Coast and Ocean Risk Communication Community of Practice

Adaptation Canada 2020
2020-02-19 08:00 - 2020-02-21 17:00 (America/Vancouver)
Canada’s national conference on climate change adaptation is coming to the West Coast!
ADAPTATION CANADA 2020 (February 19-21, 2020) will bring to Vancouver experts and leaders from diverse sectors, regions and jurisdictions to work on one of the most urgent issues of our time — how to build climate change resilience in our communities, ecosystems and economy.
This conference is a must-attend for people in all orders of government (federal, provincial, municipal and Indigenous), industry, academia and non-government organizations. If you want to learn from others and make new connections to ramp up your own resilience efforts, this is your conference!

Ocean Sciences Meeting 2020 - San Diego, California
2020-02-16 - 2020-02-21
February 16-21, 2020, San Diego, California, USA
The Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) is the flagship conference for the ocean sciences and the larger ocean-connected community. As we approach the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, beginning in 2021, it is increasingly important to gather as a scientific community to raise awareness of the truly global dimension of the ocean, address environmental challenges, and set forth on a path towards a resilient planet.
Session: SI003: Ocean and Marine Sustainability: Preparedness for Climate and Ocean Extreme through Societal Participation.
Ocean, marine and coastal systems are important for human livelihoods. The Sustainable Development Goal 14 – the sustainable use and development of the world’s oceans – focuses on ocean and marine sustainability. This session deals with challenges and opportunities in ocean and marine sustainability. The session focuses on multidisciplinary issues related to climate and weather extremes and its impacts on ocean, marine and coastal biodiversity. We invite presentations on ocean and marine pollution, societal participation for ocean and marine sustainability, and risk and resilience in ocean, marine and coastal areas. The session also deals with the issues related to ocean change, acidification and hypoxia and social and ocean science interactions. The session invites presentations on ocean sustainability including ocean productivity, marine policies, aquaculture and fisheries resource management, information and communication science for ocean sustainability, ocean observation and data management, coastal and marine tourism, fish drought and its societal impacts and social, economic and policy issues relevant to coastal, marine and ocean resources estrangement and development.
Abstract submissions close on 11 September 2019.
Session SI003 Submission through URL agu.confex.com/agu/osm20/prelim.cgi/Session/85836

ArcticNet ASM 2019
2019-12-02 - 2019-12-05 | Halifax Convention Centre, 1650 Argyle St, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 0E6, Canada
Canada’s North is experiencing unprecedented change in its sea and terrestrial ice, permafrost and ecosystems under the triple pressures of climate change, industrialization and modernization. The impacts of these pressures can be seen on food and energy security, shipping, sovereignty, northern community health and well-being, and sustainable development and resource exploitation. All these issues have brought the North to the forefront of national and international agendas.
ArcticNet ASM Website

Webinar: Room for rivers and voices: A comparison of the Room for the River approaches in Alberta and the Netherlands
2019-11-13 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
Historically, both Alberta and the Netherlands have focused on physical  infrastructure  approaches to flood mitigation.  However, following catastrophic  flood  risk in the 1990s, the Dutch government developed the  Room-for-River (RfR) program, breaking from their 1000-year tradition of structural engineering approaches of ‘fighting the water’ to ‘living with water’. In Alberta, the  high cost of the 2013  disaster and a growing sensitivity to the implications of climate variability triggered a reassessment of costly structural solutions and exploration of other approaches, leading to three  RfR  projects. In this presentation, I compare the RfR approaches in the Netherlands and Alberta through the Transition Governance Framework.  Unlike transferable  technological change, RfR requires fundamental institutional, governance, and cultural change, and hence is more challenging to implement. This presentation sets the stage for discussions on how a combination of policies and practices  could  make  more room for rivers and  voices in flood risk management.https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FQ7T2NxsTQOxiGv2E8MZ1Qhttps://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FQ7T2NxsTQOxiGv2E8MZ1Qhttps://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_FQ7T2NxsTQOxiGv2E8MZ1Q

Canadian Science Policy Conference
2019-11-13 - 2019-11-15 | Westin Hotel, 11 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N9H4, Canada

Webinar - Navigating the Changing Communication Landscape: Social Media For Risk and Crisis Communication
2019-10-04 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Vancouver)
REGISTER FOR WEBINAR HERE
Webinar Description
Over the last 25 years, rapid advancements in the development and proliferation of communications technologies has had a dramatic impact on the ways we obtain, interpret, and respond to information. This is particularly true within the context of risk and crisis communication, which has been profoundly affected by the development of mobile technologies and new media. Social media is one such technology that has (perhaps unexpectedly) influenced all facets of emergency management, particularly preparedness and response. This talk will begin with an introduction to the field of risk and crisis communication, and then will discuss the impact that social media has had on disaster preparedness and response. This talk will outline the strengths of social media for crisis communications, as well as several significant challenges that social media has posed for emergency management. Lastly, this talk will examine several case studies (Hurricane Sandy and 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado) to set the stage for a deeper discussion about lessons learned and future directions of research and practice.
Presenter: Dr. Amber Silver, Assistant Professor for the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, University at Albany.
Dr. Silver received her Ph.D. in Geography and Environmental Management from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Her primary research interests focus on how individuals and groups make decisions before, during, and after high-impact weather. She is interested in the roles that public attention, risk perception, and communication play in protective action decision making during extreme events. Her most recent research has focused on the ways that new technologies, including social media, influence how individuals obtain, interpret, and respond to official and unofficial warning information. Key areas of interest include: the impact of environmental disasters on sense of place and place attachment; the use of social media as a risk and crisis communications tool; and the role of new media in collective sense-making during and after disaster.

Webinar: Climate Action Planning: Creating Low-Carbon Resilient Communities
2019-08-07 13:15 - 14:45 (America/Toronto)
Webinar: August 7, 2019 1:15 to 2:45 PM EDT
Register For Webinar
Climate Action Planning is designed to help planners, municipal staff and officials, citizens and others working at local levels to develop and implement plans to mitigate a community’s greenhouse gas emissions and increase the resilience of communities against climate change impacts. This fully revised and expanded edition goes well beyond climate action plans to examine the mix of policy and planning instruments available to every community. Boswell, Greve, and Seale also look at process and communication: How does a community bring diverse voices to the table? What do recent examples and research tell us about successful communication strategies?
Climate Action Planning is the most comprehensive book on the state of the art, science, and practice of local climate action planning. It should be a first stop for any local government interested in addressing climate change.
US context but ideas and approaches relevant to Canadian communities.
Hosted by the Security and Sustainability Forum

#TalkingClimate Training Webinar
2019-08-01 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Brussels)
Do you find it difficult to have conversations with friends, family and colleagues about the climate crisis? Are you interested in participating in an innovative ‘citizen science’ project and gaining interesting experience and new research skills?
Register here: https://climateoutreach.org/resources/how-to-have-a-climate-change-conversation-talking-climate/
Thursday, August 1, 2019, 6pm Central European Standard Time
This summer, we are seeking participants for a project exploring how to have conversations about climate change in our daily lives – and how to come out of them feeling inspired and connected. At the same time, we will be building a hugely important evidence base for the future.
The project is a collaboration between Climate-KIC and Climate Outreach working to widen and deepen public engagement in climate change by producing world-leading advice and practical tools for engagement.
As a participant, you will get:

A training webinar in early August laying out the evidence base on how to have effective day-to-day conversations about climate change;
Support – including from your own community – in having four to five conversations about climate change in your daily life over the summer period, with different sorts of people;
The ability to feedback your experiences in written and (if you like) video form and be a part of a wider piece of analysis;
A second webinar in October pulling together the feedback from all the participants into a piece of research;
A short report giving down to earth guidance on how to have conversations about climate change in your daily life, produced as a result of the research;
Inspiration to go on doing it!
At the moment, evidence exists from a number of different sectors – including social science research on climate change communications, non-violent communication principles and informal advice for important personal conversations like coming out or talking about religious beliefs. But this will be the first in-depth exploration of how to have the climate change conversation.

At a time when more are waking up to the climate crisis, these conversations are important. We’d really love to have your participation in exploring this – and hope that together we can learn a lot.

Webinar: How Risk Research Can Inform Professional Practice
2019-07-03 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Toronto)
Risk research can be of great importance for professional practice, and vice versa. However, to connect the two domains is not always easy. During a period of over 15 year scholars at Lund University have been conducting research in close collaboration with professionals working with disaster risk management (DRM) in Sweden. The presentation is based on some of the experiences from several research programs during this period. It starts with a presentation of disaster risk management in general and use the Swedish DRM system to exemplify. Then follows a presentation of a research framework that has been used to ensure both scientific rigor and practical relevance of the results. And finally, the use of the framework is exemplified by describing several studies focusing on helping professionals improve their practice. One important practical problem addressed by the studies are how to aggregate risk information from several sources.
Wednesday, July 3 at 11am ET

Webinar: Canada’s Changing Climate Report: Changes in the Oceans and Coastlines Surrounding Canada
2019-06-26 13:00 - 14:30 (America/Toronto)
Please join the upcoming webinar that will be jointly hosted by the Climate Risks for Coastal Transportation Infrastructure Community of Practice (CRCTI CoP) and the Canadian Coastal Resilience Forum (CCRF). The webinar is titled “Canada’s Changing Climate Report: Changes in the Oceans and Coastlines Surrounding Canada” and will be presented by Blair Greenan, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Thomas James, Natural Resources Canada. The webinar will be held on Wednesday, June 26th at 1:00pm – 2:30pm EST/ 10:00am – 11:30am PST.

Webinar registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cWV5Gxb_SaCJANIXLfR3hQ

Coastal Hazards and Risk Communication Forum at the MEOPAR ATM/ASM
2019-06-14 13:00 - 15:45 (America/Vancouver) | Delta Ocean Pointe Resort, 100 Harbour Road, Victoria, BC, V9A 0G1, Canada
The Coast and Ocean Risk Communication Community of Practice (CORC CoP), sponsored by MEOPAR Network invites you to an afternoon forum focused on communicating risks of coastal hazards. The Forum offers an opportunity to discuss with, and hear from, researchers and practitioners who engage in communicating about coastal and marine hazards and to connect with others interested in this area. The Forum is free to attend, but because space is limited, we ask that you register here by June 13 to reserve your place. Preliminary Program (check back for updates).
Who Should Attend?
People from the community involved in study, research, or practice of coastal hazards planning or policy-making; coastal community resilience or preparedness; communicating coastal hazard or risk information (e.g., emergency managers, planners (sustainability, climate change, community resilience), communications specialists; policy-makers; decision-makers; students, or others) in addition to MEOPAR personnel.100

Coastal Hazards and Risk Communication Forum
2019-06-14 00:00 - 2019-06-15 00:00 (America/Vancouver)

Grand Forum Des Communautés Résilientes
2019-06-04 - 2019-06-05 | Grand Séminaire de Québec, Quebec City, Québec, Canada
Le Grand forum des communautés résilientes, c’est l’opportunité de s’inspirer et de mettre à profit l’intelligence collective pour mieux répondre ensemble aux enjeux sociaux, environnementaux et économiques générés par les changements climatiques.
Au-delà d’un partage des savoirs issus des communautés et de la recherche, les participantEs seront amené à co-construire des solutions et des projets collaboratifs lors d’ateliers participatifs. En parallèle, un appel à l’action sera élaboré et validé par les participantEs durant l’événement, afin d’interpeller les acteurs de la recherche, les éluEs et les praticiens municipaux à agir conjointement pour accroître la résilience des communautés et faciliter l’adaptation aux changements climatiques.
L’événement veut rassembler des collectivités membres de la Rés-Alliance, des professionnelLEs des secteurs publics, municipaux et communautaires, des chercheurEes et des étudiantEs, des représentantEs des communautés des Premières Nations, des éluEs et des citoyenNEs engagéEs. C’est un rendez-vous les 4 et 5 juin prochain !
The Grand forum des communautés résilientes is an opportunity to draw on collective knowledge to better address the social, environmental and economic issues caused by climate change.
In addition to sharing knowledge from communities and research, participants will co-create solutions and build collaborative projects during hands-on workshops. A call for action will also be prepared and validated by the participants during the event in order to urge the research community, elected officials and municipal practitioners to act collectively to increase community resilience and facilitate adaptation to climate change.
The forum aims to bring together community members of the Rés-Alliance, professionals from the public sector and from communities and municipalities, researchers and students, First Nations community representatives, elected officials and committed citizens. It’s a must-attend event on June 4-5!

Webinar: Modelling of Future Flood Risk Across Canada Under Climate Change
2019-05-31 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
Register Here
Climate change has induced changes in key climate variables and hydrological cycle across Canada. With continuous emission of greenhouse gases, this trend is expected to continue over the 21st century and beyond.
In this study, a macro-scaled hydrodynamic model is used to simulate 25 km resolution daily streamflow across Canada for historical (1961-2005) and future (2061-2100) timelines. Future projections from 21 GCMs following four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are used for analysis. Changes in the frequency and magnitude of historical 100-year and 250-year return period flood events and month of occurrence of peak flow are analyzed. Results obtained from uncertainty analysis for both return period flood events found that flood frequency will increase in most of the northern Canada, southern Ontario, southern British Columbia, northern Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Presenter: Slobodan P. Simonovic
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Western Ontario
Director of Engineering Studies, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction

Webinar: Communicating Disaster Risk - An Evaluation of Publicly Accessible Disaster Maps in Canada
2019-05-08 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Vancouver)
Webinar – Communicating disaster risk? An evaluation of publicly accessible flood maps in Canada
MEOPAR and CORC COP cordially invite you to a webinar presentation of recent research evaluating flood maps and their utility for communicating about flood risk in Canada. You are welcome to share this invitation with other colleagues who may be interested.
When: Wednesday, May 8, 2019 (1 hr)
10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 2 pm AT / 2:30 pm / NL
REGISTER HERE
Description
In a time of extreme weather, ageing infrastructure and increasing urban development, it is perhaps unsurprising that economic losses from floods are on the rise. A fundamental step to building resiliency is to identify risks in order to reduce and manage their consequences. This webinar will present new research on the information that is available to the public to identify their flood risk and act on it. Our research found that flood maps—information that is a cornerstone of flood risk management—is available to most surveyed communities but it is difficult to find, incomplete and it is normally highly technocratic. We argue that in a time when governments look to the public to reduce flood risk, user-friendly information and institutions need to be in place to support the public.
Presenters
Andrea Minano, PhD Candidate @Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo
Andrea is a specialist in Geographic Information Systems and has previously worked for municipal, provincial and federal governments as well as the insurance industry. Andrea’s research and work experience are highly interdisciplinary ranging from visualization of flood risk, community-based climate adaptation and flood risk management policy. Andrea’s current research focuses on public and private responsibilities in flood risk management and identifying opportunities for strengthening flood resiliency in Canada.
Jason Thistlethwaite, Associate Professor @School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo
Jason’s research focuses on innovative strategies designed to reduce the economic impacts of extreme weather and climate change. He explores the role of insurance and government risk-transfer in promoting climate change adaptation and reducing economic vulnerability. To inform this work, he has worked directly with business and government leaders in the insurance, banking, real estate, building, and investment industries. Jason is also a frequent speaker, media contributor on Canada’s growing vulnerability to extreme weather, and a self-described “weather geek”. Check out a recent CBC article and interview with Jason on CBC’s The Current, April 3, 2019: ‘Get Used to Being Disrupted’)
We hope you can attend!

The Climate-Resilient Coastal Natural Infrastructure Workshop and ACCESS 2019
2019-05-06 - 2019-05-10 | St Mary’s University, 923 Robie Street,, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
This combined event will connect coastal practitioners, coastal engineers, natural and social scientists, professors, students, planners, politicians, and Indigenous groups. Working towards the application, implementation, and delivery of nature-based adaptations to climate change, and the latest in coastal & estuarine science!
Hosted by: TransCoastal Adaptations: Centre for Nature-based Solutions, ACCESS, and The Cold Regions Living Shorelines Community of Practice (CRLS CoP), part of Coastal Zone Canada Association.
Event Website
Event Registration Here

CCACoP Webinar: Canada’s Changing Climate Report – An Overview
2019-04-18 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Toronto) | CCACoP
Register for Webinar Here
Hosted by the Climate Change Adaptation Community of Practice (CCACoP) and led by Environment and Climate Change Canada, this webinar focuses on the recently-released report, Canada’s Changing Climate, which details how and why Canada’s climate has changed and what changes are projected for the future.This document is the first of a series to be released as part of Canada in a Changing Climate: Advancing our Knowledge for Action. It documents changes across Canada in temperature, precipitation, snow, ice, permafrost and freshwater availability as well as in Canada’s three oceans.
Presenters:
Elizabeth Bush (Project Lead, Canada’s Changing Climate Report, Environment and Climate Change Canada)
Others TBD

Webinar: SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information - Adapting to Climate Change
2019-03-12 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto)
Join us in learning more about SmartICE, an award-winning technological innovation for the North, which was first developed in Newfoundland and Labrador through collaboration with northern communities, including Nain and Pond Inlet. SmartICE is the world’s first climate change adaptation tool to integrate Inuit traditional knowledge of sea ice with advanced data acquisition and remote monitoring technology to provide data-driven insights into sea-ice thickness and local ice conditions in real-time, to support safer travel on ice. SmartICE embraces a social enterprise business model that aims to expand opportunities for economic and social development in northern communities while preserving local cultures and lifestyles. Learn about how SmartICE works, which communities are participating, and how to become involved. Please note this webinar will be offered in English and Inuktitut.
REGISTER HERE
Presenters

Carolann Harding (Executive Director, SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information Inc.)
Andrew Arreak (Nunavut Operations Lead, SmartICE Sea Ice Monitoring & Information Inc.)

Facilitator

Eric Bing (Transport Canada)

Webinar: Information and Tools to Support Transportation Adaptation
2019-02-27 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Vancouver)
Hosted by Climate Change Adaptation Community of Practice

Facilitator: Elizabeth Smalley (Manager of the Adaptation Policy Team, Transport Canada)

Presenters: Marianne Armstrong (National Research Council);Lo Cheng (Canadian Centre for Climate Services, Environment and Climate Change Canada); and Elizabeth Bush (Environment and Climate Change Canada)

Register for webinar here
DESCRIPTION
The webinar will focus on three federally-led climate initiatives of interest to the transportation sector:
– The transportation aspects of the Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure Initiative (National Research Council and Infrastructure Canada), including work underway to inform the update of the Canadian Standards Association’s Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code to account for a changing climate and the creation of guidelines for monitoring rail tracks for the effects of freeze/thaw in response to the needs of the Canadian Urban Transit Association;
– An overview of the Canadian Centre for Climate Services (Environment and Climate Change Canada), which provides climate information and data to Canadians to support decision making;
– An update on the development of Canada’s Changing Climate Report, a contribution to the National Assessment – Canada in a Changing Climate: Advancing our Knowledge for Action. This report assesses how Canada’s climate has changed, why and what changes are projected for the future, and will help inform mitigation and adaptation decision-making, and increase public awareness and understanding of Canada’s changing climate.
Visit Climate Change Adaptation Community of Practice Website: https://www.ccadaptation.ca/en/landing

Webinar: Seven Best Practices for Risk Communication (NOAA)
2019-02-07 11:00 - 12:30 (America/Vancouver)
Understanding risk is a key component for initiatives focused on helping communities prepare for and respond to weather and climate hazards. This interactive webinar introduces participants to seven best practices, numerous techniques, and examples for communicating about coastal hazards. Whether beginning a new effort or trying to keep people motivated to better prepare for future hazards, applying risk communication principles will lead to more effective results.
90 minute free webinar 2pm to 3:30 pm Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5) / 11am – 2:30 pm (UTC-8) Pacific Standard Time
More Information: https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/training/risk-communication.html

CatIQ's Canadian Catastrophe Conference
2019-02-04 - 2019-02-06 | Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 55 Front St W, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 2W6, Canada
CatIQ Connect (formerly C4) is a content-driven discussion to foster collaboration before, during and after catastrophic events. This conference provides a content driven overview of catastrophes, discusses strategies in catastrophe management and explores sector perspectives. Overall themes are on preparedness and resiliency, available tools, and impacted stakeholder and policy makers working together for the greater good of all Canadians.

The Many Faces of Risk - Society For Risk Analysis Annual Meeting 2018
2018-12-02 08:00 - 2018-12-06 17:00 UTC | Marriott New Orleans, 555 Canal St, New Orleans, LA, United States
Join us in New Orleans, LA for this year’s SRA Annual Meeting from December 2-6, 2018 for the premier opportunity to discuss all avenues of risk analysis with other risk enthusiasts from around the globe. This year’s theme, “The Many Faces of Risk,” is intended to showcase inclusion, a cornerstone of SRA and vital to the ability to address today’s most pressing risk issues. The theme underscores the diversity of SRA in terms of the professions, disciplines, methodologies, nationalities, and regions its membership represents. It also highlights the staggering array of topics that SRA members and meeting participants explore in their research and practice.

Webinar: What’s that Sound? Public and Official Perceptions of the January 2018 Tsunami Warning and Evacuation in the Alberni Valley
2018-11-20 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
REGISTER HERE
MEOPAR’s Coast and Ocean Risk Communication Community of Practice (CORC CoP) is excited to host this free webinar, presented by Ryan Reynolds and Alexa Tanner from the University of British Columbia on November 20, 2018 from 10am to 11am Pacific time (Vancouver).
Imagine being woken up at 3AM by a loud siren and verbal warning to evacuate your home because a tsunami is expected to arrive soon. That was the situation the people of Port Alberni faced in the early hours of January 23rd of this year. It had been over fifty years since the Alberni Valley had been devastated by a tsunami following an earthquake in Alaska, and over 10 years since the last warning was issued.
Thankfully, this time there was no tsunami, but for many the events of that morning remain vivid. In this webinar we will talk about the responses we received from over 450 residents and 11 local officials about their experiences, how the event has changed their perceptions of tsunami risk, and what lessons can be learned from the event from a risk communication stand-point.
Check out the Preliminary Report (https://bit.ly/2RgmSej). This research was funded by ICLR (Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction).

Advancing and Empowering Disaster Risk Reduction in Canada
2018-10-29 08:00 - 17:00 UTC
Canada’s Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction will be hosting the Ninth Annual National Roundtable on Disaster Risk Reduction in Vancouver, British Columbia on October 29, 2018. This year’s theme for the Roundtable, Advancing and Empowering Disaster Risk Reduction in Canada, encourages participants to engage in a dialogue to build resilience and advance cross-sector collaboration. The Canadian Risk and Hazard Network’s (CRHNet) Annual Symposium 2018, in addition to the 2018 Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity (EPBC) Conference, will follow at the same location from October 30 to November 1, 2018.
The Roundtable serves as an inclusive multi-sectoral consultative mechanism to advance disaster risk reduction in Canada. This event is freeof charge and open to all interested participants, including: the private sector, all levels of government, Indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations, academia and the general public.
We look forward to seeing you in Vancouver!
The Eighth Annual National Roundtable on Disaster Risk Reduction took place on October 23-24, 2017 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The report for this event will be available shortly. Reports of previous Roundtables are also available.
Contact Us
For any further questions or inquiries related to this event, please contact Canada’s Platform Secretariat at:
ps.drr-rrc.sp@canada.ca
Phone: 613-991-9748
#CDNDRR

Online Discussion: From Warning to Protective Action
2018-10-16
More information and register here!
MEOPAR and CORC COP cordially invite you to join an informal online conversation on Tuesday, October 16 at 11:15 am Pacific (Vancouver) to talk about the relationship between warnings, and responses to warnings, and to learn about what factors might improve the chance that protective actions are taken.

Understanding and Modeling Weather and Climate Extremes: Challenges and Opportunities for Science and Society
2018-07-04 15:30 - 16:30 (America/Vancouver) | UVic University House 1, Room 2, 2489 Sinclair Road, Victoria, BC, Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
One of today’s major challenges in climate sciences is how to use our state-of-the-art models and climate system knowledge to inform decision making regarding societal responses to climate change. Among the five key reasons for concern, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are the risks from weather and climate extremes. Severe impacts could be prevented or alleviated through appropriate adaptation measures and better preparedness.
Weather and climate extremes are influenced by a complex interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors that determine their occurrence, frequency, and intensity. Adaptation planning is challenged to take into account near- and long term variability and changes in weather and climate extremes and associated uncertainties. Two different approaches will be presented to show how the influence of large-scale circulation patterns, such as atmospheric blocking and atmospheric rivers, can be utilized to improve our understanding and simulation of heatwaves and extreme precipitation events, respectively. The uncertainties related to simulations of heatwaves and their dynamical drivers is investigated using large ensembles of state-of-the-art global and regional climate models. For the case of extreme precipitation, a model chain approach from a high-resolution Earth System Model to a convection permitting Numerical Weather Prediction model is employed. Different opportunities to provide impact-relevant information on changes in weather and climate extremes will be presented, which involves, for instance, finding appropriated indicators and incorporating process understanding in extreme value distributions.
Presentation by Dr. Jana Sillmann, Research Director, CICERO

Our Incredible Shrinking Island: Climate Science Public Outreach
2018-06-20 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Vancouver)
Our Incredible Shrinking Island: Climate Science Public Outreach Information Sessions on Prince Edward Island
Live webinar presented by Dr. Adam Fenech, UPEI Climate Lab
The University of Prince Edward Island Climate Lab has undertaken a travelling road show of public information sessions on sea-level rise, coastal erosion and their potential effects on the island province. The lab, which undertakes research on climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation, did a similar series of presentations four years ago, but had a strong incentive to visit over eight communities again this year. The first was funding from the Ecology Action Centre. The second was the new science surrounding the rate of sea level rise. For the last 30 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate change science, advised planning for a one metre of sea-level rise. The new science says it could be as much as three times that. The star of the show is CLIVE (Coastal Impacts Visualization Environment), a visualization tool developed by the UPEI Climate Lab and Simon Fraser University’s Spatial Interface Research Lab to show the impact of future coastal erosion, sea-level rise and storm surges. Using a game controller, users can fly over a 3D representation of PEI and zoom in on their home or community. They then select different erosion and sea-level rise scenarios to see how they will affect the land. Results of showing CLIVE to PEI communities have proved an increase in knowledge and awareness about climate change impacts; an increase in the concern over these impacts; and a willingness to adapt or “take action.” This webinar will provide more details.

Risk Communication at the Local Level (CMOS Panel Session)
2018-06-14 10:30 - 12:00 (America/Halifax) | Halifax Convention Centre, 1650 Argyle St, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 0E6, Canada
Panelists: Max Liboiron (MUN), Rodd Laing (Gov’t of Nunatsiavut), and Alex Zahara (MUN).
Host: Joel Finnis
Research on science and risk communication has consistently emphasized the importance of collaboration between impacted communities (‘publics’) and accredited expert groups (whether government agencies, academia, industry, or NGOs), in order to foster trust and ensure community needs are being accounted for. Although meaningful community collaboration can be difficult to achieve, it potentially avoids problems of one-way expert-to-public communication, which assumes risk is effectively mitigated by increasing public attention to expert knowledge. This ‘information deficit’ communication model privileges accredited expert perceptions of what constitutes relevant, timely, and accessible communication against local expertise and contexts. Communities can differ considerably from experts in their interpretation of these characteristics, beginning with how risks are defined and prioritized. While many agencies have no direct experience of a specific hazard or impacted activities, community knowledge is always a factor when receiving outside information. For example, ‘timely’ monitoring of hazards by accredited experts may be poorly received by communities that prioritize prevention, especially when hazards are understood by communities to be long-term and ongoing (e.g. the “event” of methyl mercury contamination as a consequence of hydro-electric development against a long-term trend of extraction and encroachment). Finally, efforts to improve ‘accessibility’ often focus on delivering streamlined, simple messaging around nuanced problems; this can become an issue when communities are accustomed to navigating complexity, and are aware that higher level information exists but is not disseminated. These disconnections are less likely to occur if communities and risk-related agencies actively collaborate on research and risk communication/management planning. These concerns, and ways forward, will be addressed in a panel discussion, with input from social/natural scientists and environmental managers, sharing lessons drawn from their recent collaborations on plastic pollution, sea ice stability, Muskrat Falls flooding and contamination, and wildfire management.
