38 experts from across Australia collaborated to develop and share code for use with ocean climate models.
Extreme weather, such as the heavy rainfall battering eastern Australia, is like military conflict.
Clouds are the missing part of the orchestra in climate modelling and predictions.
“This facility is important for Australian science and for all Australians. It’s an investment in our nation’s know-how and our nation’s future.”
The “climate gamble” grows every year, but we still have time
Tipping points exist in the climate system, and it is very unlikely that all tipping points are known. Different tipping points are understood with different levels of confidence, they operate on different timescales, can interact to trigger cascades of abrupt changes, and some tipping point changes are irreversible on timescales of centuries to millennia.
Conditions in the Indian Ocean can affect the risk of Australia experiencing droughts, floods, marine heatwaves and bushfires and alter the prospects for rainfed agriculture in some parts of the country. Reliable forecasts of conditions in the Indian Ocean a season in advance would help us predict upcoming changes in the risk of climate extremes in some parts of Australia. However, producing such forecasts requires us to better understand, and more accurately model, relevant Indian Ocean climate processes. There is... View Article
Irrespective of tipping points, climate change adaptation efforts will be less costly and disruptive to society – and will stand a better chance of success – if warming can be limited to 1.5°C rather than 2°C or higher. We therefore in no way advocate for policies that forgo pursuing the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C, regardless of whether that target remains feasible or not.
Climate sensitivity describes how sensitive the Earth’s temperature is to a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One measure of climate sensitivity for projections of future climate is the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). ECS is the increase in the global average temperature between the pre-industrial era and a future doubled carbon dioxide climate once equilibrium of the climate has been reached.
The Royal Society has called for an international next-generation climate modelling centre (pdf), based on new cutting-edge high-performance computing and data services to support efforts toward net-zero emissions and to enable effective climate adaptation.