You are now in the main content area

New Agreement Sees LU Partner Institution Flourish, Tackle Climate Change

New Agreement Sees LU Partner Institution Flourish, Tackle Climate Change

Climate Risk Institute, fresh off of being awarded a provincial contract, is a spinoff of LU's MIRARCO

Dec. 16, 2020 -- Laurentian University is pleased to announce the signing of an Affiliation Agreement with the Climate Risk Institute (CRI). CRI is a not-for-profit corporation focused on delivering services and advancing practice related to climate change risk assessment and adaptation planning through programs and projects that focus on mobilizing knowledge and building capacity. This agreement will enable a rich range of opportunities for collaboration, including student learning, research collaboration, and program development.  This relationship will foster enhanced knowledge and understanding of climate change impacts through climate services founded on experience, expertise, science and local knowledge. 

Strengthening CRI's links to an academic setting will boost its ability to access research which will enhance Laurentian's commitment to climate change action. This collaboration will help build relationships between researchers, local practitioners, and decision-makers to inform resilience action in communities and sectors.

CRI was officially formed in 2019, and stems from nearly twenty years of similar climate change adaptation work at Laurentian-owned not-for-profit MIRARCO Mining innovation. This work continues to mobilize knowledge and improve climate resiliency practices across professions and sectors through domestic and international collaboration. Laurentian looks forward to continued partnership, and elevating our position as a global leader in environmental stewardship.

QUOTES:
“The Climate Risk institute is pleased to have this tie to Laurentian University. Our partnership will go a long way to providing students with experiential learning opportunities and to advance collaboration on climate change research in Ontario and Canada. This linkage will also provide support to northern Ontario communities as they continue to develop plans for increasing climate change resilience.
Al Douglas - President of the Climate Risk Institute

“We at Laurentian University are looking forward to working with Climate Risk Institute. This agreement will ensure that our institutions support student learning, collaborate on research, share program development, and deliver climate services founded on experience, expertise, science and local traditional knowledge.”
Robert Haché - President and Vice-Chancellor of Laurentian University.
 

Laurentian University’s Climate Change Division at MIRARCO Receives $5M from Green Investment Fund

Laurentian University’s Climate Change Division at MIRARCO Receives $5M from Green Investment Fund

Ontario Investment Will Help First Nations Adapt To Climate Change

March 17, 2016 - Winter roads are already beginning to melt, much earlier than when the Elders of Far North First Nations were young. Geese are about to fly north, but now they fly over places where they used to land. Life is changing fast for First Nations in the far north of the province. Understanding and describing the impacts of those changes is the goal of a Climate Change Impact Study for remote First Nations in Northern Ontario, to be led by the Ontario Centre for Climate Impacts and Adaptation Resources (OCCIAR) at Laurentian University. The study is one of three OCCIAR initiatives to be funded by a $5M investment from the province’s Green Investment Fund, announced today by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, David Zimmer, as part of Ontario’s Climate Change Strategy.  

Working with First Nations and in partnership with the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation, OCCIAR will allocate the $5M through three projects supporting climate change response in Ontario indigenous communities.  OCCIAR will

  • develop a Climate Change Impact Study for Ontario’s remote First Nations;
  • work with First Nation communities in preparing for the effects of climate change; and
  • help First Nations to capitalize on opportunities created by the proposed cap-and-trade program. 

 “Ensuring that First Nations have the tools they need to fight and adapt to climate change is an imperative that we must take now. Today’s investments will help northern communities most affected by climate change to take the action they need. It will also set the foundation for future planning,” said the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, David Zimmer.

“Climate change is already having a significant impact on First Nations communities and their environments,” said OCCIAR Director Al Douglas.  “We are seeing a dramatic reduction in the season for winter roads, which means higher costs and an increasing need to fly supplies in.  This investment will help First Nations to build capacity, to deal with climate risks and to limit climate change through carbon storage and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. 

OCCIAR is a division of the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University. It provides climate science and adaptation strategies to assist communities and sectors in adapting to climate change, while serving as a resource in climate change research. The OCCIAR initiative will strengthen the capacity of First Nations to be more resilient to climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

OCCIAR’s work will be done in collaboration with Laurentian’s School of the Environment through the participation of Laurentian Professor David Pearson, former Co-chair of Ontario’s Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation and Science Advisor at OCCIAR.

“This is not just about working with First Nations to help make their communities more environmentally friendly. It’s also about trying to inspire young people to see themselves with jobs that fit with the environmental values of the Elders in their community. It’s about vision and imagination as well as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and managing carbon,“ said Dr. Pearson.

Ontario’s $325M Green Investment Fund is part of the province’s Climate Change Strategy.

Research at Vale Living With Lakes Centre Contributes to Global Database

Research at Vale Living With Lakes Centre Contributes to Global Database

SUDBURY, ON (MARCH 18, 2015) – Dr. John Bailey and Jocelyne Heneberry of the Co-operative Freshwater Ecology Unit (Co-op Unit) at Laurentian University’s Vale Living with Lakes Centre are co-authors of a recently published article summarizing a new lake temperature database in the journal Scientific Data, published by Nature.   Dr. Bailey, adjunct professor and research scientist with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, and Ms. Heneberry, Co-ordinator of Lakes Monitoring, are part of the Global Lake Temperature Collaboration (GLTC), an international group assembled to provide increased access to global lake temperature records.  

“The GLTC group recognized that a new global database of lake surface temperatures was needed with “on the ground” lake temperature measurements from programs like ours at the Co-op Unit adding to existing satellite data,” said Dr. Bailey. “This improves our ability, at a global scale, to identify and examine patterns of change in the temperatures of lakes over time due to climate or other factors.” 

Since its inception in 2010, the GLTC initiative has grown to a database of 291 lakes and reservoirs worldwide, providing summer-mean lake surface temperatures from 1985-2009, and roughly doubling the amount of data previously available from satellites alone. Seven Sudbury-area lakes monitored by Co-op Unit staff through a Vale/Sudbury Integrated Nickel/Ministry of Environment and Climate Change partnership are part of this database. This new dataset represents the first publicly available global compilation of in situ and satellite-based lake surface temperature data. The GLTC database also provides information on climatic drivers (air temperature, solar radiation, cloud cover), as well as geo-morphometric characteristics that may affect lake temperature (latitude, longitude, elevation, lake surface area, maximum depth, mean depth, volume). This unique, global dataset will offer an invaluable baseline perspective on lake thermal conditions for ongoing and future studies of environmental change.