Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from ....Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from the coast and also suffers from regionally correlated biases. This project proposes to address these problems through re-tracking radar altimetry waveforms to derive new data in the coastal margin, enabling the production of new inferences on sea-level change and extremes at dramatically improved spatial resolution around Australia.Read moreRead less
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century. ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century. This Centre aims to determine how Australia’s weather is being reshaped by climate change. Through a fusion of innovative analyses of observations and fundamental science advances, alongside the development of ultra-high resolution climate models, the Centre looks to address climate science’s grand challenge in anticipating the likely weather patterns of a warmer world. The ....ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century. ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century. This Centre aims to determine how Australia’s weather is being reshaped by climate change. Through a fusion of innovative analyses of observations and fundamental science advances, alongside the development of ultra-high resolution climate models, the Centre looks to address climate science’s grand challenge in anticipating the likely weather patterns of a warmer world. The Centre strives to transform climate research by focussing on what matters most to making critical adaptation and mitigation decisions – weather change. The Centre aspires to provide Australia with the knowledge, technology, and human capital for robust evidence-based decision-making in response to future weather changes in our region and to harness weather as a resource.Read moreRead less
ARC Centres of Excellence for Climate System Science. Our capacity to assess the threat of climate change is undermined by an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the understanding and modelling of regional climates. The Centre will undertake world-class research targeting identified weaknesses in the physical, chemical and biological components of the climate system. We will engage and nurture graduate students and postdoctoral follows through a program of graduate training and mentoring to per ....ARC Centres of Excellence for Climate System Science. Our capacity to assess the threat of climate change is undermined by an unacceptable level of uncertainty in the understanding and modelling of regional climates. The Centre will undertake world-class research targeting identified weaknesses in the physical, chemical and biological components of the climate system. We will engage and nurture graduate students and postdoctoral follows through a program of graduate training and mentoring to permanently transform our understanding of climate systems science particularly for the Australian region. The key outcome will be a dramatic enhancement in national capacity to understand and project the scale of future regional climate change.Read moreRead less
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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100203
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$385,000.00
Summary
Autonomous benthic observing system. This project seeks to improve our ability to monitor marine habitats and characterise their variability by enhancing the Integrated Marine Observing system (IMOS) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Facility. The new AUV infrastructure will reduce operating costs, increase robustness of the sampling effort and insure continued operation for the next decade.
Protecting Australia's pine plantations from exotic pests and climate change. This project will protect pine plantations (representing 57% of Australia's $3.3 billion pa forestry industry) from the dual threat of exotic pests and climate change. Sirex wood wasp has been well controlled until the recent, unprecedented, increase of ips bark beetles. The ips beetle is now disrupting biological control of sirex by its feeding activity so work is required to understand and combat this effect. The wor ....Protecting Australia's pine plantations from exotic pests and climate change. This project will protect pine plantations (representing 57% of Australia's $3.3 billion pa forestry industry) from the dual threat of exotic pests and climate change. Sirex wood wasp has been well controlled until the recent, unprecedented, increase of ips bark beetles. The ips beetle is now disrupting biological control of sirex by its feeding activity so work is required to understand and combat this effect. The work is made more urgent by looming climate change because storm-damage, drought and heat stressed trees are especially vulnerable to sirex attack. It is estimated that this novel pest management approach could save the industry at least $188 million pa based on a conservative estimate of reducing losses by 10%.Read moreRead less
Equator to Pole: Reconstructing tropical and Antarctic climate variability over the last millennium and their impacts on southern Australian rainfall. Water resource management is one of the greatest challenges facing sustainable agriculture and urban populations across southern Australia. Key players driving catastrophic droughts in southern Australia are the tropical Indian Ocean Dipole and polar Southern Annual Mode climate systems, which affect moisture availability and transport pathways. T ....Equator to Pole: Reconstructing tropical and Antarctic climate variability over the last millennium and their impacts on southern Australian rainfall. Water resource management is one of the greatest challenges facing sustainable agriculture and urban populations across southern Australia. Key players driving catastrophic droughts in southern Australia are the tropical Indian Ocean Dipole and polar Southern Annual Mode climate systems, which affect moisture availability and transport pathways. This collaborative research project draws together a uniquely-skilled research team to develop targeted coral, ice and cave reconstructions of these climate systems and their impacts on Australian rainfall through the last millennium. This fundamental new knowledge of the drivers of Australian rainfall variability will aid improved predictability of future changes in our valuable water resources. Read moreRead less
Effects of climate change on temperate benthic assemblages on the continental shelf in eastern Australia. Benthic habitats on the continental shelf in southeast Australia support some of Australia's most productive fisheries and manifest high levels of biodiversity and endemism. However, the region is experiencing rates of ocean warming 3.8 times the global average and nutrient depletion because of increased influence of the East Australian Current. This work will, for the first time, provide a ....Effects of climate change on temperate benthic assemblages on the continental shelf in eastern Australia. Benthic habitats on the continental shelf in southeast Australia support some of Australia's most productive fisheries and manifest high levels of biodiversity and endemism. However, the region is experiencing rates of ocean warming 3.8 times the global average and nutrient depletion because of increased influence of the East Australian Current. This work will, for the first time, provide a clear indication of the relationship between the physical environment on the shelf and the distribution of benthic assemblages, predict future changes in temperature and nutrients in the area, and predict the effects of these changes on the associated benthic biota. These predictions are critical to an informed adaptation response to climate change.Read moreRead less
Mapping Antarctic climate change in space and time using mosses as biological proxies. This project will use polar mosses as sentinels for climate change to determine the extent to which change is already affecting Antarctica and enable development of more robust global climate models. Novel remote sensing methods will be developed to identify biodiversity most at risk from climate change thus maintaining Antarctic treaty obligations.