Southern Ocean Sea Ice – what happened and what happens next? This project will adress our lack of confidence in future projections of sea ice around Antarctica by elucidating the mechanisms controlling sea ice in the Southern Ocean.
There is low confidence is current sea ice projections, limiting our ability to predict ice shelf melt and sea level rise.
This project will lead to a detailed understanding of the future of sea ice in the Southern Ocean, improving our understanding of ocean dynam ....Southern Ocean Sea Ice – what happened and what happens next? This project will adress our lack of confidence in future projections of sea ice around Antarctica by elucidating the mechanisms controlling sea ice in the Southern Ocean.
There is low confidence is current sea ice projections, limiting our ability to predict ice shelf melt and sea level rise.
This project will lead to a detailed understanding of the future of sea ice in the Southern Ocean, improving our understanding of ocean dynamics, ice shelf melt, and sea level rise.
The results from this project will enhance projections of sea ice, and therefore also ice shelf melt and sea level rise. Improved sea level projections will aid policy decisions for coastal communities.Read moreRead less
Understanding climate and harvest induced changes in fish life histories. This project aims to quantify the cumulative impacts of harvest and climate change across marine fishes and ecosystems. The project expects to generate new knowledge in this area by coupling the rich biological information archived in fish ear bones, with targeted multi-generation experiments and predictive modelling. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into how human-induced environmental change affects fish gr ....Understanding climate and harvest induced changes in fish life histories. This project aims to quantify the cumulative impacts of harvest and climate change across marine fishes and ecosystems. The project expects to generate new knowledge in this area by coupling the rich biological information archived in fish ear bones, with targeted multi-generation experiments and predictive modelling. Expected outcomes include fundamental insights into how human-induced environmental change affects fish growth and maturation, and a subsequent critical evaluation of the sensitivity of fisheries models to trends in these life-history traits. This should provide significant benefits to fisheries and ecosystem management, ensuring they remain productive and resilient in a time of rapid environmental change.Read moreRead less
Critical windows: understanding changes in eating and physical activity over the transition from secondary school to young adulthood. This project will explain changes in eating, physical activity and sedentary behaviour during the critical period of transition from secondary school to young adulthood. It will provide important information on how we can assist adolescents to maintain a healthy lifestyle over a time characterised by several major life changes.
Demographic consequences of Asian disasters: family dynamics, social capital and migration patterns. This study of the long term demographic consequences of Asian disasters will contribute to development of more effective governmental policies on disaster mitigation, preparedness and reconstruction/recovery, thus assisting to reduce the human and material losses from natural disasters.
Seaweed forests of the future: responses to ocean acidification and warming. The aim is to discover if rising levels of oceanic carbon dioxide will offset negative effects of ocean warming on seaweeds, using targeted physiological experiments together with novel molecular diagnostics. Seaweeds create habitats and food for shellfish and fish, and play a crucial role in long term ‘blue carbon’ storage. They are predicted to benefit from future carbon dioxide enrichment, but to test this forecast r ....Seaweed forests of the future: responses to ocean acidification and warming. The aim is to discover if rising levels of oceanic carbon dioxide will offset negative effects of ocean warming on seaweeds, using targeted physiological experiments together with novel molecular diagnostics. Seaweeds create habitats and food for shellfish and fish, and play a crucial role in long term ‘blue carbon’ storage. They are predicted to benefit from future carbon dioxide enrichment, but to test this forecast requires a detailed understanding of the mechanisms used by seaweeds to acquire dissolved inorganic carbon. The expected outcome is robust predictions of how the primary productivity of coastal waters will respond to future high carbon dioxide conditions, enabling human adaptation to environmental change.
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Convicts and Diggers: a demography of life courses, families and generations. Based on convict records, birth, death and marriage registrations, World War One service records, and other historical data, this project explores long-term demographic outcomes of individuals, families and lineages. The project draws on the expertise of family historians to trace individuals and their descendants for 'Australia's biggest family history'.
Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisati ....Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisations. The research will utilise an innovative mixed-methods approach to investigate and to analyse the strategies and experiments of adaptation practices. It aims to develop new ways of identifying and implementing practical, local, adaptive responses that are contextually relevant, socially innovative and capacity building.Read moreRead less
Defining winning strategies in a changing Southern Ocean . The ecosystem of the Southern Ocean is extremely complex, and understanding its response to rapid climate change is challenging. The aim of the project is to use changes in the behaviour of marine predators to provide new measures of integrated changes in eastern Antarctic ecosystems throughout the winter. With novel combinations of electronic tagging, natural biogeochemical markers, and simulation modelling, the project expects to recon ....Defining winning strategies in a changing Southern Ocean . The ecosystem of the Southern Ocean is extremely complex, and understanding its response to rapid climate change is challenging. The aim of the project is to use changes in the behaviour of marine predators to provide new measures of integrated changes in eastern Antarctic ecosystems throughout the winter. With novel combinations of electronic tagging, natural biogeochemical markers, and simulation modelling, the project expects to reconstruct changes in animal behaviour in response to changes in the environment. The data is anticipated to explain ongoing large-scale shifts in Southern Ocean ecosystems, providing information needed to underpin future management and adaptation strategies.Read moreRead less
Sport as a Communications Platform for Environmental Issues. This pioneering project aims to investigate the range of environmental and sustainability messages communicated by sport media, and how these messages negotiate the dilemma of promoting environmental awareness through events and activities that also generate adverse ecological impacts. By engaging sport media professionals, environmental claims-makers, policy-makers and journalists, this project seeks to deliver valuable knowledge that ....Sport as a Communications Platform for Environmental Issues. This pioneering project aims to investigate the range of environmental and sustainability messages communicated by sport media, and how these messages negotiate the dilemma of promoting environmental awareness through events and activities that also generate adverse ecological impacts. By engaging sport media professionals, environmental claims-makers, policy-makers and journalists, this project seeks to deliver valuable knowledge that informs industry decision-making, policy formulation and environmental awareness. The intended societal benefit is a new understanding of how environmental issues are communicated through popular media to large-scale publics, including how tensions in the communication of environmental change are negotiated.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