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www.seadiscovery.com nology is ideally suited to the North,

Adlakha said, because it acquires images of the Earth day and night (there are long periods of darkness in the North), and in all weather condi- tions including cloud cover and fog.

Because it monitors from space, he added, this technology doesn’t require a land-based power source, and its operations aren’t affected by the extreme temperatures of the North.

Much of LOOKNorth’s focus will leverage the investments made by the

Government of Canada in

RADARSAT 1 and 2, and also use additional radar satellites such as

ENVISAT, TerraSAR-X, and

COSMO-SkyMed.

At the LOOKNorth funding announcement in late January in St.

John’s, C-CORE President Charles

Randell noted that the organization’s experience leading the Polar View project for the European Space

Agency “was an important considera- tion in C-CORE being named the

Centre of Excellence for this initia- tive.” Launched in 2003, Polar View is an 80-partner international project that offers integrated monitoring and forecasting services in the Polar

Regions, as well as mid-latitude areas affected by ice and snow. The infor- mation is provided via satellite to a range of public user groups such as

Inuit hunters and the coast guard. C-

CORE is the program manager for

Polar View. Initial LOOKNorth technology validation projects will be identified this summer and the first call for proposals is targeted before

Christmas. Adlakha noted that the technologies that are proven in

Canada’s North will be transferrable to other polar regions.