On 12 May, Dr. Kevin Wood from NOAA and the climate history citizen science project “Old Weather” will deliver a public keynote at Western University. Titled “Old Weather and the New Climate of the Arctic,” this talk will follow the NiCHE workshop, The Climate is History, introducing the Environment Canada collection to members of the network and the university.

• Old Weather and the New Climate of the Arctic
• Dr. Kevin Wood
• Date: 12 May 2014
• Location: Conron Hall (UCC 224)
• Time: 7pm

Description:
A vast reservoir of new-to-science environmental data is contained in historical ship logbooks and other original documents that have been preserved for generations by national archives and other repositories around the world, but these data are technically inaccessible. The Old Weather citizen-science project is recovering millions of these hand-written observations, converting them into digital format, and integrating them into large-scale data sets where they are used for new research. These data are needed for scientists to better understand longer-term environmental variations in the Arctic and globally, and is vital to our efforts to model and predict future change and its human impact. Old Weather citizen-scientists also make enormous contributions in other areas from maritime history to plasma physics.

Bio:
Kevin Wood, U.S. Old Weather – Arctic lead investigator, is a climate scientist at the NOAA – University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO). Before coming to UW he sailed the world’s oceans for 25 years aboard traditionally-rigged sailing vessels. His interest in historical climatology stems from this experience on these ships, much like those used by 19th century explorers, and from working on research vessels in the ice-covered seas of the Arctic and Antarctic. He holds a license as master of steam and sailing vessels and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences.

Related Events:

On 13 May, Western is also hosting the Ontario Climate Consortium Symposium, “Science and Cities >>CONNECT”; participants at The Climate is History workshop are invited to attend.

12 May 9-5, Western University, The Climate is History workshop.

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Josh MacFadyen

Associate Professor at University of Prince Edward Island

I am an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Prince Edward Island where I teach in the Applied Communication, Leadership & Culture Program in the Faculty of Arts. My research focuses on the history of biomass energy and agriculture. From 2012-2014 I was the NiCHE project coordinator, and I served on the NiCHE editorial board until 2018.

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