McGill's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences is addressing our society’s most crucial climate change issues through a unique combination of observations, modeling, and theory of our atmosphere and oceans.
McGill University home to the Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre (GEC3), a cross-disciplinary, multi-university research centre bringing together more than 40 researchers from five other universities to study processes, modelling and impact of environmental and climate change. The GEC3 was previously known as Centre for Climate and Global Change Research (C2GCR) (1990) and as Climate Research Group (1986), established jointly with NSERC and Environment Canada's Atmospheric Environmental Service (now Meteorological Service of Canada).
McGill is also a member of Québec-Océan (2001-), a Québec inter-institutional research group in oceanography featuring members from three other Québec universities.
Some of its marine biology courses are taught at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, NB (formerly Huntsman Marine Laboratory, est. 1969).
The university also operates the McGill Arctic Research Station (MARS) in the Canadian High Arctic, since 1960. Its research activities include glaciology, climate change, permafrost hydrology, geology, geomorphology, limnology, planetary analogues, and microbiology.
History
The history of meteorology and oceanography at McGill dates from the middle of the nineteenth century when the McGill Weather Observatory was established.
In 1947, the Fisheries Research Board initiated an Eastern Arctic Investigations group at McGill. The group was reorganized as the Arctic Unit in 1955 and stayed at McGill until 1964, after which it moved to the then new Arctic Biological Station.
In 1959 a radar meteorology group and an Arctic meteorology program in the Physics and Geography departments (respectively) united fo form the Department of Meteorology.
A Marine Sciences Centre was established in 1963 within the university. It was renamed the Institute of Oceanography in 1978. It offered M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree programs in the areas of physical, geological and biological oceanography.
In 1987 the Institute closed and a Graduate Program in Oceanography was established with faculty members from the Departments of Meteorology, Earth and Planetary Science and Biology. In 1992 the Department of Meteorology became the Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences.
From 1970 to 2000, the University was part of the GIROQ, an association of researchers from three Québec universities.
