At CC-RAI’s Climate Science Workshop held in March 2010, Professor Claude Duguay, founding director for the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC³) presented on the State of the Art Perspectives on Regional Climate Modelling in Ontario.

Duguay’s presentation highlighted the importance of understanding the role the cryosphere (snow and ice) plays in the global climate system. IC³ is focused on understanding the physical basis of climate change, and its impacts in biophysical and human systems, and adaptation and mitigation in response to climate change.

IC³ is based at the University of Waterloo. Its goals are:

1. To improve the understanding of feedback mechanisms and physical processes of the cryosphere with the Earth’s climate system.
2. Improve the representation of cryospheric processes in models to reduce uncertainties in the simulation of climate and climate change predictions.
3. Further the development of cryosphere datasets for the evaluation and improvement of climate models.