Supervisor: Prof Julie Arblaster (julie.arblaster@monash.edu)
Springtime stratospheric ozone depletion over Antarctica from the late 1970s to 2000 has been linked to changes in the surface climate over the Southern Hemisphere in summer, via a poleward shift in the westerly winds over the Southern Ocean, a more positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and an expansion of the tropics. Over Australian latitudes, a more positive SAM is associated with increased rainfall over eastern Australia in the summer season. Given stratospheric ozone over Antarctica is projected to recover to 1980 levels by ~2050, the impact of ozone recovery on its own would be to reduce this upward trend in summertime rainfall over eastern Australia.
However future projections of rainfall over Australia are also impacted by increasing greenhouse gases which will have a competing effect on any anthropogenic rainfall trends in summer. In this project you will investigate the contribution of these effects on Australian rainfall changes in the latest climate models contributing to the Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP). These are now available on the National Computing Infrastructure (NCI) supercomputer and are being used as input into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report.
Please apply for this scholarship directly through the Monash vacation scholarship scheme. Applications for this scheme close 2 Oct at 5pm.