We have started 2021 some reorganisation of our research programs. While our research has not changed, it is now framed in five research programs that emphasise the strengths of our Centre and should lead to deeper interaction between the programs.
It has been an unprecedented year in academia in 2020, a year where many people have been doing it tough in particular those of you in Victoria. The impact of COVID will take a long time to be fully realized of course, with impacts on our students, researchers, administration and technical teams that we could not anticipate.
This is a tough and unique time for everyone in CLEX. I had anticipated the pandemic being over by now (note the predictive skill of a modeller) and it is confronting to be writing this while Victoria is in lockdown and world leaders are worried about shower pressure.
CLEX Director Andy Pitman acknowledges the "impossibly challenging" nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Centre's response. He also reviews some of the successes of our researchers and highlights remarkable results published over the past few months.
After some well deserved (and in many cases long overdue) summer holidays the Centre has seen a rapid ramp up of research in the last couple of months. Cross research program collaboration has intensified, focussed on improving our modelling systems, using our models to examine key phenomenon and in particularly how we can improve the representation of extreme events.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes was formally started on August 4, 2017. We have a Centre launch on April 10, which is something we all look forward to. A great deal of effort has gone into hiring some outstanding research fellows and multiple new CLEX students. The research leaders of the Centre's four programs have met to refine their research strategies and identify the main priorities.