Canada's weather service system lacks the resources and funding compared to its American counterparts, some weather experts say.
"I do know that the meteorological service of Canada …is starved for funding and has been for years and probably always will be," Ian Rutherford, executive director of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, told CBC News.
"It's very difficult to run a weather service in a country as big as Canada, with such a small population," he said.
Rutherford said Canada does a good job with the resources it has but that at some point, public safety could be compromised.
Rutherford noted that Canada has to run its service with a bigger area and a tenth of the population compared to the U.S.
"We can't afford what they do in the U.S," he said.
Rutherford said Environment Canada employs around 500 meteorologists, compared to the National Weather Service in the U.S, which has 10 times as many. He said his society has about 800 members, compared to the 12,000 members of its American counterpart.
As well, Canada has about 30 radiosondes (atmospheric measuring probes in weather balloons) compared to around 300 for Americans, Rutherford said.
"The density of observations over Canada is not what it should be. And that's simply because we can't afford to put in the same density and coverage of observations they have in the U.S. and Europe."
"This inevitably affects the quality of the information," Rutherford said.
But Rutherford said Canada "is just as good" when it comes to disseminating information about weather events. He pointed out that Canada has a dedicated Weather Network similar to the U.S. Weather Channel.
Rutherford also said the Canadian Hurricane Centre, for example, based in Dartmouth, N.S., is very good at forecasting and analyzing hurricane-related data.
"Money isn't everything," he said.
He said both countries have weather radio networks that broadcast warnings and forecasts to those with a weather radio, that radar and lightning networks are integrated and that all meteorological information is shared internationally.
Frédéric Fabry, associate professor at McGill University's Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences department, said data gathering is somewhat comparable to the U.S. and that forecasting is as good, although the Americans have a better infrastructure for disseminating information.
But Fabry said the U.S. has to spend more on resources because it is much more affected by weather.
"If you look at the U.S., they get the worst weather in the world. Snowstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes. We get them too, but not of the same scale as them," he told CBC News.
"So, of course they invested a lot more in tornadoes because it's a threat and it's very visible and you can show you're doing something about it. Here, the tornado threat is not as [high] so we don't invest that much."
Fabry also agreed there are no gaping holes in Canada's weather service system.
"You have to choose between, [whether] you spend more on tornado warnings or snowstorms or icestorm warning or aviation forecasting...certainly aviation forecasting is important here."
"So it's a matter of priorities and budget."
Accessibility Links
No comments:
Post a Comment