Greta Thunburg speaks of her visit to the Athabasca Glacier with John Pomeroy

Released On: 10 Jul 2020

Greta Thunberg describes the remarkable and tumultuous past year of her life on a BBC podcast. Hear her description of her visit to the Athabasca Glacier and discussions with John Pomeroy on chapter 6 (30:06).

Read the Time Magazine article: Six Months on a Planet in Crisis: Greta Thunberg’s Travel Diary from the U.S. to Davos, for a full transcription of the podcast here.

USask ranked No. 1 in Canada for water resources research and among top 100 globally in four subject areas

Jul 14, 2020
By USask Research Profile and Impact and Mark Ferguson

USask also placed in the top 100 universities in the world in three other research areas: environmental science/engineering (51-75th place), veterinary sciences (51-75th), and agricultural sciences (76-100th), according to the 2020 Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s ARWU, an influential ranking of 1,800 universities around the world based on research performance indicators such as publications, citation impact, and international collaboration.

“These results are a reflection of the outstanding research that takes place at the University of Saskatchewan as we strive to be the university the world needs,” said USask Vice-President Karen Chad.

“Particularly notable is the fact we are among global leaders in our signature areas of water and food security, as well as in fields such as environmental sciences and new materials research that involve synchrotron-based studies at our Canadian Light Source, Canada’s only synchrotron.”

Read the full article here.

New Article – Heat Pulse Probes

Signal processing for in situ detection of effective heat pulse probe spacing radius as the basis of a self-calibrating heat pulse probe

Nicholas Kinar, John Pomeroy and Bing Si
Published July 16, 2020
Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems
volume 9, issue 2, pages 293–315
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-293-2020

Abstract
A sensor comprised of an electronic circuit and a hybrid single and dual heat pulse probe was constructed and tested along with a novel signal processing procedure to determine changes in the effective dual-probe spacing radius over the time of measurement. The circuit utilized a proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller to control heat inputs into the soil medium in lieu of a variable resistor. The system was designed for onboard signal processing and implemented USB, RS-232, and SDI-12 interfaces for machine-to-machine (M2M) exchange of data, thereby enabling heat inputs to be adjusted to soil conditions and data availability shortly after the time of experiment. Signal processing was introduced to provide a simplified single-probe model to determine thermal conductivity instead of reliance on late-time logarithmic curve fitting. Homomorphic and derivative filters were used with a dual-probe model to detect changes in the effective probe spacing radius over the time of experiment to compensate for physical changes in radius as well as model and experimental error. Theoretical constraints were developed for an efficient inverse of the exponential integral on an embedded system. Application of the signal processing to experiments on sand and peat improved the estimates of soil water content and bulk density compared to methods of curve fitting nominally used for heat pulse probe experiments. Applications of the technology may be especially useful for soil and environmental conditions under which effective changes in probe spacing radius need to be detected and compensated for over the time of experiment.

Read the full article here.

John Pomeroy featured in Star Phoenix article discussing the Sask irrigation project

Peiris: Every phase of $4B irrigation project must be done with careful planning

Star Phoenix, July 7, 2020

“The Saskatchewan government is going back to the future by resurrecting an irrigation scheme that was shelved a half-century ago, with plans to more than double the irrigated farm acreage over the next decade at a whopping cost of about $4 billion — the largest single project in provincial history.

Certainly, the attraction of tapping the full potential of the massive Lake Diefenbaker to ensure water and food security for Saskatchewan is undeniable, especially in an era when the need to mitigate impacts of climate change is clearly evident.”

Read the full article here.

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John Pomeroy discusses the Saskatchewan irrigation plan in CBC article

Sask.’s $4B irrigation plan must address changing climate, Indigenous rights: professor

CBC News, July 5th, 2020

“The Saskatchewan government has announced a $4-billion plan to expand irrigation out of the Lake Diefenbaker reservoir. Work is set to begin immediately, and will be completed in three phases over the next decade.

CBC reporter Jason Warick spoke Friday with John Pomeroy, a Canada Research chair and director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Water Futures program.”

Click here to read the full article.

John Pomeroy and Thomas Axworthy article in the Globe and Mail

Canada’s flooding crisis is spilling over our shores. Only urgent action can dam the breach

Globe and Mail, June 19, 2020
Thomas Axworthy and John Pomeroy

“Calgary didn’t need this.

Amidst all its other woes, the city was lashed recently by an extreme rain and hailstorm that closed Deerfoot Trail, destroyed scores of homes and flooded streets. Fire crews had to rescue stranded motorists from the highways by boat. Estimates of the financial costs go as high as $1-billion.

Calgary’s plight has been endured by many other Canadian cities. Only six weeks earlier, warming temperatures and rapid snowmelt resulted in ice jams in northern Alberta, which caused record-high flooding on the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray; more than 14,000 Albertans had to flee their homes. Premier Jason Kenney put it well when he said that “the devastation caused by the flooding … has impacted thousands of lives, washing away memories and losing the security of your home.”

And Alberta is not alone among provinces hit by extreme flooding while trying to cope with a pandemic. The story is the same in southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where local municipalities have declared states of emergency to evacuate residents from the rising Roseau River.”

Read the full article here.

John Pomeroy featured in Calgary flooding article

Alberta wrestles with its most critical resource: water
The Narwhal, June 18, 2020
Sarah Lawryniuk

“A severe thunderstorm in Calgary in mid-June delivered a salvo of hail that shattered windshields and stripped siding off houses. The accompanying rain flooded streets to the point of closure — though not before submerging dozens of cars.

In a press conference on June 15, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the magnitude of damages within the city exceeds even those of 2013, when the Bow River swelled to precipitate the largest flood Calgary had seen since 1932.

“Over the last 15 years, Alberta has had the most severe environmental disasters associated with water of any part of Canada,” says John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures program, which is based at the University of Saskatchewan.”

Read the whole article here.

Agriculture Considerations for the Canada Water Agency mini virtual workshop

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Global Water Futures’ upcoming 2-part mini virtual workshop will focus on Canadian agricultural water management issues, capabilities, advances and needs to help inform the federal government in its development of the Canada Water Agency.

Featuring The Honourable Ralph Goodale, this workshop will build on the discussion that began with the National Water Policy Panel on May 13th by diving deeper into priority water issues as they relate to agriculture. The workshop will include the latest scientific advances from GWF projects, science-to-policy discussions with ag-water leaders, and opportunities for participants from diverse agricultural sectors to offer perspectives and identify science synergies and policy implementation.

Part 1: GWF agriculture and water science: issues, capabilities, advances and needs
8:00-9:30am PDT | 9:00-10:30am MDT/CST | 11:00am-12:30pm EDT | 12:00-1:30pm ADT

Part 2: Water science to agriculture policy discussions
10:30am-12pm PDT | 11:30am-1:00pm MDT/CST | 1:30-3:00pm EDT | 2:30-4:00 pm ADT
*Please note that Part 2 has been changed to an earlier start since previous save-the-date communications.

View workshop format and agenda here.

Register here.

Event contacts:
Stephanie Merrill, University of Saskatchewan GWF Knowledge Mobilization Specialist: stephanie.merrill@usask.ca
Nancy Goucher, University of Waterloo GWF Knowledge Mobilization Specialist: nancy.goucher@uwaterloo.ca

New Article – Improvements to snow depth mapping

Improving sub-canopy snow depth mapping with unmanned aerial vehicles: lidar versus structure-from-motion techniques

Phillip Harder, John Pomeroy, Warren Helgason
Published June 15th, 2020
The Cryosphere, volume 14, issue 6, pages 1919–1935
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1919-2020

Abstract
Vegetation has a tremendous influence on snow processes and snowpack dynamics, yet remote sensing techniques to resolve the spatial variability of sub-canopy snow depth are not always available and are difficult from space-based platforms. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have had recent widespread application to capture high-resolution information on snow processes and are herein applied to the sub-canopy snow depth challenge. Previous demonstrations of snow depth mapping with UAV structure from motion (SfM) and airborne lidar have focussed on non-vegetated surfaces or reported large errors in the presence of vegetation. In contrast, UAV-lidar systems have high-density point clouds and measure returns from a wide range of scan angles, increasing the likelihood of successfully sensing the sub-canopy snow depth. The effectiveness of UAV lidar and UAV SfM in mapping snow depth in both open and forested terrain was tested in a 2019 field campaign at the Canadian Rockies Hydrological Observatory, Alberta, and at Canadian prairie sites near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Only UAV lidar could successfully measure the sub-canopy snow surface with reliable sub-canopy point coverage and consistent error metrics (root mean square error (RMSE) <0.17 m and bias −0.03 to −0.13 m). Relative to UAV lidar, UAV SfM did not consistently sense the sub-canopy snow surface, the interpolation needed to account for point cloud gaps introduced interpolation artefacts, and error metrics demonstrated relatively large variability (RMSE<0.33 m and bias 0.08 to −0.14 m). With the demonstration of sub-canopy snow depth mapping capabilities, a number of early applications are presented to showcase the ability of UAV lidar to effectively quantify the many multiscale snow processes defining snowpack dynamics in mountain and prairie environments.

For the full article, go here.

John Pomeroy to collaborate in USask-led partnership awarded $2.5M to advance global climate education

“The six-year Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Education (MECCE) partnership, led by USask College of Education professor Dr. Marcia McKenzie (PhD), is comprised of more than 80 prominent scholars and agencies in climate change and education. This includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and Germany are key partners…”

Read the full article here.