Keeping Canadians safe and tracking severe weather: Government of Canada completes 33 state-of-the-art radar modernization projects across Canada

Mar 15, 2024

Weather services, such as weather and environmental prediction, are more important than ever in preparing for, and responding to, increasingly severe weather as a result of climate change. A robust and modern weather service is critical to protecting the health, safety, and property of Canadians. That is why, since 2016, Canada has invested $180.4 million to install 32 state-of-the-art weather radars, and one training radar, across Canada.

Today, Environment and Climate Change Canada hosted a media tour of the new weather radar in King City, Ontario, to mark the completion of this eight-year project. This state-of-the-art and sustainable network is improving the department's ability to track severe weather events, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, at an extended range, and to issue earlier severe weather warnings. Weather radars are the primary tool used by our meteorologists to issue more precise and timely severe weather warnings. The coverage area of the new radars increased from just over one million square kilometres to over four million square kilometres, ensuring that 99 percent of Canadians live within 330 kilometres of a Canadian radar.

The installation of these radars represents a significant advancement in weather forecasting technology. For example, the station in King, Ontario will give forecasters a greater ability to predict severe weather in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada's most populated urban centre. These radars provide an increase in frequency of data, with updates available every six minutes, instead of the previous 10-minute cycle. Weather information from these new radars will be used in almost every sector of the economy, including construction, health sciences, environmental management, agriculture, and transportation.

The completion of the radar modernization project aligns with Canada's National Adaptation Strategy—a shared vision aimed at transforming the way governments and Canadians work together to reduce risks by taking action before disaster strikes. Early action to prepare for, and adapt to, the changing climate can build communities and economies that are able to thrive for generations to come.

Quotes
"With the changing climate, it is essential to provide our meteorologists with the technology needed to issue the fastest and most accurate weather forecasts. This reliable, modern network of weather radars will give Canadians more lead time to take appropriate actions to protect themselves, their family, and their property from the effects of severe weather."
– The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

"A modern and reliable weather-forecasting system is essential to support our country's growing population. Projects such as this one not only strengthen our weather-prediction infrastructure and allow Canadians to be better prepared for weather events, but also create good jobs across the country. The Government of Canada saw this project through by working in an open, fair, and transparent manner that speaks to the benefits of our procurement process, and that also represents the best value for all Canadians."
– The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement

"In the face of increasingly frequent severe weather and climate extremes, Canadians are experiencing the impacts of climate change firsthand. Timely and accurate weather services are more important than ever in our preparedness and adaptation efforts. Investing in radars that are resilient and contemporary is not just a necessity, it's a cornerstone in keeping Canadians safe."
– Adam van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

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Video: Can Gene Editing Give Seeds a Stronger Start?

Reagan Reed has a way of describing his research that might make a plant breeder pause.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to break things to understand them,” he says.

What he breaks are genes involved in seed germination. Reed, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, is investigating whether changing those genes can help seeds establish healthy plants under a wider range of conditions.

Reed recently attended the National Association for Plant Breeding meeting in College Station, Texas, as an NAPB Borlaug Scholar. His work speaks to a question that matters well beyond a research lab: what does it take for a seed to get a crop off to a strong start?

A seed that germinates quickly, alongside the others planted with it, spends less time vulnerable to stresses before seedlings become established.

“If you’re able to bridge that gap between germination to stand establishment, then that’s going to give you the highest probability of having a solid yield that year,” Reed says. “There’s a bunch that can go wrong after that, but it maximises your yield from the start, at least.”

Reed works in Dr. Imtiyaz Khanday’s lab at UC Davis, where his research focuses on seed quality in tomatoes and potatoes. He brings an unusual academic background to the work: at Skidmore College, he studied both biology and Latin.

Reed believes that combination prepared him for research. Translating an ancient text means studying each word, weighing its possible meanings and using context to reach the best interpretation. There is rarely a way to know with complete certainty what an author intended. Science, he says, requires a similar willingness to work through uncertainty.

“Attention to detail and comfortability working with uncertainty,” is how he sums up what Latin taught him.

In the lab, uncertainty can produce a surprise. Reed describes changing one gene and seeing little effect. Changing a second gene also appears to do little. Put both changes in the same genetic background, though, and the result can be substantial.

“I break this gene, nothing really happens. I break this other gene, nothing really happens. I combine them into the same genetic background, and now there’s a massive effect,” he says.

Those interactions matter as researchers gain the ability to edit multiple genes at once. They also complicate any simple account of how a trait works: improving a seed may depend on understanding what several genes do together.

For Reed, the question is whether that knowledge could help seeds germinate reliably when conditions are difficult. Some of the genes he studies prevent germination under certain conditions. That response may serve a plant well in one setting while limiting its usefulness in agriculture. He wants to learn what happens when those genes are changed, and whether the result improves establishment.

Yet a discovery that works in a lab still has a long way to travel before it reaches a field. Reed argues that agricultural biotechnology faces an economic challenge as well as a scientific one. New tools can create value for farmers, he says, but developing them requires a way to support the work in an industry where margins can be thin.

His fellowship with Flagship Pioneering gave him a view across AI, agriculture-related work and human health research. It also reinforced the importance of bringing people with different expertise into the same conversation—a benefit of gatherings such as the NAPB meeting.

“You need to have a team of people with different backgrounds who are willing to work together and approach the same problem in different perspectives and different ways,” he says.

That thinking connects the different parts of Reed’s path. Latin taught him to examine details without expecting a perfect answer. Gene editing lets him test what individual genes do—and what happens when their effects combine. Working with people beyond his own field helps him ask what those findings could become.

He came to agriculture because of its reach: the possibility that work by a small group of researchers could eventually make a difference on a much larger scale. His immediate focus is smaller and more precise. He wants to understand what helps a seed get through its first days and become a healthy plant.