Science Behind the Scenes - 2019

The 24th edition of Canada’s Top Ten Weather Stories has been released today. Discover the list of the top ten extreme weather events that occurred across the country in 2019.

December is Arctic Science Month! This is a great opportunity to highlight the variety of work Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) scientists are up to in Northern Canada. Stay tuned and follow our social media channels to learn more.

Halloween is the culmination of Bat Week, which takes place annually from October 24-31. In its honour, this month’s Science Behind the Scenes looks into the work of ECCC Wildlife Research Division scientist Greg Mitchell, and former ECCC Co-op and graduate student Julia E. Put.

ECCC scientists Adam Smith and Paul Smith, and scientist emeritus Peter Blancher coauthored a groundbreaking study published earlier this month in the journal Science, entitled “The Decline of the North American Avifauna”. The scientists collaborated with researchers from Cornell University, the American Bird Conservancy and several other organizations on the study.

ECCC’s wildlife biologist Phil Thomas is collaboratively working on restoring the meadow thistle, a species at risk, also known as the Mingan thistle. The thistle is an emblematic plant that has social and historical value to the people living in the area, and the province of Quebec.

Environment and Climate Change (ECCC) scientists are at the forefront of an ongoing campaign to conserve the monarch butterfly. As a research scientist with ECCC’s Wildlife Research Division, Greg Mitchell is also the co-chair of the Trinational Monarch Conservation Science Partnership - a joint effort between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

With National Indigenous Peoples Day having taken place on June 21, this month’s Science Behind the Scenes focuses on ringed seals, a subsistence food for many people in Inuit communities.

Are landbirds in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area affected by the cumulative effect of multiple stressors? Can we simply add together the effect of stressors or is the effect even greater when stressors are multiplied?

With the release of Canada’s Changing Climate Report (CCCR) earlier this month, climate change is on the minds of many Canadians. Among the CCCR’s many findings, it noted both past and future warming in Canada is, on average, about double the magnitude of global warming.

Genomics is concerned with understanding the structure, function, evolution, and mapping of genomes, which are the complete set of genes of an organism.

Little is known about songbirds that breed in alpine habitats. ECCC researchers set out to learn about how they adapt to extreme weather conditions.

Organophosphate esters (OPEs) (chemical compounds) are found in products we use daily and on surfaces we encounter regularly; from our upholstered chairs to waxes used on floors. While OPEs have been around for decades, they are appearing in more and more products since they have commonly replaced other, now-banned flame-retardants considered more harmful.

Four Arctic scientists from Environment and Climate Change Canada - Robert Letcher, Birgit Braune, Derek Muir, and Marlene Evans - joined colleagues from other polar nations to look into persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Arctic. Their article "Temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in Arctic marine and freshwater biota" was published earlier this year in Science of The Total Environment.