The past four months since out last newsletter has been tightly packed with the official launch of CLEX, the legacy event for ARCCSS and an acceleration in important research across all of our programs.
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.
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.
This project will connect plant water use and stomatal conductance models differentiated by vegetation-soil systems with land surface models to provide new insight into the impacts of the built environment on moisture fluxes that influence heatwave intensity. Then it will investigate the climate impacts of the dynamic response of greenery in extreme heat conditions.
CLEX researchers writing in Nature Climate Change suggest a paradigm shift in how climate scientists approach climate change impact assessments. They suggest examining the system or potential catastrophe first instead of making the starting point a climate scenario.
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.