Science and Technology for Canadians

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Summary

On Earthday, people around the world take a moment and pitch in to help out the environment. But there are some people in Canada who don't need Earthday to do their part. They've been helping scientists learn more about the weather and how it's changing for over 30 years.

Transcript of Video

Jane Gilbert
Today is a special day for our planet, it's Earth Day. Happy Earth Day to you all! Around the world, people are taking a moment and pitching in and helping out a bit, but there are some people here in Canada who don't need Earth Day to do their part. For almost three decades, they've been helping scientists learn more about the weather and how it's changing. It's something they, and hundreds like them, do every morning... rain or shine.

Voice Over
Over the years, Ben Jantz has worn a path from his back door to his back yard, in Devon, Alberta, about a half hour southwest of Edmonton.

Ben Jantz
I really don't know why it's called a Stevenson screen, but a lot of people think that it's a beehive. Strangers come and see it and they say: "Oh, you're raising bees, eh."

Voice Over
But the buzz around Ben's place isn't about bees... it's about the weather. Ben loves the weather... For years he made his living as a meteorologist; he retired 10 years ago, left the office, but never really left the job. At precisely the same time every morning, just as he has done for the past 28 years, Ben checks the thermometers that give him the high and low temperatures...

... then he measures the precipitation... rain in summer... snow in winter... and religiously... he send all his readings to Environment Canada. His is one link in a very long chain.

Twenty minutes down the highway, you'll find the next link... the Westland farm. And though he's seen 82 winters come and go, Roy Westland still has a spring in his step, and an appointment to keep.

Roy Westlin
It all takes a little time... but, I suppose, we all have to do something for nothing you might say... so I think it's just part of life. I think that the older I get, maybe the more time I have and the more I enjoy it.

Voice Over
Like Ben Jantz, Roy Westland is a volunteer climate observer for Environment Canada. Roy's been doing it for more than 32 years; he inherited the job from his father.

Roy Westlin
When I first started, well my dad had been in it for quite a number of years... since nineteen hundred and... uh... fifteen (1915) I guess it was, so I just took over. You see my dad retired and... when we got married... and from there on, why, I have kept the records ever since... it's got to be a sort of a family thing, and it's just, it's just a chore that you do every day.

Voice Over
In fact, about twenty five hundred (2,500) volunteers do it across the country, most twice a day, every day, and they've been recording weather's vital statistics since before Confederation.

David Philips
These people are... are really the... they're the brothers and sisters of the... the early explorers of this country. The David Thompsons, the Henry Kelseys, the John Palliser who went out and explored and discovered this country, and... and took weather observations... and put them in their diaries, and so we know what observations were like back in the late 1700's and early 1800's, and these people do the same thing. It's a valuable heritage.

Voice Over
At the big city weather office, computers and satellites are the forecaster's tools, but the climate observers still do things... the old fashioned way.

Roy Westlin
My nephew still has the original equipment. He has still got the original rain gauge and the original thermometer. They're not really that much different... there was... you see, at that time, we measured by... by hundredths, you know... of an inch and so the gauging was different... that's all... but other than that, why they're... they're the same... because we have your maximum we have a minimum and we show our present temperature.

Voice Over
That consistency makes the work so valuable to Environment Canada.

David Philips
These observations... they're like antiques... or good wine... they get more valuable with age as these observations... the longer they get, the more useful they are, statistically and scientifically.

Voice Over
How are they used?

In construction, builders can check annual records to help them design structures that will withstand their region's snowfall.

The data gives farmers important information about the length of their growing season.

The archives are even used by lawyers to authenticate evidence in court cases.

David Philips
There are a lot of practical reasons that these observations are used to increase profits, increase efficiency and to make life safer and easier in this country.

Voice Over
... and Environment Canada's own researchers use them.

David Philips
We're looking at records of... of a century ago, and want to know how much Canada has warmed over this period... and the fact that these observations are found in same homogeneous exposure, now as they were a hundred years ago, this makes them exceedingly valuable and... so that we can see that in fact Canada has warmed up by one degree... and by... and these observations of these stations allow us to determine that.

Voice Over
Over the years, Roy Westlin has kept note of everything nature has thrown his way.

Roy Westlin
... and here is the trail of terror... it's a twister... tornado. We were fortunate... that missed us here. But actually, about... about two or three hours later, we had a big hail storm, and that hail storm was 14 miles long and 12 miles wide... we can go back to 1924... and that's the one that... that's... that's what I remember... I'll show you here under... let's see... get back... yeah, into July. Now there is the warmest... the hottest temperatures that we have ever recorded... and I particularly remember that... I was six years old...

Voice Over
And if Roy has plenty of souvenirs, so too does Environment Canada. Tucked away in the basement of its Toronto offices are two billion entries from climate observers, dating back 155 years.

David Philips
Here's some weather observing forms from over a hundred years ago at Beatrice, Ontario... a station north of Toronto... January 1886... you can see in this little hump ... some of these are not found in observing forms... like sleighing and aurora... uh... under sleighing, they had to indicate how good the sleighing was, and... I think the remarks are fascinating... uh... this observer in Beatrice talking about the robins on the lawn... or the bullfrogs in full chorus, so... there was a... very poetic words often put in seeing Aurora Borealis... this... this is part of the observations.

Voice Over
Today, technology is catching up with the observers. Ben Jantz used to send his weather reports once a month... by mail. Now he phones them in... daily. But he worries that one day automation will bring an end to his hobby.

Ben Jantz
I think that we will get more and more automation... and... I... I think that gradually... volunteer observers of this kind will be... will be phased out.

David Philips
I would like to think that their... their work will go on, and... and... and most certainly. I mean, it's a very inexpensive... and they're a lot cheaper that automatic weather stations... and... and so I think that it's the kind of work that I don't see ending at all.

Voice Over
And that's welcome news at the Westlin farm, because like his father before him, Roy has plans for someone to take over his weather station.

Roy Westlin
Well, I hope my son Murray will... I'm sure he will... he's young and someday this farm will be his... and... and he will... I think he'll take over the... and I hope he does... and if he can't, why... that should be able to be a centennial project.

Jane Gilbert
Tonight's Earth Tones was produced in co-operation with Environment Canada.