ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7454-9827
Current Organisation
The University of Auckland
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 18-10-2017
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075489
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 18-12-2014
DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062459
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-11-2013
DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2009
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2014
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE13327
Abstract: The Indian Ocean dipole is a prominent mode of coupled ocean-atmosphere variability, affecting the lives of millions of people in Indian Ocean rim countries. In its positive phase, sea surface temperatures are lower than normal off the Sumatra-Java coast, but higher in the western tropical Indian Ocean. During the extreme positive-IOD (pIOD) events of 1961, 1994 and 1997, the eastern cooling strengthened and extended westward along the equatorial Indian Ocean through strong reversal of both the mean westerly winds and the associated eastward-flowing upper ocean currents. This created anomalously dry conditions from the eastern to the central Indian Ocean along the Equator and atmospheric convergence farther west, leading to catastrophic floods in eastern tropical African countries but devastating droughts in eastern Indian Ocean rim countries. Despite these serious consequences, the response of pIOD events to greenhouse warming is unknown. Here, using an ensemble of climate models forced by a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5), we project that the frequency of extreme pIOD events will increase by almost a factor of three, from one event every 17.3 years over the twentieth century to one event every 6.3 years over the twenty-first century. We find that a mean state change--with weakening of both equatorial westerly winds and eastward oceanic currents in association with a faster warming in the western than the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean--facilitates more frequent occurrences of wind and oceanic current reversal. This leads to more frequent extreme pIOD events, suggesting an increasing frequency of extreme climate and weather events in regions affected by the pIOD.
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Date: 23-08-2013
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00807.1
Abstract: An assessment of how well climate models simulate the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) is undertaken using 20 coupled models that have partaken in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Compared with models in phase 3 (CMIP3), no substantial improvement is evident in the simulation of the IOD pattern and/or litude during austral spring [September–November (SON)]. The majority of models in CMIP5 generate a larger variance of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Sumatra–Java upwelling region and an IOD litude that is far greater than is observed. Although the relationship between precipitation and tropical Indian Ocean SSTs is well simulated, future projections of SON rainfall changes over IOD-influenced regions are intrinsically linked to the IOD litude and its rainfall teleconnection in the model present-day climate. The ersity of the simulated IOD litudes in models in CMIP5 (and CMIP3), which tend to be overly large, results in a wide range of future modeled SON rainfall trends over IOD-influenced regions. The results herein highlight the importance of realistically simulating the present-day IOD properties and suggest that caution should be exercised in interpreting climate projections in the IOD-affected regions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1002/QJ.3223
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 15-02-2019
DOI: 10.1029/2018GL080813
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Date: 07-2011
DOI: 10.1139/F2011-065
Abstract: An in idual-based model, incorporating outputs of a data-assimilating hydrodynamic model, was developed to investigate the role of ocean circulation in the recruitment processes of western rock lobster ( Panulirus cygnus ) during its 9- to 11-month larval phase off the west coast of Australia. During austral summer, strong northward alongshore winds aid the offshore movement of early-stage model larvae from midshelf hatching sites into open ocean during austral winter, eastward flows that feed the enhanced Leeuwin Current facilitate onshore movement of late-stage larvae towards nearshore habitats. Stokes drift induced by swells from the Southern Ocean is critical to retain larvae off the west coast. Diurnal migration and temperature-dependent growth are also important. Model larvae hatched in late spring – early summer grow faster because of longer exposure to warm summer temperature, which allows them to be transported towards the coast by the strong onshore flows in winter and reduces their natural mortality. Preliminary source–sink relationship indicates that the population was well mixed off the coast, with higher likelihood of settlement success from hatching sites in the north, mostly due to higher surface temperature. Weighted with the breeding stock distribution, the area between 27.5°S and 29.5°S, including the Abrolhos Islands, is the most important hatching area to the success of settlement.
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Date: 23-04-2014
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00322.1
Abstract: The Australian decade-long “Millennium Drought” broke in the summer of 2010/11 and was considered the most severe drought since instrumental records began in the 1900s. A crucial question is whether climate change played a role in inducing the rainfall deficit. The climate modes in question include the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD), affecting southern Australia in winter and spring the southern annular mode (SAM) with an opposing influence on southern Australia in winter to that in spring and El Niño–Southern Oscillation, affecting northern and eastern Australia in most seasons and southeastern Australia in spring through its coherence with the IOD. Furthermore, the poleward edge of the Southern Hemisphere Hadley cell, which indicates the position of the subtropical dry zone, has possible implications for recent rainfall declines in autumn. Using observations and simulations from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), it is shown that the drought over southwest Western Australia is partly attributable to a long-term upward SAM trend, which contributed to half of the winter rainfall reduction in this region. For southeast Australia, models simulate weak trends in the pertinent climate modes. In particular, they severely underestimate the observed poleward expansion of the subtropical dry zone and associated impacts. Thus, although climate models generally suggest that Australia’s Millennium Drought was mostly due to multidecadal variability, some late-twentieth-century changes in climate modes that influence regional rainfall are partially attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse warming.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-08-2014
DOI: 10.1038/SREP06087
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-01-2014
DOI: 10.1038/SREP03590
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Date: 15-08-2012
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00324.1
Abstract: Off the Western Australia coast, interannual variations of wind regime during the austral winter and spring are significantly correlated with the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and the southern annular mode (SAM) variability. Atmospheric general circulation model experiments forced by an idealized IOD sea surface temperature anomaly field suggest that the IOD-generated deep atmospheric convection anomalies trigger a Rossby wave train in the upper troposphere that propagates into the southern extratropics and induces positive geopotential height anomalies over southern Australia, independent of the SAM. The positive geopotential height anomalies extended from the upper troposphere to the surface, south of the Australian continent, resulting in easterly wind anomalies off the Western Australia coast and a reduction of the high-frequency synoptic storm events that deliver the majority of southwest Australia rainfall during austral winter and spring. In the marine environment, the wind anomalies and reduction of storm events may h er the western rock lobster recruitment process.
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Date: 12-07-2013
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00789.1
Abstract: Recent studies have shown that the impact of the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) on southern Australia occurs via equivalent barotropic Rossby wave trains triggered by convective heating in the tropical Indian Ocean. Furthermore, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influence on southern Australian climate is exerted through the same pathway during austral spring. It is also noted that positive phase [positive IOD (pIOD) and El Niño] events have a much larger impact associated with their respective skewness. These phenomena play a significant role in the region's rainfall reduction in recent decades, and it is essential that climate models used for future projections simulate these features. Here, the authors demonstrate that climate models do indeed simulate a greater climatic impact on Australia for pIOD events than for negative IOD (nIOD) events, but this asymmetric impact is distorted by an exaggerated influence of La Niña emanating from the Pacific. The distortion results from biases in the Pacific in two respects. First, the tropical and extratropical response to La Niña is situated unrealistically too far westward and hence too close to Australia, leading to an overly strong impact on southeast Australia that shows up through the nIOD–La Niña coherence. Second, the majority of models simulate a positive sea surface temperature skewness in the eastern Pacific that is too weak, overestimating the impact of La Niña relative to that of El Niño. As such, the impact of the positive asymmetry in the IOD only becomes apparent when the impact of ENSO is removed. This model bias needs to be taken into account when analyzing projections of regional Australian climate change.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2011
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Date: 05-2017
Abstract: Precipitation is often organized along coherent lines of low-level convergence, which at longer time and space scales form well-known convergence zones over the world’s oceans. Here, an automated, objective method is used to identify instantaneous low-level convergence lines in reanalysis data and calculate their frequency for the period 1979–2013. Identified convergence lines are combined with precipitation observations to assess the extent to which precipitation around the globe is associated with convergence lines in the lower troposphere. It is shown that a large percentage of precipitation (between 65% and 90%) over the tropical oceans is associated with such convergence lines, with large regional variations of up to 30% throughout the year, especially in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Over land, the annual-mean proportion of precipitation associated with convergence lines ranges between 30% and 60%, and the lowest proportions (less than 15%) associated with convergence lines occur on the eastern flank of the subtropical highs. Overall, much greater precipitation is associated with long coherent lines (greater than 300 km in length) than with shorter fragmented lines (less than 300 km), and the majority of precipitation associated with shorter lines occurs over land. The proportion of precipitation not associated with any convergence line primarily occurs where both precipitation and frequency of convergence lines are low. The high temporal and spatial resolution of the climatology constructed also enables an examination of the diurnal cycle in the relationship between convergence lines and precipitation. Here an ex le is provided over the tropical Maritime Continent region.
No related grants have been discovered for Evan Weller.