The past four months have seen the Heatwaves and Cold Air Outbreaks research program focus very much on improving our capacity to understand and help others in research and industry get an insight into the impact of extreme heat events.
As well as winning a Pulitzer Prize, the RP2 team has been working closely on improving models, developed two new metrics and through studying marine heatwaves may have revealed a method of forecasting these heatwaves around Tasmania up to two years ahead.
Research over the past few months has given the RP2 team significant insights into sudden stratospheric warming events, modelling of marine heatwaves, the impacts of transient warming, how drying tends influence heatwaves, and future energy use in cities as the globe warms.
Extreme weather conditions and a changing climate are often recognised by their immediate effects. But as research coming out of the Heatwaves and Cold Air Outbreaks program has shown over the past four months, these events are often generated by distant influences and when they occur have further impact beyond their immediate vicinity.
AMOS awards, international visitors, cross program research with the drought team, and multiple papers have made it a busy time for the Heatwaves and Cold Air Outbreaks Research Program.
The Heatwaves and Cold Air Outbreaks Research program has been very active, producing a considerable number of papers over the past four months.
It has been a very active time for the Climate Variability and Teleconnections Research Program in terms of research and engagement activities right across the team, including two expeditions - one drilling coral cores in the tropics and another going south to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
The Heatwaves and Cold Outbreaks Research Program is in full swing, welcoming a new associate investigator in Debbie Hudson from the Bureau of Meteorology and pressing ahead with research across a range of areas.
Centre of Excellence researchers have identified 12 marine heatwave types off the east coast of Tasmania, a location recognised as a global warming hotspot. Here the average sea surface temperatures here have been rising at four times the global average and trends in marine heatwaves are showing significant increases in number.