Remote forcing of Pacific Ocean variability and impacts on global climate. Variability in the Pacific Ocean has a profound impact on global climate. Recent unprecedented decadal variability in the Pacific has been linked to global temperature trends and extremes, yet little is known about what drives this variability or its impact on regional climate. This project will combine observations, advanced coupled climate models and ocean-atmosphere dynamical theory to quantify remote drivers of Pacifi ....Remote forcing of Pacific Ocean variability and impacts on global climate. Variability in the Pacific Ocean has a profound impact on global climate. Recent unprecedented decadal variability in the Pacific has been linked to global temperature trends and extremes, yet little is known about what drives this variability or its impact on regional climate. This project will combine observations, advanced coupled climate models and ocean-atmosphere dynamical theory to quantify remote drivers of Pacific Ocean variability on interannual-decadal time-scales. This project aims to enhance our understanding of the modes of variability operating in this region and their impact on global and Australian climate. This will have significant benefits for the many sectors of society reliant on interseasonal-decadal climate prediction.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
Megadrought likelihood and its water resource impacts in Australia. This interdisciplinary project plans to assemble a world-class team of hydrologists, climate scientists and water managers to investigate the history and future risk of decadal to multidecadal droughts (megadroughts). Despite Australia’s vulnerability to water scarcity, the likelihood of persistent megadroughts has not been assessed in Australia. This has resulted in inadequate capacity to prepare for and adapt to megadrought un ....Megadrought likelihood and its water resource impacts in Australia. This interdisciplinary project plans to assemble a world-class team of hydrologists, climate scientists and water managers to investigate the history and future risk of decadal to multidecadal droughts (megadroughts). Despite Australia’s vulnerability to water scarcity, the likelihood of persistent megadroughts has not been assessed in Australia. This has resulted in inadequate capacity to prepare for and adapt to megadrought under future climate change. For the first time, palaeoclimate reconstructions and climate change projections will be used to constrain future hydroclimatic variability, advancing the decision-making capacity of Australian water resource managers.Read moreRead less
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
Evaluating the weather in climate models - the relationship of dynamics and rainfall over Australia in current and future climates. Climate change will be experienced by society as a change in the day-to-day weather. This project will investigate the capabilities of modern climate models in simulating the weather with a particular focus on rainfall, and will provide guidance to the use of these models in projections of the future of Australia's climate.
Reconstructing pre-20th century rainfall, temperature and pressure for south-eastern Australia using palaeoclimate, documentary and early weather station data. South-eastern Australia is in the grip of a severe water crisis due to the worst drought in recorded history and increasing temperatures. This landmark project brings together a team of Australia's leading climate scientists, water managers and historians with the common goal of reconstructing south-eastern Australia's climate history. Th ....Reconstructing pre-20th century rainfall, temperature and pressure for south-eastern Australia using palaeoclimate, documentary and early weather station data. South-eastern Australia is in the grip of a severe water crisis due to the worst drought in recorded history and increasing temperatures. This landmark project brings together a team of Australia's leading climate scientists, water managers and historians with the common goal of reconstructing south-eastern Australia's climate history. The greatly extended record of annual rainfall and temperature variability will allow better planning for water storage and use, and improved testing of climate model simulations. Improving our understanding of the historical impacts of climate extremes on society will assist with planning for life in a hotter and drier future.Read moreRead less
Unraveling ocean mixing and air-sea forcing along the Indo-Pacific exchange. This project aims to collect unprecedented observations and develop high resolution model simulations to examine changes in the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) north of Australia. This project expects to develop new knowledge of ocean-atmosphere interactions along the path of the ITF from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, which are the powerhouse that drives changes in winds and rainfall around Australia and the entire Indo ....Unraveling ocean mixing and air-sea forcing along the Indo-Pacific exchange. This project aims to collect unprecedented observations and develop high resolution model simulations to examine changes in the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) north of Australia. This project expects to develop new knowledge of ocean-atmosphere interactions along the path of the ITF from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, which are the powerhouse that drives changes in winds and rainfall around Australia and the entire Indo-Pacific region. Expected outcomes include a 1000-fold increase in the observations of mixing in the Indonesian seas and new understanding of the ocean-atmosphere processes that control water property change along the ITF. This should lead to strong improvement in the skill of climate forecast models in the Australian region.Read moreRead less
Quantifying and mitigating changes in Australia’s rainfall belts. This project aims to understand how past climate changes affected Australia’s rainfall belts, and to reverse recent changes in rainfall belts. Australia’s climate belts are moving, but it is unclear if the effects on tropical and temperate rainfall will be permanent. This project will use past climate records and palaeoclimate databases to assess how natural and human-induced changes during the past millennium affected Australia’s ....Quantifying and mitigating changes in Australia’s rainfall belts. This project aims to understand how past climate changes affected Australia’s rainfall belts, and to reverse recent changes in rainfall belts. Australia’s climate belts are moving, but it is unclear if the effects on tropical and temperate rainfall will be permanent. This project will use past climate records and palaeoclimate databases to assess how natural and human-induced changes during the past millennium affected Australia’s rainfall zones, and specialised climate model simulations to determine whether greenhouse gas reduction could mitigate future rainfall changes. The outcomes are expected to inform policy and mitigation strategies to secure Australia’s precious water resources.Read moreRead less
Space gravity: squeezing the last drop of hydrological information out of current and future missions. Australia needs space gravity measurements in order to estimate regional-scale total water storage changes on our continent. This project will deliver the analysis capability required to exploit all the measurements of the current Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and to place Australia in a state of readiness for the 2017 GRACE Follow On mission.
Single-sample unmixing with machine learning: a rock magnetic frontier. Magnetic rock-forming minerals can record important information about Earth’s magnetic field and climatic changes. In rock magnetism, we seek to quantify magnetic property variations in geological materials. Existing quantification methods are limited and provide bulk characterisation of all magnetic particles in a material rather than diagnostic information concerning individual mineral components. This Project aims to deve ....Single-sample unmixing with machine learning: a rock magnetic frontier. Magnetic rock-forming minerals can record important information about Earth’s magnetic field and climatic changes. In rock magnetism, we seek to quantify magnetic property variations in geological materials. Existing quantification methods are limited and provide bulk characterisation of all magnetic particles in a material rather than diagnostic information concerning individual mineral components. This Project aims to develop a machine-learning framework to “unmix” and quantify each magnetic mineral component in single natural samples, and will unlock a new quantitative era in rock magnetism. It is expected to have impact beyond Earth science by enabling magnetic characterisation in physics, materials science, and industry.Read moreRead less