Written by Laure Poncet

Fadhlil grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he was raised by his two grandparents. His passion for science started at a young age when he started reading “Doraemon”, a popular Japanese comic book and anime series. In these science-fiction stories, Fadhlil followed the adventure of Doraemon, a blue robot cat from the 22nd century, who travels back in time to help a kid by bringing him an array of futuristic gadgets and tools. 

“I remember my grandmother Neyang buying me comic books every once in a while. Doreamon really sparked my interest in science. I was fascinated by this technology from the future,” said Fadhlil. 

“As a kid, I spent a lot of time reading in the library or on the bus to school. I also loved reading the Science Encyclopedia.”

Fadhlil explained, however, that his passion for science shifted to sports when he became a teenager. 

“In high school, my focus changed a little bit and I got very interested in sports,” he said.

“I dedicated most of my time to it because I wanted to become a professional soccer player.”

When deciding whether to attend university after high school, Fadhlil explained that Neyang played a pivotal role in guiding him back to his passion for science. 

“I was not planning to go to university because I wanted to become a soccer player, not a student.”

“But, my grandmother knew how much I loved science and advised me to weigh the pros and cons of each career path. After this reflection, I decided to go back to science.”

“If I hadn’t listened to her, I probably wouldn’t be doing a PhD right now. I owe much of my scientific career to her.”

Fadhlil completed a bachelor’s degree in applied meteorology at IPB University in Indonesia. As part of his bachelor’s thesis, Fadhlil focused on atmospheric waves – huge oscillations in the atmosphere that transport energy and momentum around the globe. Specifically, he looked into the impact of the Madden-Julian Oscillation on extreme rainfall in Indonesia and the influence of the Indian Ocean Dipole on two types of atmospheric waves: equatorial Kelvin and Mixed-Rossby gravity waves. 

After his studies, Fadhlil worked for two years as a research assistant and programmer in the G4W-Spiceup project, which aims to provide low-cost weather predictions for pepper farmers in Indonesia.

“The goal was to optimize pepper production by providing farmers with crucial weather information via a mobile application. I was in charge of making rainfall predictions during that project.”

Fadhlil then moved to Australia, where he completed a Master’s degree at the University of Melbourne. He is currently doing a PhD on the impacts of equatorial waves on Australian tropical rainfall. 

“I decided to go to Australia because I wanted to study atmospheric waves in greater detail. Australia has leading scientists in that field, and I wanted to work with them.” 

“I like to think of atmospheric waves as vast musical notes resonating around the globe. Just like a musical note, an atmospheric wave has a frequency and an amplitude. I find them very elegant.”

In their recent paper, The Impacts of Convectively Coupled Equatorial Waves on Extreme Rainfall in Northern Australia, Fadhlil and his supervisors, Dr. Andrew King, Dr. Claire Vincent and Dr. Sandro W. Lubis, explored the relationship  between equatorial waves and rainfall in northern Australia from 1981 to 2018 (the Conversation article is available here). 

“Atmospheric waves can greatly affect rainfall and extreme weather events in Australia, and we wanted to understand how.”

The team of researchers found that these waves significantly impact rainfall in northern Australia during the southern summer (December–February) and autumn (March-May).

“We found that Equatorial Rossby waves that cross Australia may make heavy rainfall around 1.5 times as likely as normal, while tropical depression-type waves make it 1.3 times more likely.”

“We also showed that heavy rain events are more likely to happen when waves combine in certain ways.”

Fadhlil is currently writing a second paper on rainfall and wave interactions to be published as part of his PhD.  Looking ahead, he plans to stay in academia and do more applied research. 

“I have many interests when it comes to deciding what I want to do in the future.”

“But, I think I’d still like to stay in academia. I would love to look into how we can apply research to help communities.”

Fadhlil’s publications

Muhammad, F. R., Vincent, C., King, A., & Lubis, S. W. (2024). The Impacts of Convectively Coupled Equatorial Waves on Extreme Rainfall in Northern Australia. Journal of Climate.

Muhammad, F. R., & Lubis, S. W. (2022). Impacts of the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation on precipitation extremes in Indonesia. International Journal of Climatology, 43(PNNL-SA-177965).

Muhammad, F. R., Lubis, S. W., & Setiawan, S. (2021). Impacts of the Madden–Julian oscillation on precipitation extremes in Indonesia. International Journal of Climatology, 41(3), 1970-1984.

Lubis, S. W., Hagos, S., Hermawan, E., Respati, M. R., Ridho, A., Risyanto, … & Permana, D. S. (2022). Record‐breaking precipitation in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta in early January 2020 linked to the northerly surge, equatorial waves, and MJO. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(22), e2022GL101513.