on January 10, 2017
In the world of contemporary scientific research, no field occupies a more prominent place in the public consciousness than climate change. The work underway in this area is as vast as it is diverse. In order to manage and share the staggering volume of data generated by climate change research projects, scientists need a network that can handle both the quantity of information they are using, and the speed at which they need to access it. For Dr. Dave Sauchyn, SRNET provides that access.
Dr. Dave Sauchyn is a Professor of Geography at the University of Regina and the Senior Research Scientist at the Prairie Adaptation Research Centre. He is the director for the Centre’s wide variety of research projects related to climate change, including:
VACEA (Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Extremes in the Americas): a five-year interdisciplinary study of climate change impacts in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil and the Canadian Prairies.
Sustainability of Urban Water Supplies in a Changing Climate: A two-year study of the resilience of water supply and management systems in the cities of Calgary and Edmonton.
Climate Change Scenarios of Water Availability for Agriculture: A three-year study of climate change projections for the Prairies and what they mean for the prairie agriculture and especially for changes in soil and surface water.
Adaptive Water Management in the South Saskatchewan River Basin: A three-year study of adaptive water management strategies in response to climate and water projections for the Bow, Oldman, South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers.
Hydro-climatic Variability in Canada’s Western Interior of the Past Millennium: A five-year study of annual climate of the past millennium inferred from a network of tree-ring chronologies.
All of these projects involve the transfer and processing of massive amounts of information. This is where SRNET comes in. According to Dr. Sauchyn, “The facilities of SRNET are especially crucial for the downloading of large files of data generated by climate models. Much of the work is conducted online where we need the support of SRNET.”
