Research Areas

As climate change is a phenomenon that is researched within a number of different academic areas, the McMaster Centre for Climate Change is proud to promote a multidisciplinary research approach. Building upon the expertise of researchers from the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Social Science, and Health Science, the MCCC is comprised of seven different theme areas. For detailed information on the current research being done in each area, as well as the researchers involved, follow the links below.

Physical Climate and Modelling

Earth’s climate system is an extremely complex, interactive system which consists of the atmosphere, land surface, snow, ice, oceans, and any other bodies of water and all the living things that call it home. When observing physical climate, this is often defined in terms of weather events, e.g. temperature and precipitation in various regional, on different time scales such as days, years, decades, etc.  Read More...

Ecosystem Impacts and Adaptations

Climate change will impact terrestrial ecosystems in many different ways around the world.  Changes in temperature, precipitation and atmospheric greenhouse gases alter the conditions for vegetation growth and ecosystem structures.  For example plant growth rates may increase due to longer growing season lengths and higher atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.  Read More...

Water Resources and Hydroclimate

Water in its three states, covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface and is vital to all forms of life.  Through the hydrologic cycle, we can observe how water moves among land, ocean and air and how integral a part it plays in weather and climate.  Read More...

Paleoclimate and Isotopes

Before moving forward, one must look backwards.  We must look back at climate change over time, to identify how the changes which are taking place now, or those that will take place in the future, differ from what we have seen in the past.  In order to do this, researchers use fossilized geological records and various isotopic techniques to reveal past climate occurrences.  Read More...

Infrastructure Impacts

Climate change is most often associated with living beings and weather events, but as more research is conducted on the topic, it is quite clear that the implications of changing climate are much farther reaching than that.  Long-term climate change trends will have an impact on communities and their infrastructure sustainability world wide. Read More...

Human Health and Societal Impacts

Human activities cause large disturbances to their surroundings through land use change and urban development. These activities may have severe impacts on human health and society.  As outlined by the World Health Organization, there are five major health consequences directly linked with these changes, Read More...

Remediation, Resilience and Public Policy

In order for there to be remediation of climate change impacts, it will require the adoption of innovative multidisciplinary approaches due to the complex nature of these impacts. While climate mitigation may be a long-term goal, various adaptation strategies may effectively be utilized to reduce climate change impacts and improve the resiliency of ecosystems and human society. Read More...