Continued focus on enhancing EC’s modeling capacity to develop– Continued focus on enhancing EC s modeling capacity to develop

an integrated environmental monitoring and prediction capability– Emerging opportunities to use new generations of radar and

satellite data as well as other in-situ data to improve the initialization of models and the prediction of hazardous weather

– Finer temporal and spatial scales for enhanced weather and environmental predictions

– Advances in climate change science including future vulnerability


Advances in climate change science including future vulnerability and change impacts

– Advances in numerical code optimization to maximize the leverage of HPC capacity

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Developing our Workforce for Tomorrow

• As part of a global weather enterprise system, the MSC must operate within an ever changing environment and has developed a People Plan along two key pillars:

1) Promoting a Healthy and Respectful Workplace) o ot g a ea t y a d espect u o p ace– Recognizing the benefits gained through employee life balance & well-being

– Fostering inclusiveness by operating in both official languages

– Promoting diversity in our workforce to reflect Canada’s changing demographics

– Encouraging strong values and ethics so that Canadians can continue to have confidence in their public institutions

– Integrating occupational health and safety requirements to protect employees

2) Building and Developing a Strong Workforce– The goal is to maintain a competent, diverse workforce who are empowered to lead MSC now and into

the future. This is accomplished through various strategies including:

– Staffing based upon core competencies to ensure better movement across disciplines


– Recruitment strategy based upon present and future requirements

– Promoting learning and growth of employees to maintain and improve their skills and knowledge

– Programs for leadership development at all levels to promote innovation and work satisfaction

• The People Plan will be continuously updated and renewed to ensure that the workforce can adapt to changing conditions and pressures.

In Summary

• Canadians have benefitted from investments in S&T through the improvements in weather, climate, water and air quality services to Canadians. These investments are becoming increasingly important in the face of climate change.

• Although there remains challenges, we continue to work with our key partners and implement our 10 Year Strategy to position ourselves to be responsive to the needs of Canadians.


• Empowering people is central to what we do, and through our scientific efforts, Canadians are better informed of the impacts of a changing climate on their health, safety and security.

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Thank You


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