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Analysis of observations, reanalysis, and model simulations, including those using machine learning methods specifically designed for regime identification, has revealed changes in aspects of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) circulation and Australian climate and extremes over the last half-century that indicate transitions to new states. In particular, our analysis shows a dramatic shift in the metastability of the SH climate that occurred in the late 1970s, associated with a large-scale regime transition in the SH atmospheric circulation, with systematic changes in the subtropical jet, blocking, zonal winds, and storm tracks. Analysis via nonstationary clustering reveals a regime shift coincident with a sharp transition to warmer oceanic sea surface temperatures and increased baroclinicity in the large scales of the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation (ACC), extending across the whole hemisphere. At the same time, the background state of the tropical Pacific thermocline shoaled, leading to an increased likelihood of El Niño events. The SH climate shift in the late 1970s is the first hemispheric regime shift that can be directly attributed to anthropogenic climate change. These changes in dynamics are associated with additional regional tipping points, including reductions in mean and extreme rainfall in south-west Western Australia (SWWA) and streamflow into Perth dams, and also with increases in mean and extreme rainfall over northern Australia since the late 1970s. The drying of south-eastern Australia (SEA) occurred against a background of accelerating increases in average and extreme temperatures across the whole continent since the 1990s, implying further inflection points may have occurred. Analysis of climate model simulations capturing the essence of these observed shifts indicates that these systematic changes will continue into the late 21st century under high greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Here, we review two decades of work, revealing for the first time that tipping points characteristic of regime transitions are inferred to have already occurred in the SH climate system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common property (CP) is a significant consumer of electricity in apartment buildings. Although some apartments in Australia have adopted shared microgrid configurations to offset grid consumption, the characteristics and load patterns of CP are rarely discussed due to lack of available data. As common areas normally constitute part of owner corporations, energy distribution in these premises requires attention. This paper presents empirical analysis of the CP load connected to shared solar and battery storage for three apartment complexes located in Perth Australia. Load patterns for CP over a defined dataset period were analyzed, and grid usage reduction was examined by implementing and comparing three energy allocation strategies based on surplus energy utilization. The findings indicated significant grid usage reduction for CP load in different apartments after implementation of three strategies. Instantaneous consumption decreased 72%, and surplus allocation strategy reduced 91%, while consumption-based allocation reduced 76%, of grid electricity. Moreover, consumption-based allocation offered improved cost benefits compared to the other two strategies. The results further revealed the usefulness of energy allocation and effectiveness of surplus energy utilization. Based on outcomes, the strategies provide consolidation with conventional energy trading mechanisms and broadly link to the virtual power plant concept for coordinating energy flows between multiple generators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1960s Australian Jewry has doubled in size to 117,000. This increase has been due to migration rather than natural increase with the main migration groups being South Africans, Russians, and Israelis. Of the three, the South Africans have had the most significant impact on Australian Jewry—one could argue that this has been transformative in Sydney and Perth. They have contributed to the religious and educational life of the communities as well as assuming significant community leadership roles in all the major Jewish Centres where they settled. This results from their strong Jewish identity. A comparative study undertaken by Rutland and Gariano in 2004–2005 demonstrated that each specific migrant group came from a different past with a different Jewish form of identification, the diachronic axis, which impacted on their integration into Jewish life in Australia, the synchronic axis as proposed by Sagi in 2016. The South Africans identified Jewishly in a traditional religious manner. This article will argue that this was an outcome of the South African context during the apartheid period, and that, with their stronger Jewish identity and support for the Jewish-day- school movement, they not only integrated into the new Australian-Jewish context; they also changed that context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic changes, since the beginning of the 20th century, in average and extreme Australian rainfall and temperatures indicate that Southern Australian climate has undergone regime transitions into a drier and warmer state. South-west Western Australia (SWWA) experienced the most dramatic drying trend with average streamflow into Perth dams, in the last decade, just 20% of that before the 1960s and extreme, decile 10, rainfall reduced to near zero. In south-eastern Australia (SEA) systematic decreases in average and extreme cool season rainfall became evident in the late 1990s with a halving of the area experiencing average decile 10 rainfall in the early 21st century compared with that for the 20th century. The shift in annual surface temperatures over SWWA and SEA, and indeed for Australia as a whole, has occurred primarily over the last 20 years with the percentage area experiencing extreme maximum temperatures in decile 10 increasing to an average of more than 45% since the start of the 21st century compared with less than 3% for the 20th century mean. Average maximum temperatures have also increased by circa 1 °C for SWWA and SEA over the last 20 years. The climate changes in rainfall an d temperatures are associated with atmospheric circulation shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]