What We Do...
Climate Prediction
It seems the world is nice enough to record past climate behaviors in lake and wetland sediment. If you know what details to look for, what language that record is written in, you can see all sorts of things about what happened in the past. For most of Dr. Lisa's time spent collecting degrees, she studied that language.
The sediment records natural variations in the physical character, chemistry and ecology of a system through time. Some information that can be translated from these records includes precipitation (including periodicity of extreme weather events); water temperature; hydrology; bedload vs. suspended load fluvial sediment input; dust input; water and sedimentary chemistry; total organic carbon; characterization and derivation of organic matter (e.g. aquatic, fen, other terrestrial sources), and ecologic shifts.
Most importantly changes in natural environmental characteristics happen in response to long term climate cycles. Natural climate cycles are driven by things as diverse as solar activity, ocean currents, pressure systems and orbital variations. With all the focus on better understanding climate, these cycles are being studied, and recognized. The thing about cycles is they reoccur...or they wouldn't be cycles. But understanding how these cycles interact, and using frequency domains and fourier transforms (who ever thought that wave interaction stuff would be useful in climate work!) you can see which cycles influence climate in a given area, at a given time.
Now here's the trick. By knowing what cycles were active in a locality, at a given time, you can predict the climactic trends moving forward. For example, will your location become generally wetter or drier. Using the same techniques, we can predict how a landscape will react to the continued melting of permafrost!
Have you noticed that one in a hundred year events seem to happen pretty regularly? We can explain why. We can do better.
Now the punch line.
If you want to design a new facility of whatever sort, and want to know snow loading, and drainage/retention pond requirements? - We can predict that!
If you run a city and are planning flood protection for the next hundred years? - We can predict that!
If you want to plan for fire protection for a location? - We can predict how wet or dry the next time period will be, and help with that!
If you want to plan for base flow in rivers, heavy coat purchases, river/waterway scour, summer cottage lake levels, ski hill snow making requirements, aquifer recharge/depletion, quality/potable water supplies, habitats and so much more! - We can predict that!
Adjustments to the underlying drivers can be made to adjust for anthropogenic climate shifts with consultations with meteorologists or oceanographers. By understanding the drivers behind the cycles, we know the questions to ask to make those adjustments. Tomorrows weather, we can't do, but long-term weather patterns and climate we can work with!