Faron Anslow

Area of Expertise:

As a Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium Climatologist and the lead of the Climate Analysis and Monitoring theme Faron Anslow’s work focuses on the assimilation of historical climate records from six provincial ministries and two private stakeholders (BCHydro and Rio Tinto/Alcan) into a homogeneous climate dataset called the Provincial Climate Dataset (PCDS). These data have been used to develop high-resolution maps of BC’s climate in a collaborative effort with the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University. Faron also monitors and reports on monthly and seasonal weather averagesand places those in the context of the known climate history of British Columbia. This reporting takes the form of annual updates on BC’s weather conditions, contributions to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ annual State of the Pacific Ocean Report and occasional PCIC newsletter pieces when unusual weather strikes.

Faron also contributes to more in-depth analysis of BC’s climate and improvements to the climate data. Recent projects have included assessing temporal trends in temperature, precipitation, streamflow, snow and sea surface temperature; working with graduate student Yaqiong Wang to assess non-climatic changes in long station records; developing quality control procedures that leverage the PCDS’s dense network to reveal errors in daily temperature and precipitation observations; and assessing the sufficiency of the observational networks for monitoring weather conditions for BC’s agricultural regions and for BC’s climate monitoring efforts as a whole.

Faron is also interested in the impacts of climate on the glaciers of British Columbia and how those changes may impact the province’s hydrological future. He has assisted PCIC’s Hydrologic Impacts theme in incorporating glacier models in their hydrological modelling efforts. Additional interests include the effects of the Pacific Ocean on the climate of British Columbia and how those effects are transmitted through such phenomena as El Niño / Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the atmospheric teleconnections they induce.