Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and ....Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and past Antarctic Bottom Water formation under different climate states (warmer and colder than present), to determine if there are climate tipping points for the shut down of Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The anticipated benefits include a better understanding of future climate change on this important water mass.Read moreRead less
What determines plant sensitivity to heat?: Individual to lifetime impacts. Temperature is a major determinant of the distribution of species and yet the capacity to predict the thermal sensitivity of plants is extremely limited. How vulnerability varies as a plant grows from seed to adult and produces more seed is a key question. Whether chronic warming exacerbates or ameliorates effects of extreme events, e.g. triggering the plant to enlist defensive strategies, is also an open question. This ....What determines plant sensitivity to heat?: Individual to lifetime impacts. Temperature is a major determinant of the distribution of species and yet the capacity to predict the thermal sensitivity of plants is extremely limited. How vulnerability varies as a plant grows from seed to adult and produces more seed is a key question. Whether chronic warming exacerbates or ameliorates effects of extreme events, e.g. triggering the plant to enlist defensive strategies, is also an open question. This project will advance fundamental understanding of how thermal tolerance varies across species and over the plant life cycle and how it scales demographically to lifetime vulnerability. The work will yield a significant advance in our capacity to predict impacts of extreme heat events on plant performance and distribution.
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How do humans affect the nature and impacts of Australian heatwaves? This project aims to provide more accurate information on the human signal behind heatwaves and their impacts, by deriving a comprehensive approach of the detection and attribution of climate extremes. The project expects to generate robust estimates of the human signal behind high-impact events, and an innovative, versatile methodology that can be applied to any extreme event and its impacts. With the specific application to A ....How do humans affect the nature and impacts of Australian heatwaves? This project aims to provide more accurate information on the human signal behind heatwaves and their impacts, by deriving a comprehensive approach of the detection and attribution of climate extremes. The project expects to generate robust estimates of the human signal behind high-impact events, and an innovative, versatile methodology that can be applied to any extreme event and its impacts. With the specific application to Australian heatwave impacts on human health, key knowledge should support more targeted and accurate mitigation policies, minimising the strain on resources when future heatwaves occur. This should help in safeguarding future generations from deadly impacts of heatwaves.Read moreRead less
An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorgan ....An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorganisms, constructing a viral ‘tree of life’. This improved fundamental understanding of soil communities will be used to study climate feedback from permafrost wetlands, a key and poorly constrained input of global climate models, improving predictions of our future climate.Read moreRead less
Southern Ocean aerosols: sources, sinks and impact on cloud properties. This project aims to provide fundamental process-level understanding of atmospheric aerosol processes over the Southern Ocean, a region that has a profound influence on the Australian and global climate and where climate models perform poorly. Comprehensive observations during 3 Southern Ocean voyages and land-based measurements will enhance our knowledge of aerosols and cloud formation in that region and provide much-needed ....Southern Ocean aerosols: sources, sinks and impact on cloud properties. This project aims to provide fundamental process-level understanding of atmospheric aerosol processes over the Southern Ocean, a region that has a profound influence on the Australian and global climate and where climate models perform poorly. Comprehensive observations during 3 Southern Ocean voyages and land-based measurements will enhance our knowledge of aerosols and cloud formation in that region and provide much-needed data for improving global climate models. Expected outcomes include more accurate seasonal and latitudinal representations of Southern Ocean aerosol populations, properties and sources. The main benefit includes improvements in weather forecasting and future climate projection for Australia and the Southern Hemisphere.Read moreRead less
Ocean heat content change and its impact on sea level. This project aims to improve projections of possible sea level changes. Sea level rise is among the most significant potential impacts of transient climate change around the world. Poor understanding of the way in which heat is absorbed at the sea surface and distributed by ocean circulation is a leading source of uncertainty in projections of global surface temperature and regional sea level rise by the end of this century. This project aim ....Ocean heat content change and its impact on sea level. This project aims to improve projections of possible sea level changes. Sea level rise is among the most significant potential impacts of transient climate change around the world. Poor understanding of the way in which heat is absorbed at the sea surface and distributed by ocean circulation is a leading source of uncertainty in projections of global surface temperature and regional sea level rise by the end of this century. This project aims to apply novel observational methods, complimented by numerical modelling, to quantify the drivers of recent change. This project expects to transform our ability to predict how ocean temperature and sea level will change in the future.Read moreRead less
Trends in polar sea ice and associated global atmospheric circulations. The project aims to analyse the trends in sea ice extent over the polar regions, and explain them in terms of changes in the local and remote atmospheric circulation. In recent decades, Arctic sea ice has decreased dramatically, while increasing in the Antarctic. The resolution of this paradox is a pressing issue in climate science, as is the broad question of how sea ice influences, and is influenced by, climate conditions ....Trends in polar sea ice and associated global atmospheric circulations. The project aims to analyse the trends in sea ice extent over the polar regions, and explain them in terms of changes in the local and remote atmospheric circulation. In recent decades, Arctic sea ice has decreased dramatically, while increasing in the Antarctic. The resolution of this paradox is a pressing issue in climate science, as is the broad question of how sea ice influences, and is influenced by, climate conditions in the mid-latitudes and tropics. Anticipated outcomes include a better understanding of the nature of links between Australian climate and Antarctic ice, and between United States climate extremes and Arctic ice.Read moreRead less
Linking wave–sea ice feedbacks to rapid ice retreat. Antarctic sea ice extent has been in sharp decline since 2016, which is stressing the fragile Southern Ocean and Antarctic environments so vital to the global climate. This project aims to investigate a crucial candidate mechanism of sea ice loss by predicting rapid ice retreat in response to large Southern Ocean waves. New theory and modelling capabilities that account for wave–ice feedbacks will underpin the predictions, leveraging on recent ....Linking wave–sea ice feedbacks to rapid ice retreat. Antarctic sea ice extent has been in sharp decline since 2016, which is stressing the fragile Southern Ocean and Antarctic environments so vital to the global climate. This project aims to investigate a crucial candidate mechanism of sea ice loss by predicting rapid ice retreat in response to large Southern Ocean waves. New theory and modelling capabilities that account for wave–ice feedbacks will underpin the predictions, leveraging on recent research breakthroughs, including novel datasets derived from satellite and field observations. The outcomes are expected to quantify sea ice retreat due to ocean waves for the first time, with potentially major implications for coupled wave–sea ice modelling in climate studies.Read moreRead less
Large Scale Natural Convection Boundary Layers with Non-Boussinesq Effects. This proposal aims to understand and predict heat transfer by turbulent natural convection in two scenarios, firstly at very large environmental scales, such as occur on melting Antarctic ice sheets, and secondly convection involving very large temperature differences such as occur in solar thermal power plants and industrial processes. These natural convection flow regimes are incredibly difficult to investigate directl ....Large Scale Natural Convection Boundary Layers with Non-Boussinesq Effects. This proposal aims to understand and predict heat transfer by turbulent natural convection in two scenarios, firstly at very large environmental scales, such as occur on melting Antarctic ice sheets, and secondly convection involving very large temperature differences such as occur in solar thermal power plants and industrial processes. These natural convection flow regimes are incredibly difficult to investigate directly but by focusing on the fundamental dynamics of the turbulent flows using large scale numerical simulations and innovative experiments, the project is expected to develop better analytical and computational models which will underpin improvements in
global ocean models and improve energy efficiency.Read moreRead less
Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interac ....Resilience of eucalypts to future droughts. This project aims to examine how resilient Eucalyptus species are to future droughts by combining data synthesis, manipulative experiments and modelling. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, magnitude and duration of future droughts, with major environmental and socio-economic consequences for Australia. Current predictive capacity is extremely limited: experiments are limited in scale and cannot capture important global change interactions, whilst models do not represent the functional characteristics and adaptions of eucalypts. This project will develop a strong evidence- and process-based understanding to quantify the functional behaviour of drought-adapted Eucalyptus species and leverage this insight to make future model projections.Read moreRead less