Global Warming Modelling & Research
Climate Modelling is one of the key areas to keep us on track to meet the 2050 net zero emission targets. Climate Positive Energy has supported various projects focused on climate modelling, scope 3 emissions and life cycle analysis of various projects and processes.
- Application of the University of Toronto Climate Downscaling Workflow to the Just Energy Transition Developing tools to accelerate research and applications using downscaling, which maps available climate information with engineering requirements, while accounting for sampling, biases, and uncertainty. Read More
- Dynamic capacity of carbon fixation by urban vegetation under global warming scenarios “I am segmenting vegetation patches from urban backgrounds in GTA, estimating their current carbon fixing capacities, and exploring their potential under futural environmental settings using deep learning and ecological modeling.” Read More
- Estimation of the city’s vegetation to the carbon footprint “I am a 3rd year direct-entry PhD student in the Department of Physics and I am a member of the Wunch research group. My research focuses on investigating fluxes of carbon dioxide to and from vegetation within the Greater Toronto Area using measurements of solar induced fluorescence (light emitted by plants during photosynthesis) and vegetation models. I will also use… Read More
- GHG, cost and material use implications of decarbonizing heavy-duty trucks with zero-emission technologies Lih Wei’s research examines the economic and material use implications of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks to inform policymaking in the tough-to-decarbonize sector. By integrating life cycle and techno-economic assessment tools and material flow analyses, the research findings will have broad applications across regions seeking to mitigate emissions from the economically-vital sector in line with climate targets. Read More
- Impacts of physical attributes of paved surfaces for the urban energy demand: A case study for the City of Toronto “Pavements in cities impact Urban Heat Islands (UHI) by altering heat absorption and release, affecting local microclimates. Variations in pavement attributes, such as color, material, and roughness, greatly influence urban microclimate intensity. This amplifies energy demand for nearby buildings, particularly during summer when air conditioning usage rises. My research investigates the link between pavement attributes and building energy demand in… Read More
- Mobile Methane Measurements Across Toronto Methane is a greenhouse gas that has 28 times the global warming potential of CO2 over the first 100 years of entering the atmosphere. Reducing methane emissions will therefore have an immediate impact on climate change. To this end, correctly quantifying methane emissions is a crucial step towards slowing the earth's heating rate. For my summer project, I am identifying,… Read More
- Modelling electric and hydrogen fuel cell pathways for Canadian light-duty vehicles to meet climate targets Ground transportation is one of the main sectors responsible for global energy-related anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In Canada, the transport sector accounted for about 25% of total GHG emissions in 2019 and Canadian light-duty vehicles (LDVs) are larger and less fuel efficient compared to most other countries[1], posing challenges to Canada’s climate mitigation plans, and requiring ambitious policies to… Read More
- Monitoring Methane Enhancement Ratios over Cities Jon-Paul is a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics under the supervision of Prof. Debra Wunch. His research focuses on estimating anthropogenic methane emissions using satellite measurements. He is developing a new data-driven technique for inferring emissions from cities by leveraging coincident measurements of other greenhouse gases. He is also investigating regional methane fluxes in Southern Ontario with chemical… Read More
- Scope 3 Emissions: A Conceptual Accounting Framework for Post-Secondary Institutions and Measurement of Selected Categories of Emissions Scope 3 emissions—emissions from activities not directly owned or operated by the University—may contribute as much as 90% of the total emissions from post-secondary institutions. They include business travel, capital project, community, purchased goods, produced goods, and digital footprint. They are also the most difficult emissions to account for, measure, and reduce. This project will develop an accounting framework for… Read More
- The Holiday Effect: A Natural Experiment to Understand Anthropogenic Emission Sources and Reduction “This is my second summer as an undergraduate researcher with SOCAAR – the Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research. As a continuation of my project from last year, I am investigating a phenomenon known as the ‘Holiday Effect’, which measures anthropogenic emission changes during various holiday seasons. Specifically, I am interested in conducting an analysis of nitrogen oxides (NOx)… Read More
- Understanding the Social Benefits of Urban Trees “My summer research project, supervised by Professor Tenley Conway, will examine people’s perceptions of the urban trees they encounter in parks to understand the social benefits of trees in our cities. I will be conducting 100 intercept surveys of adults to gather the aforementioned data and analyzing the responses. The surveying sites will be in the York Regional Forests in… Read More
- Validating Satellite Measurements of Urban Emissions “Currently working with Professor Debra Wunch and her team on quantifying greenhouse gas emissions in the GTA. We are looking into data from various ground-based and satellite sensors to determine the distribution of emissions over Toronto, ensure that the city is on track to meet its environmental goals, and to investigate the existence of relationships between site demographics and emission… Read More