Have a backyard rink? Scientists want to know

Scientists want you to tell them all about your backyard rink, if you have one, in a crosscountry effort to enrol ordinary people in a climate study.

This is the second year of RinkWatch, run by Robert McLeman’s team at Ontario’s Wilfrid Laurier University. He teaches geography and environmental studies, and last year he hoped to sign up 50 to 100 volunteers to keep track of ice conditions.

He got more than 1,000 — in Canada, the United States, even one in Norway.

Despite a short season last winter, McLeman, Colin Robertson and Haydn Lawrence got good results.

“We found that data from skating rinks corresponds well with data from nearby weather stations,” McLeman said in a written summary of his project.

“This is important, because it shows that rinks are useful indicators of fluctuations in winter temperatures, and there are a lot more skating rinks than there are weather stations.”

Eastern Ontario leads the way this year: The first rink to report data for 2013-14 was in Kemptville.

Anyone who skates on an outdoor rink can join by visiting RinkWatch. org, pinning the location of the rink on an online map and returning to the website regularly to record skating conditions.

The results are pooled with reports from other RinkWatchers to track winter weather conditions, which users can explore via the online map. RinkWatchers can also share photos of their rinks, exchange rink-making tips and chat in user forums.

RinkWatch does not collect any personal information from users.

This year they have corporate backers: Canadian Tire and Esri Canada, a company that does web mapping and geographic information systems.

“Outdoor skating is part of the cultural fabric of northern peoples. It’s our history; it’s who we are,” McLeman writes. “When we asked for the public’s help in tracking how climate trends are affecting skating rinks, it was clear from the response how passionately people felt about it.”

Researchers often turn to “citizen science” volunteers. These often include birders, hunters and even British car owners who counted dead bugs on “splatometers” on the front of their cars.