By Brent Bosker

New climate station finds home at CLC

Jul 17, 2011 | 3:55 PM

A new climate station is now monitoring the sky and soil near Prince Albert.

The state-of-the-art station, located at the Conservation Learning Centre (CLC), has been running since the end of June. Its capabilities make it one of only three in Saskatchewan.

“It’s a very high-end station”, said Virgina Wittrock, climatologist scientist with the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) which is in charge of operations.

“Most climate stations only collect temperature, precipitation and wind speed and direction.”

This station does that and more, Wittrock said.

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“(It) also records soil temperature at six levels, soil moisture and three types of solar radiation.”

“What makes this station unique are its rain instruments,” she said. “One is a tipping bucket rain gauge which tips every 0.2 millimeters. It gives us an indication during the summer months how intense the rain is which has an influence over flooding issues.”

The station also measures snow depth.

“Usually the old style was rulers in the snow. This is actually a snow depth sensor that is measured electronically,” she said.

Wittrock wants to see the network of stations expanded to cover more of the province.

“Industry needs this so bad, be it agriculture, be it forestry, be it construction.”

The information will be invaluable to everyone in an era of climate instability, Wittrock said.

“(The) last 10 years is a good example,” she said. “We went from the most extreme drought in history in 2001 to the highest water year last year. And with climate variability, that’s going to happen more often.”

“We need to be able to plan for that and the only way to plan is to measure it so we know.”

The station is still in a test phase and the data is not yet available to the public. Wittrock said more financial support is needed to make that happen to keep the station operating.

Right now the data is good, she said, however the station has to be around for 30 years before its statistical data is validated.

The SRC, Prince Albert Model Forest and the CLC partnered on the project which cost more than $100,000.

bbosker@panow.com