The Australian bushfires of the 2019/2020 summer had far-reaching effects. It has now been revealed in new research published in Nature that the smoke produced a phytoplankton bloom larger in area than all of Australia, thousands of kilometres away in the Southern Ocean between New Zealand and South America.
The past few months following the mid-term review have seen a reorganisation of our research programs and a corresponding rearrangement of the website into these programs. Over the coming months, all previous research briefs will be shifted under the programs and regular research program meetings will be included in the Weekly Updates.
Understanding what causes droughts and what brings about their conclusion is key work in a dry continent like Australia. Often, we use computer models and modern observations to reach our conclusions but sometimes the clues to these questions can be uncovered in the past.
The newly formulated Attribution and Risk research program is by its very nature focused on the impacts of weather and climate on our society. A key piece of research on business risk and the emergence of climate risk perfectly highlighted this.
The 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires are a “wake up call” demonstrating the extreme effects of climate change in Australia, according to a group of experts who’ve published a new study examining the factors that caused the disaster.