Joint 2012 Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) congress and American Meteorological Society (AMS) Numerical Weather Prediction and Weather Analysis and Forecasting conferences

MONTREAL, June 1, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - The 46^th congress of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) was held from May 29 to June 1^st 2012 in Montréal (Québec) jointly with the American Meteorological Society (AMS) conferences on weather analysis and numerical prediction. More than 700 scientists from 11 countries were present at the event

In their opening addresses, Mr. Pierre Arcand, Québec Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, and Mr. David Grimes, Assistant Deputy Minister and Head of the Meteorological Service of Canada (on behalf of the Federal Minister of the Environment, Mr. Peter Kent) emphasised the importance, to several sectors of human activity, of meteorological and climatic conditions whether  it be for weather alerts, transport, agriculture, health, energy or land management.

Mr. Grimes is also President of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and gave the opening invited presentation. He presented an overview of the links between human activities and the use of meteorological forecasts and climate studies to be able to address such questions. With a growing population, this information becomes increasingly important and needs to be more detailed, reliable and robust. He stressed the importance of   providing a sustained support to research on climate and atmospheric sciences to be able to face these problems.

More than 500 scientific communications were presented at the Congress covering many topics on atmospheric and oceanic sciences. A well attended public conference on Oceans and Climate Change was presented on Wednesday June 30, from 19:30 to 21:00, by Dr. Denis Gilbert, research scientist at Maurice-Lamontagne institute of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He caught the interest of his audience by presenting the different processes at work in the oceans that are responsible for sea level rise, ocean acidification and other changes observed in the Arctic.

The invited presentations set the stage for this congress covering a variety of topics such as the emergence of numerical weather prediction and its extension to climate simulations, the use of satellite data to improve the quality of weather forecasts, and better understand variations in the climate or also the complexity of oceans and the mechanisms that impact marine life and consequently, the capacity of the oceans to feed a growing population.

The theme for the 2012 congress was The Changing Environment and its impact on climate, ocean and weather services and the presentations did highlight the extent to which the society of XXI^st century has a growing need for scientific research which helps us to to better understand the complex system of the atmosphere and the oceans. The excellence of Canadian scientists in atmospheric and oceanic sciences was evident throughout the week. The Parsons medal of excellence in oceanography was awarded this year to Prof. Louis Fortier, director of ArcticNet at Laval University. The Patterson medal for meteorology was awarded this year to Prof. John Gyakum of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University.

The complete program of the congress is available on the website (http://www.cmos.ca/congress2012/). It contains copies of all presentations and recordings of the invited plenary presentations.

Mr. Louis Lefaivre, chair of the Organizing Committee
Email: [email protected]
Prof. . Pierre Gauthier, chair of the Scientific Program Committee
Email : [email protected]