A Survey of Canadian Climate/Environmental Monitoring Networks

Authors
Heather MacDonald
Dan McKenney
Kristine Confalone
Kelly Mitchell
Resource Date:
2022
Page Length
75

This paper summarizes the results of a survey of 99 municipal/regional governments, academia, and private organizations about weather stations. The survey, developed by the Great Lakes Forestry Centre and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS), was conducted between January and February 2021. Out of 99 survey responses, 66 respondents reported collect precipitation data, compared to 48 for air temperature, 37 for snow, 31 for wind, and 30 for humidity. With respect to water, there were 36 organizations recording data on surface water, 32 on stream discharge, 29 for ground water, and 26 for water temperature. There were fewer than ten respondents reporting solar radiation, ambient air quality, road surface or swell measurements. The majority of organizations collecting information about water-related variables are not currently sharing their data with the Canada Water Survey. Most organizations were open to sharing their data and expressed interest in having access to other organizations’ data as well. The key recommendation from this research is to continue outreach to ensure data from these networks is shared with ECCC and/or provincial and territorial agencies to improve national and local forecasts and analyses.