News

Recent studies suggest that flares in oil and gas fields are considerably less efficient than previously thought, a discrepancy that could be responsible for additional annual emissions equivalent to those produced by up to 8.8 million cars in the United States alone. To help tackle this urgent problem, a research team led by Dr. Kyle Daun, an engineering professor at the University of Waterloo and Waterloo Climate Institute member, is working with a sophisticated infrared camera to more accurately measure how well flares convert methane into CO2. In the future, he and the team hope to include other institute members like Dr. Maria Strack and Dr. Laura Hug to use the technology for measuring methane emissions in wetlands and landfills.

The Government of Canada has announced new federal funding of over $585,000 for a research project that will examine how much flooding will cost in the future and how public policy can contribute to Canada’s resilience to climate change. This project, completed as a partnership between l'Université du Québec à Montréal, the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), the Université Laval and the University of Waterloo, builds on Dr. Daniel Henstra and Dr. Jason Thistlethwaite’s previous work with Canada's Task Force on Flood Insurance and Relocation.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has announced $15.8 million to six University of Waterloo research projects to identify solutions to environmental challenges. The research led by seven Waterloo Climate Institute members will support building a sustainable net-zero emissions in Canada by 2050.

From a series of airborne radar surveys and modelling, a team of researchers led by Dr. Christine Dow, professor in the school of Geography and Environmental Management and a Waterloo Climate Institute member, discovered the 460-km river under the Antarctica ice sheet that could be the missing link to climate models. Their findings show the base of the ice sheet has more active water flow than previously thought, which could make it more susceptible to changes in climate.

The High-altitude Aerosols, Water Vapour and Clouds (HAWC) mission received $200 million of Canadian Space Agency (CSA) funding to create transformative new satellite instruments for measuring changes in the atmosphere. Waterloo Climate Institute member, Dr. Chris Fletcher, is part of a scientific consortium developing satellite technology for the mission to better understand climate change and helping pave the way for space-age climate science.

Fraser King is studying what deep learning algorithms can teach us about snow, especially annual snowfall and snowmelt in the context of climate change. In his latest study, which he undertook with a team of researchers that included Christopher Fletcher, his PhD supervisor and Waterloo Climate Institute member, he put forward his new weather modelling program under the name DeepPrecip.

A new report by University of Waterloo researchers, Truzaar Dordi and IC3 member Olaf Weber, found that the top 10 most influential actors, including investment advisors, governments, and sovereign wealth funds from around the world, own 49.5 per cent of potential emissions from the world's largest energy firms. Their work outlines the decisive role they can play in helping de-carbonize our future. Read the full story on Waterloo News and check out the article in the Journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.

Congratulations to IC3 members, Allison Kelly, Daniel Henstra, Peter Johnson and Warren Dodd, who were awarded funding by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to support research that addresses environmental inequality, economic sustainability and Indigenous language revitalization.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the third report for its sixth major assessment of the science of climate change; Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Sarah Burch, Executive Director at IC3 and professor of Geography and Environmental Management, is a lead author for Chapter 17: Accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development. Learn more about where we are in terms of our global greenhouse gas emissions and Burch's contributions. 

A new study co-authored by IC3 member Nandita Basu shows that human-managed streams in Canada and the U.S. have been found to have significantly different flow patterns compared to streams in natural watersheds.