York gets federal funding to advance revolutionary studies of gravity field

TORONTO, October 18, 2002 -- The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) today announced New Opportunities funding for research at York University in a field that is expected to revolutionize the study of earth, oceans and atmosphere.

Geodesy, the science concerned with the mathematical study of the size and shape of the earth and its gravity field, is crucial to understanding changing geophysical activity, climate change and weather patterns on the planet, including ocean circulation, glacial isostatic adjustment, tectonic plate shifts and volcanoes. The field has been advancing at an unprecedented rate since the launch of Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites, CHAMP in July 2000 and GRACE in March 2002, which are now transmitting massive amounts of data. Canada has been noticeably absent from these new space-based gravity field studies, even though it is the world leader in land-based gravity measurements and local studies of the earth's gravity field.

"This new initiative at York will promote wide-ranging scientific collaboration and ensure that Canadians benefit from the revolutionary developments in this field," said Prof. Spiros Pagiatakis, who will establish the Space Geodesy Laboratory at York for the Study of the Solid Earth, Oceans and Atmosphere, the first of its kind in Canada.

In announcing CFI funding for the project, Canada's Minister of Industry Allan Rock said: "Attracting and retaining high-caliber researchers to our universities is absolutely vital to enhancing Canada's ability to compete in a knowledge-based global economy." York West MP Judy Sgro said the announcement was good news for the community. "This research will attract top quality students and bolster the development of new knowledge economy clusters in our region," she said.

Among the expected benefits of the gravity field research are greater accuracy achieved by satellite positioning systems such as Global Positioning System (GPS), used in search and rescue and in the management of vital economic sectors like agriculture, forestry, transportation and resource exploration. Collaboration with atmospheric scientists at York and elsewhere in Canada and abroad will advance knowledge of climate change and weather prediction methods using LEO mission data. Knowledge gained from the measurement and studies of the Earth's gravity field can be directly applied to the study of our solar system and the planet Mars. Over the next few years, Mars will experience a scientific invasion when several international spacecraft visit the planet, sparking new research on its gravitational field for the purposes of detecting aquifers and other subsurface formations that may suggest the possibility of life there.

-30-