{"id":31,"date":"2017-10-12T18:22:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T01:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2024-01-07T10:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T17:00:03","slug":"michael-pidwirny-my-research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Pidwirny, PhD <\/Br> My Research at UBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

My research has the following major themes of investigation:<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n
1) \u00a0Studying \u00a0the Effect of 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup> Century Climate Change on the Ski Resorts in Western North America<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
Average\u00a0global temperatures of our planet have increased by about 1\u00b0 Celsius since the pre-industrial era. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes the continued emission of greenhouse gases by human activity will further increase average global temperatures by 1.1 to 6.4\u00b0 Celsius by the end of the 21st<\/sup> century. This change in the Earth\u2019s climate is predicted to have profound effects on many components of human systems. Being able to predict how global warming will modify human systems is important for developing adaptation and mitigation strategies. One human system that will be detrimentally influenced by warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation is recreational skiing. To date, research on the effect of global warming on recreational skiing has been rudimentary. The reason for this is the lack of quality climate data for analysis. This research project will use newly available climate data (ClimateBC<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and ClimateNA<\/a><\/strong><\/span>) to determine the effect of global warming at selected ski resorts in Western North America. The main goal of this research will be to answer the following six questions.<\/span><\/h5>\n
    \n
  1. \n
    How did 20th-century global warming affect ski resorts in Western North America in terms of temperature and snowfall?<\/em><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    How will global warming in the 21st century affect these same ski resorts in terms of temperature and snowfall?<\/i><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    Has 20th-century human-caused climate change shortened <\/em>the length of the ski\u00a0season at\u00a0ski resorts in Western North America?<\/em><\/i><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \n
    How will 21st-century human-caused climate change influence the length of the ski season at ski resorts in Western North America?<\/i><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \n
    How will patterns of snowfall and rainfall change at ski resorts in Western North <\/i>America?<\/i><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n
  6. \n
    How will future warming daily minimum temperature influence artificial snow-making at ski resorts?<\/em><\/span><\/h6>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    <\/h5>\n
    2) \u00a0The Influence of El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a on Winter Climate Conditions at Ski Resorts in Western North America<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
    This research examines El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a’s influence on the climate conditions of ski resorts in western North America. Data for this work will be generated by the historical datasets found in <\/span>ClimateBC<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>and<\/span> ClimateNA<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. The main goal of the research will be to answer the following two questions. Do El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a have an influence on the climate conditions of ski resorts in western North America? Does this influence have a geographical component? Can we use our ability to forecast the occurrence of these events to predict winter conditions at ski resorts in western North America?<\/span><\/h5>\n
    <\/h5>\n
    3) \u00a0Determining how Climatic Event Known as The Blob Influenced Weather and Climate Conditions at Ski Resorts in Western North America<\/strong><\/span>
    \n
    \nThe winter of 2014-2015 will go down as \u201cthe year without a ski season\u201d for many ski resorts located near the west coast of Canada and the USA. During this winter season, a large area of the eastern North Pacific Ocean had extremely high sea surface temperatures. These high sea surface temperatures, called the<\/span>\u00a0    the Blob<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, influenced weather patterns on the west coast of North America, producing very mild winter temperatures inland; in alpine environments, precipitation that normally arrives in the form of snow often instead falls as rain. I would like to examine the weather and climate characteristics of the winter of 2014-2015 in greater detail to see how ski resorts across western North America were influenced.<\/span><\/h5>\n
    If you are a potential student who would like to pursue graduate work (MSc and PhD) dealing with climate change impact assessment,<\/strong> please contact me at:<\/span><\/h5>\n
    Dr. Michael Pidwirny, Associate\u00a0Professor<\/span>
    \n Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences<\/span>
    \n Irving K. Barber School of Arts and\u00a0Sciences<\/span>
    \n University of British Columbia,\u00a0Okanagan Campus<\/span>
    \n Science Building, 1177 Research\u00a0Road<\/span>
    \n Kelowna, British Columbia<\/span>
    \n CANADA \u00a0 V1V 1V7<\/span><\/h5>\n
    Email:\u00a0Michael.Pidwirny@ubc.ca<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My research has the following major themes of investigation: 1) \u00a0Studying \u00a0the Effect of 20th and 21st Century Climate Change on the Ski Resorts in Western North America Average\u00a0global temperatures of our planet have increased by about 1\u00b0 Celsius since the pre-industrial era. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes the continued emission of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43164,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/michaelpidwirny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}