Climate scientists have found that the increase in aridity in drylands in response to climate change won't lead to a general loss of vegetation productivity. Instead, most of the global drylands are projected to become greener and more productive with climate change.
Aditya Sengupta is a PhD researcher at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes studying the impacts of climate change on El Niño. After studying physics in India, and driven by the desire to make a change, Aditya decided to shift to climate science.
The 2022 Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption produced the equivalent of 60,000 Olympic swimming pools of water vapor, which ended up in the stratosphere. Researchers have studied its impact on climate and suggest that it could lead to unusual winter weather for years to come.
Researchers have found that windblown dust delivers enough iron to support a third of the Southern Ocean’s phytoplankton growth. This finding sheds light on the vital role that dust-fuelled productivity plays in the ocean's capacity to absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
It seems counterintuitive that rainfall increases in the later years of a multi-year La Niña event. Yet, this is what occurred during the recent triple-dip La Niña. Even more interestingly, this increase happened despite no strengthening of La Niña in the tropical Pacific. So, what's the reason behind it?
Our ability to predict conditions over the coming season has greatly advanced in just the past 20 years. We now better understand how the various climate drivers influence our weather, and we have more computational power to run models.
To us, a warmer ocean might feel pleasant. But the extra heat manifests underwater as an unprecedented series of major marine heatwaves, which can lead to mass death or mass migration for marine mammals, seabirds, fish and invertebrates and cause widespread coral bleaching.
The reasons for the pristine air in the Southern Ocean have long remained a mystery. This new study reveals that clouds and rain play a crucial role in scrubbing the atmosphere clean.
Parts of Sydney were drenched in more than 100mm of rain overnight and the main dam that supplies the city’s drinking water is expected to spill in coming days. At least one man has died in Queensland floodwaters after torrential rain. This wild weather is caused by the "Black Nor'easter".
Natural variability in Australian rainfall can produce “mega-droughts” lasting 20 years or more. If we add in human-caused climate change, it suggests future droughts will be far worse than we imagined.