From increasing disasters, wildfires, record-breaking rainfall, warming lakes, invasive species and a struggling circular economy, 91亚色 researchers are taking the measure of our planet

TORONTO, April 20, 2026 鈥� As the climate changes and the risk of wildfires, earth quakes, floods and landslides increase, this Earth Day 2026 (April 22) is about taking back power 鈥� . 91亚色 experts research how environmental and climate stressors are affecting our planet鈥檚 ecosystems and how that affects humans and wildlife.

The following experts are available:

, a 91亚色 Research Chair in Global Change Biology, is a professor in the Faculty of Science. Her research focuses on the impacts of human-caused environmental stressors, including the effects of climate change and invasive species on freshwater lakes.

She can comment on:

• How human-induced environmental stressors increase lake temperatures, disrupt delicate ecosystems, and can affect fish species, lake health, cyanobacteria growth and drinking water
• Effects of freshwater browning, from an increase of organic matter and carbon being washed into lakes, on fish growth, populations and species
• Impact of climate change on Arctic ice conditions
• Invasive species, water quality and freshwater fisheries

, associate professor of atmospheric science at the Lassonde School of Engineering, studies climate, atmospheric, ocean and sea ice dynamics. He uses a combination of models, observations, and mathematical analysis to investigate how motions in Earth鈥檚 atmosphere and ocean influence climate.  He can speak to:

• Processes driving long-term temperature and precipitation changes, including increasingly record-breaking rainfall
• Factors leading to changes in Arctic sea ice
• Variability of the ocean circulation and its relationship to other aspects of climate change

,  director of 91亚色鈥檚 Emergency Mitigation, Engagement, Governance, Response Institute (Y-EMERGE), is an associate professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and an expert in disaster and emergency management areas, specifically wildfire and forest fire management. He has done extensive work on wildfire mitigation, fire decision-making, use of prediction in fire management, and fire management in Canada and globally. He can discuss:

• How climate changes - and other changes - increase the threat, intensity, and impact of wildfires
• How wildfires are managed in Canada and globally
• Wildfire decision-making, like how agencies make response decisions and how community members decide
• How to mitigate wildfire risk for individuals and communities

and , both professor and atmospheric chemists in the Faculty of Science who have been part of several large campaigns to better understand the air we breath in Toronto and across North America in summer and winter. Their most recent research found that the tinniest forever chemical declined in Toronto after everyone went home during the pandemic which means scientists should be able to figure out how to minimize these particular emissions and control the formation of it in the future. They can discuss:

• What is in the air Torontonians breath and what is contributing to it
• How so many per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances聽(PFAS) remain undetected in the atmosphere and how they figured out how to test for them
• How these forever chemicals developed in the first place
• The risk to the environment, humans and wildlife of PFAS and how far they travel

Calvin Lakhan is co-investigator of the Circular Innovation Hub, a research project devoted to advancing the understanding of waste management research and policy in Canada, in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and Urban Change. He can discuss:

• The grey area of going green and the dangers of green washing and misleading environmental claims
• The circular economy and the adoption or resistance to it, such as reusable and zero-waste systems and consumer reaction to shared reusable food and beverage containers
• How recycling policy and environmental outcomes may be doing more harm than good and is no longer sustainable
• The socio-economic inequality that prevents poor and marginalized groups from participating in sustainable waste management practices

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A team of researchers will examine Toronto's air for six-weeks this summer from a rooftop lab for THE CIX project, part of NOAA鈥檚 atmospheric emissions and reactions international field campaign 

TORONTO, Aug. 3, 2023 鈥� As Toronto gets hotter, muggier and wildfire smoke increasingly wafts through the atmosphere, researchers at 91亚色 are leading a team of atmospheric scientists in testing the city鈥檚 air pollution from their rooftop Air Quality Research Station for six weeks this summer. 

Preliminary results show the negative impacts on Toronto鈥檚 air quality caused by wildfire smoke. Although Toronto鈥檚 air pollution has generally been improving over the past few decades, smoke in the city is reversing these improvements. 

The research project, Toronto Halogens, Emissions, Contaminants, and Inorganics eXperiment (), with science lead Associate Professor and logistics lead Assistant Professor , both of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science, is designed to analyze areas of uncertainty in the air we breathe to better understand what is contributing to the city's air pollution.  

One of the things the team hopes to understand, is how a soupy mix of trace chemicals will sometimes combine to create little understood, new and changing threats that can contribute to worse air quality, including emissions from products we use every day, such as paint and pesticides and even perfume, greenhouse gases, as well as perfluorocarboxylic acids (known as 鈥渇orever chemicals鈥�), and particulate matter - tiny particles of smoke, dust, pollen, emissions and fumes. 

鈥淭here is still so much we don鈥檛 know about what鈥檚 impacting the air we breathe, and until we do, it鈥檚 difficult to effectively target contaminants that are affecting our air quality now and into the future,鈥� says Young. 

This project is important as it allows us to take a robust look at all the pollutants circulating in the air. The Montreal Protocol was successful in helping to fix the ozone layer above us because we knew what to target, but ground-level ozone and other contaminants can still be an issue, particularly spiking on hot summer days, creating poor air quality which can impact people鈥檚 health."  

Ground-level ozone forms when nitrogen dioxide mixes with volatile organic compounds鈥�(VOCs) and sunlight. Although emissions of VOCs from fossil fuels have been declining, consumer and industrial volatile chemical products are an increasing, but understudied, source of VOCs. 

THE CIX project is part of an international field campaign 鈥� Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas () 鈥� across North America organized by the NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with projects in New 91亚色 City, Chicago, Los Angeles, as well as Toronto. NOAA and NASA launched their massive air quality research summer campaign today with scientists from NOAA, NASA and 21 universities from three countries. State-of-the-art instruments are being deployed in multiple, coordinated research campaigns this month, including at 91亚色, to investigate how air pollution sources have shifted over recent decades.  

At 91亚色, researchers from 91亚色 U, the University of Toronto, University of 91亚色 (UK), the University of British Columbia, and Environment and Climate Change Canada are already taking readings from a room packed with unique, sophisticated and highly sensitive equipment 鈥� some of which was shipped from the UK and BC 鈥� on the roof of the Petrie Science Building on 91亚色鈥檚 Keele Campus. 

The goal of the campaign is to assess air quality across urban centres to understand what is impacting air pollution and how it鈥檚 changing. THE CIX team hopes to better understand several areas that contribute to air pollution in the GTA. 

In addition to the rooftop measurements, the , a flying science laboratory packed with instruments, will cruise over campus this August to take air quality readings from higher in the atmosphere to compare with the rooftop readings. 

Data collected by THE CIX will also be compared with key air pollution observations from the recently launched NASA TEMPO instrument, the first geostationary satellite dedicated to air quality over North America. 

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