Science Borealis

Scientists do not always account for mosses, simple, small and ubiquitous plants in their climate models, even though doing so could help us better understand climate change.

Most plants are “vascular”. This means they can control the water entering or leaving their tissues via stomata, tiny pores in leaves and, sometimes, stems that allow gasses to enter and exit the plant. Mosses, however, have no stomata. 

The goal of Rose Lefebvre’s Master’s research is to include mosses as a vegetation type in Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canadian Land Surface Scheme Including Biogeochemical Cycles climate model – called CLASSIC for short.

Earlier this year Rose took Science Borealis‘ Pitch and Polish blog writing course and you can now read her full blog post – Tiny plants could be key to improving climate change predictions on the Science Borealis blog.

Rose is a student at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Sonnentag (Université de Montréal) and Dr. Joe Melton (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Her research focuses on using the Canadian Land Surface Scheme including Biogeochemical Cycles model (CLASSIC) to reproduce the climatological conditions at Scotty Creek, in the Northwest Territories.

Permafrost is changing as Earth’s climate warms. Across northern Canada, the effects are already apparent: slow-moving landslides threaten highways, buildings are sinking and collapsing, and traditional food sources are threatened. The annual cost of permafrost thaw in the Northwest Territories has been estimated at $51 million.

Because permafrost occurs underground, data about permafrost are difficult and costly to collect. Once they’ve drilled a borehole, scientists insert instruments to record ground temperatures at regular intervals, sometimes collecting measurements every hour. This is exactly the kind of information permafrost modellers need. However, once these data have been used for a particular experiment, they might not be shared in a way that is easily accessible for other researchers. In fact, they may not be shared at all.

In Whitehorse, Panya Lipovsky, a surficial geologist with the Yukon Geological Survey, has been working to create a permafrost database for the Yukon. The effort is part of a Canada-wide trend to make historic permafrost datasets more available.

Earlier this year Nick Brown took Science Borealis‘ Pitch and Polish blog writing course and you can now read his full blog post – The changing landscape of permafrost data on the Science Borealis blog.

Nick Brown is the NSERC PermafrostNet data scientist, where he develops tools to support permafrost simulation and data handling and also promotes the adoption of standards for permafrost data

“So, it’s frozen mud?” my roommate asks when I try to explain my research topic to him. Since starting his own research in quantum physics, he has mastered the art of simple idioms. Perks of the trade, I suppose.

This frozen mud, however, covers half of Canada’s land mass. It is the soil on which many Indigenous communities are built, and it is thawing at alarming rates. With northern latitudes warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, scientists are racing to understand permafrost dynamics. Having this knowledge can help us ensure that Canada is equipped to face the coming climate crisis………..

Earlier this year graduate student Charles Gauthier took Science Borealis‘ Pitch and Polish blog writing course and you can now read the rest of his blog post – Why frozen mud is a technical challenge for climate scientists on the Science Borealis blog.

Charles is a student at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Sonnentag (Université de Montréal) et Dr. Joe Melton (Environment and Climate Change Canada). His research aims to reduce uncertainty in predicted soil carbon dynamics.