Conference : Définition d’un climat de référence et développement de projections climatiques pour le nord du Québec
General Conference Information
Title: Définition d’un climat de référence et développement de projections climatiques pour le nord du Québec (event in French)
Presenter: Alain Mailhot, INRS-ETE
When: January 29, 2020, 11:00 a.m.
Location: Université Laval, Pavillon d'Optique-photonique, room COP-1168
Price: Free
Public: Open to all
Presented by : Québec Océan, Centre d'études nordiques, Institut nordique du Québec
Summary :
The characterization of past climate in many regions of Canada, particularly in the North, remains highly problematic given the very poor historical coverage provided by observing networks. Moreover, northern Quebec is experiencing, and is expected to experience, profound climatic upheavals. This presentation will address these two issues. First, the definition of a reference climate for northern Quebec will be discussed. To this end, various climate indices calculated from different data sets (e.g., reanalysis, climate model simulations) will be compared in order to assess their respective potentials to represent the past climate of this territory. Challenges and issues related to the definition of a reference climate in northern regions will then be addressed. Secondly, future projections for various climate indices derived from a set of regional climate model simulations will be presented for northern Quebec.
Biography :
Alain Mailhot has been a professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Centre Eau Terre et Environnement since 2002. He holds a PhD in statistical physics from the Université de Sherbrooke. His main areas of research are urban hydrology, statistical analysis of hydroclimatic series and uncertainty analysis in environmental modelling. In recent years, he has been more specifically interested in the impacts of climate change on stormwater management in urban areas, the study of future climate evolution of precipitation extremes, the development of approaches to better characterize this type of event in historical climate and the consideration of climate change in design. In particular, he contributed to the drafting of the guide on Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves produced by the Canadian Standard Association (CSA).