Steefan Contractor attended the ARCCSS/CLEX winter school from June 25-29, 2018. The theme of the school was climate extremes. It involved lectures in the morning on various climate extremes (such as heatwaves and rainfall extremes) and also a group activity in the afternoons.
The CLEX node at Monash is offering several PhD scholarships on a competitive basis. The scholarships may cover fees and living expenses for 3 years. Generous travel support for PhD students to visit our international partners exists. Some projects may involve other universities, the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, or one of our international partners.
This research suggests some trees and in particular, Australian trees, may be more resilient than expected to future warming and extreme events. These findings have implications for planning around which species to plant in “green cities” to help mitigate future climate extremes.
This PhD project will use climate model simulations to examine how sensitive attribution assessments of high-impact heatwaves to human emissions of carbon dioxide are to the representation of key physical processes.
In 2005 the Amazon experienced a once in a century drought. Five years later, in 2010, it was struck by an even worse drought, with even lower rainfall occurring in the dry season. However, the response of the Amazon forest to these two once-in-a-century events showed marked differences.
This research project will examine the influence of anthropogenic climate change on health impacts of Australians. It will involve defining and becoming familiar with several high-impact heatwaves in the observed climatological record, and determining who is most vulnerable and from which diseases.
An international study in Nature Communications co-authored by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX) and the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) reveals globally marine heatwaves have increased over the past century in number, length and intensity as a direct result of warming oceans.
New research published in Nature Geoscience has found that climate engineering that modifies the properties of the land surface in highly populated areas and agricultural areas over North America, Europe and Asia could reduce extreme temperatures there by up to 2-3°C.
At this early stage in the research program, we have already seen significant progress on understanding how well temperature extremes can be simulated with CABLE coupled to the ACCESS system. Coupling has been improved and we have identified possible causes for the tendency for the model temperature to overstate extremes. This model focus will continue to be a priority in the early part of 2018. The team has also identified specific continental heatwaves for initial investigation.