Monthly Archives: December 2014

AGU Press Conference Focuses on CH Snowmelt Research

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One of twenty press conferences at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU – 15-19 December in San Francisco, California) focused on CH snowmelt research.

  • MSc student Stacey Dumanski is studying increased spring and early summer flooding in the prairies due to changing climate and wetland drainage.
  • Dr Danny Marks is a CCRN collaborator studying rain-on-snow melt in the US Pacific NW.
  • Prof. John Pomeroy’s presentation discussed the June 2013 rain-on-snow event which contributed to flood generation in the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River Basin in the Canadian Rockies. It was also covered in an article by the Calgary Herald, available in its original form here, and as a PDF here.

The conference is available for online streaming here.

Research Published on Environmental Implications of Global Beaver Population Recoveries

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CH Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr Colin Whitfield, together with CH’s Dr Cherie Westbrook and colleagues from the Global Institute for Water Security and School of Environment and Sustainability, recently published a research paper describing the environmental ramifications of beaver population recoveries around the globe.

The paper, in The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ journal AMBIO, is available here: releases describing the new knowledge it has generated are available from Springer, and from the U of S Media Relations office (here and here).

The National Post also ran an article on the paper in its December 19th issue, here.

Research Seminar – Wednesday 10th December

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A select group of Centre for Hydrology graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will be presenting previews of their thesis proposals, research findings, and forthcoming AGU talks at a special CH seminar. The full order of battle is available here.

The seminar will be held in 146 Kirk Hall on Wednesday 10th December in Kirk Hall from 10am-12:30pm (Saskatchewan time).

All invited, feel free to pass on to colleagues that may be interested.

PDF Opportunities at CH and GIWS

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Applications are invited for three Post-Doctoral Fellowships in cold regions hydrological modelling in the Centre for Hydrology and Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

Large-scale Modelling – snow model development, including data assimilation
Snow and cold regions processes are extremely important to understand for hydrological forecasting in the Prairie Provinces. A PDF is required to build upon past work to incorporate state-of-the-art snow processes critical to proper snowpack development in the Prairie Provinces, as well as new techniques for estimating snow accumulation and melt properly in Mountainous, Prairie and Boreal Forest biomes. This research will draw on ground-based and remotely sensed data and model products, as well as a network of observatories for model evaluation and further development, and include intercomparison with international modelling systems, including the UK’s JULES and USA’s WRF models. Progress has already led to development and preliminary testing of an improved Prairie land surface algorithm; this work will be developed further for large-scale application. The successful applicant will have excellent computational and programming skills, previous experience of hydrological modelling and ideally of cold region processes and data assimilation.

Modelling for the Diagnosis of Environmental Change
A PDF is required to develop modelling tools for the diagnosis of change using cold region hydrological and hydro-ecological process models within a framework of uncertainty analysis, and to support their uptake and application in process and modelling studies across the network. The successful applicant will have excellent computational and programming skills and previous experience of algorithm development and analysis of model performance using multi-objective, Monte-Carlo based methods for parameter identifiability and uncertainty analysis.

Large-scale Modelling – assimilation of improved precipitation products
Remote sensing estimates of precipitation and high resolution modelling present exciting opportunities for improved hydrological forecasting. A PDF is required to undertake analysis of the strengths and limitations for large-scale hydrological modelling of various precipitation products that are currently available or in development. This includes ground-based data products, the CaPA merged re-analysis and data product, GPM remote sensing data, and high resolution atmospheric modelling. The successful applicant will have excellent computational skills, previous experience of remote sensing and ideally also of data assimilation for hydrological modelling. Good programming skills will be an advantage.

These posts will be able to take advantage of the NSERC Changing Cold Regions Network http://www.ccrnetwork.ca/ – CCRN is investigating a set of critical cold region environments, including the Western Cordillera, Western Boreal Forest, Lowland Permafrost and Prairies, and their integrated response at the scales of the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie river basins and the regional climate system. Environment Canada (EC) is a key partner in CCRN, and has a particular interest in improving its large-scale modelling capability, i.e. land surface schemes and large-scale hydrological models. While primarily based in Saskatoon, modellers will be encouraged to engage with science conducted from the U of S Coldwater Laboratory in the Centre for Hydrology’s Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory http://www.usask.ca/hydrology/CRHO.php.

Interested applicants are encouraged to contact Kate Wilson, Executive Assistant, GIWS, with a copy of their CV, resume and a cover letter.