Grant: Canada Research Chairs

This CRC in Climate Change Risk and Resilience aims to improve the understanding of the physical mechanisms of precipitation, and its application to extreme weather and climate change adaptation study. To accomplish these, Dr. Yanping Li and her team will establish an integrative approach that combines observations, remote sensing, physical explanations, and advanced Earth system modeling. Specifically, they will 1) determine the dominant mechanisms that control summertime precipitation over the plain east of the Rockies; 2) determine how convection over the tropical western Pacific is related to precipitation over the Canadian Prairies; 3) better predict extreme precipitation risk in Canada due to climate change; and 4) understand the impact of climate change on prairie cropland and wetland and evaluate the effectiveness of different adaptation strategies. The development of a Canada-wide state-of-the-art modeling system that couples a high-resolution regional climate model with an advanced land-surface model will enable a realistic representation of weather and land surface. The coupled modeling system can capture crucial land-atmosphere interactions by allowing large spatial heterogeneity for land surface parameters in a horizontal direction. The explicit representation of dynamic crop growth, irrigation, and dynamic wetlands will permit exploration of the connectivity of the crop-wetland-climate system and provide a platform to examine how weather, cropping systems, and wetlands interact under different human management scenarios when facing climate change. One unique aspect of this research is that these issues have never been investigated at such a fine resolution and for such a large region. The improved understanding of the convective mechanism and the cryosphere–atmosphere–climate interactions is important because it has the potential to inform operational practice through translating precipitation to flood and drought information to allow communities and decision makers to be better prepared for climate change. Dr. Li’s research program will also provide guidance for decision makers facing critical agricultural choices for building climate resilience and understanding the risks and benefits of agricultural management strategies. The outcome of this research will have key implications for disaster mitigation, water resources management, food security and ecosystem sustainability and will have significant economic consequences.