Research brief: Southern Ocean vortices are changing
The energy of vortices in the Southern Ocean has increased over the past two decades due to an increase in the mean amplitude of the vortices rather than an increase in their number.
Read More
Category: RP4 Climate Variability
Research brief: Inexpensive innovation improves Ensemble Kalman filter
A known weakness of the Ensemble Kalman filter approach is that its ability to provide state estimates that closely match densely distributed observations is very limited. This paper describes a computationally inexpensive innovative variation on the technique that greatly ameliorates this difficulty.
Read More
Record warm temperatures above Antarctica likely to bring hot and dry extremes to Australia
A new study with Centre of Excellence researchers warns that changes in springtime winds high above the South Pole could trigger higher than usual heat waves and fire-prone weather conditions in Australia.
Read More
Research brief: Rescuing centuries-old meteorological measurements
This paper documents the efforts of the international weather data rescue initiative ACRE, the International Surface Temperature Initiative and researchers that took part in workshops held in Bern, Switzerland, in June 2018 to rescue and digitize meteorological measurements taken prior to 1850 from around the world.
Read More
Safeguarding the world’s largest tuna fishery
New research has used a combination of records from captains and scientific observers, FAD tracking data, ocean models and cutting edge simulation methods to reveal for the first time the trajectories and potential impact FADs may have on fisheries around Pacific island nations.
Read More
Research brief: Lost and found? A search for the Tasman Front
Gabriela Pilo and colleagues find that the Tasman Front is not so much a constant current, as is widely accepted, but switches between being an extension of the East Australian Current and an eddy field.
Read More
Indian Ocean causes drought and heatwaves in South America
Indian Ocean convection caused a powerful planetary wave that led to a drought in South America and a marine heatwave in the South Atlantic that lasted for months.
Read More
Research brief: Winter storms accelerate disintegration of sea ice in the Arctic
Winter storms over the Arctic leave a legacy that breaks up the ice, melts it from beneath and has led to constant ongoing decline in old ice that far exceeds the period of the storm itself.
Read More
Research brief: Indian Ocean played key role in rapid 2016 Antarctic ice decline
Antarctic sea ice had been growing in area since 1979, despite the influence of global warming. Then unexpectedly in the austral spring of 2016, there was a rapid decline. CLEX researchers used multiple runs of a coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model to investigate whether these distant influences played a role and, if so, the level of the contribution to the sea-ice decline.
Read More
Research brief: Observations of small ocean eddies in the Arctic using glider technology
Using novel ocean glider technology, a team of researchers from France, Norway, and Australia observed small eddy-like lenses of cold water in July 2017 along the western Svalbard shelf in the Arctic.
Read More
Research brief: Southern ozone hole observations could improve seasonal forecasts
CLEX researchers find strong correlation between ozone hole size and Australian summer temperatures. While there is no causal link between the two, the changes are driven by the same source – ocean temperatures.
Read More
Research brief: Global warming temperatures set to accelerate as trade winds slow
Natural variability has been found to play a role in the speed of warming of land surface temperatures. With indications that the negative Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation is now becoming positive, this suggests that the hiatus period is over and we are likely entering a phase of accelerated warming of global surface air temperatures.
Read More
Download the WeatheX App
