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 →

CLIVE, the coastal erosion visualization tool created by UPEI’s Climate Research Lab and the Spatial Interface Lab at Simon Fraser University, has taken first place in the Massachusetts Institute for Technology’s (MIT) Center for Collective Intelligence contest on Communicating Coastal Risk and Resilience.

Nearly 600 projects were submitted to MIT’s Climate CoLab for this year’s competition. CLIVE made it through several rounds of competition and broke through to the finals against two other projects. Through the support and votes from the UPEI community, CLIVE won the Popular Choice, as determined by online voting.

“I just want to say what a wonderful feeling it is that the UPEI community and campus were so supportive through the competition,” said Dr. Adam Fenech, Director of the UPEI Climate Lab. “To win because of the support of a community, that’s a nice feeling. I’ll not forget this.”

Dr. Fenech and members of his team will be travelling to Cambridge, Massachusetts to receive the award in early November.

To view a video on CLIVE, click here.

Dr. Adam Fenech, Director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab, presented CLIVE, the coastal erosion visualization tool, during Climate Week in New York City, recently. Dr. Fenech’s talk was one of a series showcasing innovative tools and planning methodologies at the Rising Seas Summit: Developing Resources to Inform Decision Making and Planning for Resilience.

CLIVE is the Coastal Impacts Visualization Environment, a sea level rise and coastal erosion video game, which allows users to fly over Prince Edward Island raising and lowering the sea level and turning on/off coastal layers to identify areas of risk and vulnerability.

CLIVE, the coastal erosion visualization tool created by UPEI’s Climate Research Lab and the Spatial Interface Lab at Simon Fraser University, has reached the FINALS in MIT’s CoLab Communicating Coastal Risk and Resilience contest. Now it needs your votes to help it win the Popular Choice award. Click this link! and click “VOTE for this proposal.” It’s that easy!

Nearly 600 projects were submitted to MIT’s Climate CoLab for this year’s competition. CLIVE made it through several rounds of competition and broke through to the finals against two other projects. It is eligible for the “Popular Choice Award,” as determined by online voting, and for the “Judges Choice Award,” based on the project’s merits as determined by a panel of judges.

Voting is currently open and runs until September 30. Log on and vote to support this great co-initiative with SFU and UPEI!

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 →

CLIVE, the coastal erosion visualization tool created by UPEI’s Climate Research Lab and the Spatial Interface Lab at Simon Fraser University, has reached the FINALS in MIT’s CoLab Communicating Coastal Risk and Resilience contest. Now it needs your votes to help it win the Popular Choice award. Register to vote at the contest website.

Nearly 600 projects were submitted to MIT’s Climate CoLab for this year’s competition. CLIVE made it through several rounds of competition and broke through to the finals against two other projects. It is eligible for the “Popular Choice Award,” as determined by online voting, and for the “Judges Choice Award,” based on the project’s merits as determined by a panel of judges.

Voting is currently open and runs until September 30. Log on and vote to support this great co-initiative with SFU and UPEI!

Dr. Adam Fenech, director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab, will tour Prince Edward Island communities in July to give demonstrations of CLIVE – better known as the CoastaL Impacts Visualization Environment tool.

This tool allows users to manipulate a 3-D map of Prince Edward Island with a video game controller and experience simulated erosion and sea-level rise and their impact on our infrastructure over the next 90 years.

Dr. Fenech will lead discussions about coastal erosion and sea-level rise, and the risk to homes, cottages, roads, and communities.

Attendees will be encouraged to share ideas about how we might best adapt to these conditions, and through CLIVE, view local areas that may be affected.

Demonstrations and discussions will be held at 8 locations across the island, as follows:

Tuesday, July 8                       Victoria, the Old School House on Victoria Road
Wednesday, July 9                  Souris, St. Mary’s Parish Hall
Tuesday, July 15                     Abram-Village, Rec Centre
Thursday, July 17                    Montague, Wellness Centre
Tuesday, July 22                     North Rustico, Lion’s Club
Wednesday, July 23                Charlottetown, Beaconsfield Carriage House
Thursday, July 24                    Summerside, Silver Fox Curling Club
Wednesday, July 30                Alberton, Community Centre

Each presentation will run from 7:00-8:00pm, with drinks and light refreshments provided.

The events are sponsored by the PEI Department of Environment, Labour and Justice, and by the Climate Research Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island.

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 →

Dr. Adam Fenech, director of UPEI’s Climate Research Lab, will tour Prince Edward Island communities in July to give demonstrations of CLIVE-better known as the CoastaL Impacts Visualization Environment tool.

This tool allows users to manipulate a 3-D map of Prince Edward Island with a video game controller and experience simulated erosion and sea-level rise and their impact on our infrastructure over the next 90 years.

Dr. Fenech will lead discussions about coastal erosion and sea-level rise, and the risk to homes, cottages, roads, and communities.

Attendees will be encouraged to share ideas about how we might best adapt to these conditions, and through CLIVE, view local areas that may be affected.

Please see poster for list of communities that CLIVE is scheduled to visit.

Headlines across the country have been saying that Prince Edward Island is in for a typical run-of-the-mill summer this year. Normally, a PEI summer (the months of June, July and August) averages 17.4 degrees Celsius and receives about 28 cm of rain. This represents the “climate normal” or the average of 30 years of data, in this case the most recent climate normal titled 1981-2010.  Last year’s summer (2013) was 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than “normal”, and 30 percent drier than “normal”. But what about this year?

The Weather Network has stated that: “We don’t expect an especially hot summer” in 2014. Environment Canada agrees. Using climate models, that is, mathematical equations of the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere strung together and calculated using the largest computers in the country (known as supercomputers) to forecast seasonal weather, Environment Canada forecasts the summer of 2014 to be “normal” or no change from the climate normal above. I must mention, however, that Environment Canada’s seasonal forecast models are accurate for Prince Edward Island only 40-50% of the time (which is not significantly better than chance, meaning flip a coin and you’ll have the same odds of getting the forecast correct). Environment Canada’s seasonal forecasts are accurate in Northern Quebec, the southern Yukon and Baffin Island; but here on PEI, not so much. Continue reading →