Dr. Adam Fenech, Director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab, was in Ahmedabad, India in January 2015 to address the Vibrant Gujarat conference, a biennial event that attracts over 15,000 delegates. Introducing CLIVE (the UPEI Climate Lab’s CoastaL Impacts Visualization Environment tool) at the conference’s Innovation: The Torchbearer of 21st Century symposium, Dr. Fenech profiled the world-class research being conducted at UPEI. Dr. Fenech was honoured to meet the Chief Minister (equivalent to Canada’s Premiers) of Gujarat, Anandiben Patel, to discuss the common challenges of coastal erosion and climate change. Dr. Fenech also spoke about the changing climate of India at the World Innovation Symposium in Gandhinagar, India.

By Dr. Adam Fenech, Director, Climate Lab, University of Prince Edward Island

Another year has gone by and it’s time to talk about Prince Edward Island’s top three weather stories of 2014. This past year continues to remind us of the important part weather plays in our everyday lives. Every year brings stories of weather no matter where you are, and Prince Edward Island is no different. Here are my top three weather stories for 2014, and how they affected Prince Edward Island.

Number 3 – Hurricane Arthur in July

Post-tropical storm Arthur was the big weather story of the summer of 2014 with strong winds sinking three boats in the Charlottetown harbour, and cutting power to roughly 5,000 Maritime Electric customers on July 5. Continue reading →

UPEI Climate Lab together with the University of Malta co-sponsored an international symposium titled Global Environmental Change and Small Island States and Territories: Economic & Labour Market Implications. The symposium brought together leading-edge environmental science experts to examine the implications of climate change to the economic and labour market predicament of small island states and territories. Pictured left to right are Dr. Tony Shaw, Brock University; Dr. Robert Gilmour, VP Research, UPEI; Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino, University of Malta (formerly a UPEI Canada Research Chair on Island Studies); Dr. Dan Scott, University of Waterloo; and Dr. Adam Fenech, UPEI. For more information, visit https://www.um.edu.mt/events/globalenvchange2014

The PEI Association of Planners have named UPEI’s Dr. Adam Fenech the winner of the Murray Pinchuk Community Builder Award. The award recognizes the highest standard of community building in the public and private realms. “The association has selected Dr. Fenech as the 2014 winner based on his efforts to develop a coastal erosion visualization tool and his work to share ideas on how best to adapt to coastal erosion and sea level rise,” said Vahid Ghomashchi, president of the PEI Association of Planner in a news release. “This award is a testament to all who seek to make the built and natural environment better for the community as a whole. Dr. Fenech’s work demonstrates the value of sharing information with the public in the interest in generating discussion on solutions for sustainability. The CLIVE tool also reminds us all of the need to be innovative and creative in how we consult with the public we serve.” Dr. Fenech is director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab.

A team of journalists from Al Jazeera visited the UPEI Climate Lab in October 2014 to shoot a news feature on CLIVE: the 3D visualization tool co-created by UPEI’s Climate Research Lab which simulates sea-level rise and coastal erosion on Prince Edward Island. The story will profile the features of CLIVE and will show how coastal erosion is an already real and present challenge for Island homes and infrastructure. 

UPEI’s members of the team that created CLIVE, the coastal erosion visualization tool, were in Cambridge, Massachusetts in November 2014 to pick up their Communicating Coastal Risk and Resilience award from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CLIVE took top honours in the popular vote. Learn more about CLIVE in this short video, presented at the conference. Pictured are students Alex Chen and Andrew Doiron; Dr. Robert Gilmour, Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies; and Dr. Adam Fenech, Director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab.

So the past Friday brought the rude arrival of winter with over 11 centimetres of snow catching many of us off guard without our winter tires on our automobiles. It was three weeks earlier (December 4) than the first winter storm of 2014. It has started discussions about how severe the winter of 2014-15 will be – will PEI receive more snow than last year, the worst in 42 years? Well, here is what the experts say. Continue reading →

By Adam Fenech and Don Jardine

The month of September 2014 was warmer and wetter than normal – the ‘climate normal’ being the average of 30 years of daily observations from 1981-2010. During the month of September 2014, the average temperature in Charlottetown was 0.4°C warmer than the climate normal of 14.1°C; and 16.3 millimetres (mm) or 17% wetter than the normal precipitation of 95.9 mm. The Climate Research Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island has established seven climate stations to begin tracking the local climates across the Island. These initial seven (7) stations have been established on private properties at Winsloe South, Flat River, Orwell Cove, Foxley River, Dingwell’s Mills, Argyle Shore and Cardigan Head. Continue reading →

Remember at the beginning of the summer when headlines across the country were saying that Prince Edward Island was in for a typical run-of-the-mill summer this year, and I was called upon to make a prediction. The Weather Network and Environment Canada said that the summer of 2014 would be “normal”; the Old Farmer’s Almanac said “warmer and wetter”; I said “warmer and drier”; and I had my colleague flip a coin (to demonstrate the integration of probability into the science of forecasting) who said it would be “colder and wetter”. Well, the observations are now recorded – the summer of 2014 was warmer and drier than normal. Continue reading →

News of Hurricane Arthur heading towards Prince Edward Island this weekend and dumping from 50 to 100 millimetres of rain with winds up to 100 kilometres per hour has the Island in a bit of a tizzy. Several weekend events in Nova Scotia have already been cancelled or postponed in anticipation of Arthur’s landfall. Concert organizers on P.E.I. are watching closely. I’ve been asked many times today, “Isn’t it a bit too early in the season for a Hurricane to affect P.E.I.?” Well, July is not too early at all. A new student to the UPEI Climate Lab, Jerry Jien, has been examining the historical records for hurricanes and has come up with some interesting facts about how hurricanes impact Prince Edward Island. Continue reading →