Research brief: Testing CORDEX for future climate projections
CLEX researchers evaluate the performance of CORDEX simulations over Australia against gridded observations of temperature and precipitation.
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Category: RP2 Heatwaves and cold outbreaks
Marine heatwaves a clear and present threat to our oceans
The increase in frequency and intensity of ocean heatwaves over the past 30 years has had profound impacts on certain marine ecosystems and significantly impacted the industries that depend on them. According to new research in Nature Climate Change, marine heatwaves are now a clear and present threat to global biodiversity.
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Research brief: Categorising and naming marine heatwaves
This paper proposes a standard categorisation and naming framework for marine heatwaves that works in a similar way to schemes used for tropical cyclones or earthquakes.
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Research brief: Calibration in the GIMMSv3.0g dataset may have affected dryland NDVI values globally
Calibration errors in the widely used Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling System Version 3 NDVI (GIMMSv3.0g) dataset caused significant errors in the trends over some of Australia’s dryland regions. Though identified over Australia, the problematic calibration in the GIMMSv3.0g dataset may have effected dryland NDVI values globally. These errors have been addressed in the updated GIMMSv3.1g which is strongly recommended for use in future studies.
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Research brief: How to select the best models to predict future warming
This study illustrates how future uncertainty of climate models in predicting hot extremes is controlled by two factors, both related to amplification of hot extremes through land-atmosphere interactions
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Research brief: Selecting the correct model is more than a “beauty contest”
The scientific community is moving away from “beauty contest” thinking where models are accepted or rejected on the basis of how well they simulate particular aspects of the present or past, toward a smarter approach that seeks to understand and exploit how present and future predictions are related as well as how different models are related.
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Research brief: Australian climate policy inaction threatens lives
Overall, the inaugural Australian Countdown finds that Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives.
In a number of respects, Australia has gone backwards and now lags behind other high income countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Examples include the persistence of a very high carbon-intensive energy system in Australia, and a slow transition to renewables and low-carbon electricity generation.
Research brief: How to avoid overconfidence in climate model ensembles
In this review paper, researchers contextualise the broad and seemingly disparate range of attempts to define and address model dependence within climate model ensembles, and offer concrete advice on how best to avoid overconfidence.
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Heat difference at night between city and country increases with heatwaves
It’s normal for cities to be warmer than surrounding rural areas at night but researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at Monash University found heatwaves make this difference almost two and a half times greater under some heatwave conditions.
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Research brief: How ENSO drives Australian heatwaves
By employing an atmosphere-only version of ACCESS, CLEX researchers generated multiple sea surface temperature patterns of the same El Nino and La Nina events, and assessed how this influenced heatwaves over various Australian regions.
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Research brief: Building resilience today to reduce future heatwave impacts
A focus on building resilience in health and health infrastructure is needed to deal with the future effects of extreme events – both due to climate change and climate variability.
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Research brief: The importance of humidity in heat stress
The key measures are the “Wet Bulb Globe Temperature” often used to screen for dangerous heat at sporting events and in workplaces, the “Wet Bulb Temperature” beloved of weather geeks, and “Apparent Temperature” quoted to the public by weather services. The bottom line is that the closer we are pushed to our physiological limits by extreme heat, the more important humidity becomes.
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Research Briefs
Research brief: Data assimilation produces more realistic representation of Antarctic warming
Research brief: New statistical method identifies robust reconstructions of past ENSO events
Research brief: New method produces more precise and complete representation of wave climate variability
Research brief: Statistical correction reveals 25% decline in future rainfall over the SW Pacific