Search

Background: Historical records of fire weather phenomena provide valuable insights into spatial and temporal trends which can inform further research and are important tools for planning. Aims: We outline a 19-year climatology of a Research Prototype (AFDRSRP), of the new Australian Fire Danger Rating System, documenting its spatial and temporal characteristics. Methods: The analysis utilises the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's high-resolution reanalysis suite (BARRA), together with fuel data provided by Australian fire agencies. We examine the spatial and temporal distribution of the AFDRSRP. Distributions are categorised by fuel type, analysing relative variability across time and space. Key results: The results validate the broad behaviour of the new system and provide insight into the variation of fire danger throughout Australia, adding detail to the understanding of timing of peak fire danger both diurnally and annually. Conclusions: While the AFDRSRP differs from the operational system in its fire danger rating categories and tuning of algorithms, it nonetheless provides useful insights into the operational implementation. Implications: These results will be essential for planning during fire seasons. We present a 19-year climatology of the Australian Fire Danger Rating System: Research Prototype (AFDRSRP), recently implemented operationally throughout Australia. The climatology describes the typical spatial and temporal behaviour of the AFDRSRP. It is important for users to improve familiarity with the new system, and to ensure it performs as expected. This article belongs to the Collection Australian Fire Danger Rating System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel combinations of global conditions, issues under investigation and research alliances require constant reassessment of how to conduct cross‐cultural research. Here we recount an exploratory investigation considering cross‐cultural research between Australian and Indonesian researchers. This paper sets out a range of considerations for practitioners of cross‐cultural research between our two countries. This investigation supports intentions to develop trans‐disciplinary climate change adaptation research but is applicable across multiple research topics and disciplines. We engaged a small multi‐disciplinary mix of researchers, from both countries, conducted two initial focus groups, and subsequently involved participants in drafting of this paper as an exploration of how being cross cultural could manifest. We highlight that cross‐cultural collaborations occur in environments of both cultural differences and power differences. Four main strategies emerged for dealing with the challenges (or opportunities): working respectfully, being reflective of cross‐cultural research practice, being flexible, and learning about culture. Overarching these strategies, we found cross‐cultural research requires considerable extra (long term) effort to tackle and that this is sustained by researchers' intrinsic motives to care for people and place, making this type of research a distinctive labour of love. Finally, we found similarities between cross‐cultural research and climate change adaptation research (even when conducted within one country) where both endeavours call for boundaries of places, cultures and disciplines to be crossed in order to effectively engage with complex topics and environments. Negotiating the liminalities here often defies set formulas and requires a willingness to engage with and 'muddle through' the messiness. Our findings will be of value to those undertaking cross‐cultural research across a wide range of issues. This paper addresses research collaboration between Australia and Indonesia and considers challenges and strategies for working at the intersection of cross cultural research collaboration and climate chance adaptation science. Analysis of focus group data from a multi‐disciplinary mix of researchers from these two countries highlighted four strategies for dealing with challenges: working respectfully, being reflective of cross‐cultural research practice, being flexible, and learning about culture. Overarching these strategies, we found cross‐cultural research requires extra effort and that this is sustained by a researcher's intrinsic motivations of care for people and place – a labour of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial and temporal variations in the level of dust activity can provide valuable information for policy making and climate research. Recently, MODIS aerosol products have been successfully used for retrieving dust aerosol optical depth (DAOD), especially over bright dust source areas and MERRA-2 aerosol reanalysis provides DAOD, and additionally other dust aerosol-related parameters. In this study, spatial and temporal variations in dust activity in Australia were analyzed using MODIS and MERRA-2 combined (M&M) DAOD and MERRA-2 near-surface dust concentrations/estimated PM10 for the period from 1980–2020. Validation results show that M&M DAOD has an expected error of ±(0.016+0.15τ) compared to the ground observations at the AERONET sites. MERRA-2 near-surface dust concentrations show a power law relationship with visibility data collected at meteorological stations with an r2 value from 0.18 to 0.44, and the estimated MERRA-2 PM10 shows similar temporal variations and correlates with ground-based PM10 data with an r2 value from 0.14 to 0.44 at six selected stations in Australia. Moreover, MERRA-2 dust flux shows the same major dust pathways as those in previous studies and similar dust emissions/deposition areas. Dust events based on DAOD over eastern Australia are concentrated in the north in December, in the south in February, and can occur anywhere in January. Near-surface dust concentration was found to be the highest (over 200 μg/m3) over the center of Lake Eyre Basin in central Australia and radially decreased to the coast to below 20 μg/m3 via the two main pathways in the southwest and northeast. The ratio of near-surface dust concentration to PM10 shows a similar spatial pattern. Total dust emission was estimated to be 40 MT (mega-tonnes) per year over the period 1980–2020, of which nearly 50 % was deposited on land and the rest exported away from the Australian continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The MJA–Lancet Countdown on health and climate change in Australia was established in 2017 and produced its first national assessment in 2018 and annual updates in 2019, 2020 and 2021. It examines five broad domains: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co‐benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. In this, the fifth year of the MJA–Lancet Countdown, we track progress on an extensive suite of indicators across these five domains, accessing and presenting the latest data and further refining and developing our analyses.Within just two years, Australia has experienced two unprecedented national catastrophes — the 2019–2020 summer heatwaves and bushfires and the 2021–2022 torrential rains and flooding. Such events are costing lives and displacing tens of thousands of people. Further, our analysis shows that there are clear signs that Australia's health emergency management capacity substantially decreased in 2021.We find some signs of progress with respect to health and climate change. The states continue to lead the way in health and climate change adaptation planning, with the Victorian plan being published in early 2022. At the national level, we note progress in health and climate change research funding by the National Health and Medical Research Council. We now also see an acceleration in the uptake of electric vehicles and continued uptake of and employment in renewable energy.However, we also find Australia's transition to renewables and zero carbon remains unacceptably slow, and the Australian Government's continuing failure to produce a national climate change and health adaptation plan places the health and lives of Australians at unnecessary risk today, which does not bode well for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have considered temperature trends at the global scale, but the literature is commonly associated with an overall increase in mean temperature in a defined past time period and hence lacking in in-depth analysis of the latent trends. For example, in addition to heterogeneity in mean and median values, daily temperature data often exhibit quasi-periodic heterogeneity in variance, which has largely been overlooked in climate research. To this end, we propose a joint model of quantile regression and variability. By accounting appropriately for the heterogeneity in these types of data, our analysis using Australian data reveals that daily maximum temperature is warming by ∼0.21°C per decade and daily minimum temperature by ∼0.13°C per decade. More interestingly, our modeling also shows nuanced patterns of change over space and time depending on location, season, and the percentiles of the temperature series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is ample evidence to demonstrate that a positive group climate in juvenile justice centers contributes to improvements in motivation for positive behavior and reducing incidents and even recidivism. Being provided opportunities for growth and development and being actively supported by well-trained staff creates a positive atmosphere and minimal repression. Such a pedagogical group climate is strongly related to fulfilling the basic psychological needs of the young people and is promoted by relational security. Following a series of challenging situations inside youth justice centers in Australia, we explored the opportunities for investing in staff training on awareness of basic psychological needs of these young people and introducing the concept of an open, positive group climate. This study reports the results of an explorative measurement of perceived group climate in four units of two juvenile justice centers in Victoria (Australia). The young people (N = 57) were provided with the Prison Group Climate Instrument. The results of the group climate research and a cross-cultural comparison show that there are inherent strengths but also important opportunities for improvement in the group climate experienced by young people. Recommendations to improve the group climate are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change discourse is increasingly gaining ground in the political arena, both as a possible explanation and/or outcome of different crises and as "a climate crisis" on its own. With an increasing number of metaphors used to describe the phenomena linked to climate change, "net zero" is one the fastest emerging frames, yet it is understudied. This paper draws on climate security research and looks at the climate change discourse in Australia with a focus on the "net zero" target. Is climate change an explanatory instrument in Australian election campaigns that can be ascribed as a political concern? Climate change has been an appealing but undeveloped topic in Australian political discourse. In Australia environmental concerns have taken ground after the bushfires in 2019 and the climate discourse had an impact on the 2019 and 2022's electoral campaigns. Climate change is arguably the fastest growing concern in Australian politics; it is fair to say that the 2022 election was "the climate election". This research adopts a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis approach for a systematic analysis of the "net zero" target in Australian political discourse, its political significance, and its resonance both in electoral speeches and social media in the last ten years. The corpus consists of presidential speeches during the elections and tweets by the Australia Prime Ministers in the timeframe from 2013 to 2022, also taking into consideration comments by users in Australia and worldwide. The analysis of the "net zero" target can contribute to a better understanding of how climate change is politically construed and communicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing climate change risks requires collaboration and engagement across all sectors of society. In particular, effective partnerships are needed between research scientists producing new knowledge, policy‐makers and practitioners who apply conservation actions on the ground. We describe the implementation of a model for increasing the application and useability of biodiversity research in climate adaptation policy and practice. The focus of the program was to increase the ability of a state government agency and natural resource practitioners in Australia to manage and protect biodiversity in a changing climate. The model comprised a five‐stage process for enhancing impact (i) initiation of research projects that addressed priority conservation policy and management issues; (ii) co‐design of the research using a collaborative approach involving multiple stakeholders; (iii) implementation of the research and design of decision tools and web‐based resources; (iv) collaborative dissemination of the tools and resources via government and community working groups; and (v) evaluation of research impact. We report on the model development and implementation, and critically reflect on the model's impact. We share the lessons learnt from the challenges of operating within a stakeholder group with diverse objectives and criteria for success, and provide a template for creating an environmental research program with real world impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new regional climate projection ensemble has been created for the Australasia region as part of the World Climate Research Programs Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble is the largest regional climate projection ensemble ever created for the region. It is a 20-member ensemble made by 6 regional climate models downscaling 11 global climate models. Overall the ensemble produces a good representation of recent climate. Consistent biases within the ensemble include an underestimation of the diurnal temperature range and an underestimation of precipitation across much of southern Australia. Under a high emissions scenario projected temperature changes by the end of the twenty-first century reach ~ 5 K in the interior of Australia with smaller increases found toward the coast. Projected precipitation changes are towards drying, particularly in the most populated areas of the southwest and southeast of the continent. The projected precipitation change is very seasonal with summer projected to see little change leaning toward an increase. These results provide a foundation enabling future studies of regional climate changes, climate change impacts, and adaptation options for Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southwestern Australia is a high priority area for climate research as there has been a significant, anthropogenically influenced winter rainfall decline detected in the region since 1970. Here we present the oldest daily historical climate dataset for Perth, southwestern Australia, to provide an extended record for analysing pre‐industrial climate variability and extremes from the region. This newly digitized record contains sub‐daily observations of temperature, barometric pressure, wind direction and weather remarks, including rain days, from 1830 to 1875. Following quality control and homogeneity adjustments, we demonstrate that the historical dataset reliably resolves modern characteristics of Perth's weather and climate variability, including the seasonal cycle and the ability to capture daily extremes like storm and heatwave events. We compare covariations in temperature, pressure, wind and rain days to cross‐verify our historical dataset against modern observations for Perth. We also use the historical dataset, modern Australian Bureau of Meteorology observations, the Twentieth Century Reanalysis, and historical documents to further validate our results. The multivariate method introduced in this study demonstrates that using multiple variables and data sources is a useful approach to reconstruct past variability, extremes and their societal impacts from historical observations. This is the first long instrumental record to be developed for southwestern Australia; an important region for observing pre‐industrial Indian and Southern Ocean variability and extremes. The new record from Perth provides 19th century data from a data sparse region of the Southern Hemisphere that can now be compared with daily observations from South Africa, New Zealand and southeastern Australia. This comparison will improve our understanding of contemporary changes in Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in mean and extreme precipitation are among the most important consequences of climate change. Here, we examine the relationship between the mean and three different measures of extreme precipitation over Australia, from a regional climate model (RCM) ensemble. We show that model uncertainty in mean and extreme precipitation are tightly coupled for both the present‐day climate and future changes. On the continental scale, strong correlations (0.79–0.99) are observed across models between the changes in mean and extreme precipitation. We also find that except in eastern coastal regions, precipitation statistics projected by RCM are highly predictable (up to 60%–70% of variance explained) from the mean precipitation of the global climate model (GCM) providing the boundary conditions. In coastal locations where RCMs are more accurate than GCMs for the present climate, they are less predictable, hence provide information—but this impact disappears for climate change, suggesting that improved present‐day accuracy may not carry over to climate change. Plain Language Summary: In this study, we report a surprisingly strong relationship between the mean and extremes in predicted precipitation at the regional scale in Australia, which applies to both the present‐day climate and future changes from global warming. That is, if one knew the change in mean precipitation (which is currently not well known), this would substantially narrow the uncertainty in the extremes. We also show that forecasts using detailed regional climate models end up depending mainly on what happens to the mean precipitation in the driving global climate models, which is determined by global drivers and responses. This result affects how climate change data are interpreted, and how we should focus climate research in the future. Key Points: Model spread in precipitation extremes over Australia is strongly related to spread in mean precipitation on the continental scalePrecipitation statistics projected by a regional modeling system are highly predictable from the mean precipitation of the global modelImproved projections of regional extreme precipitation require better simulations of changes in the atmospheric general circulation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of Australian climate scientists in advancing the state of knowledge about the causes and mechanisms of climatic change and variability in the Southern Hemisphere during the 1970 and 1980s. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses the methods and insights of environmental history and the history of science to analyse archival and published data pertaining to research on atmospheric pollution, the Southern Oscillation and the regional impacts of climate change. Findings: Australia's geopolitical position, political interests and environmental sensitivities encouraged Australian scientists and policymakers to take a leading role in the Southern Hemisphere in the study of global environmental change. Originality/value: This article builds on critiques of the ways in which planetary and global knowledge and governance disguise the local and situated scientific and material processes that construct, sustain and configure them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: Authors are encouraged to provide a concise description of the specific application or a potential application of the work. This section is not mandatory. Droughts can cause significant damage to agriculture and water resources, leading to severe economic losses and loss of life. One of the most important aspect is to develop effective tools to forecast drought events that could be helpful in mitigation strategies. The understanding of droughts has become more challenging because of the effect of climate change, urbanization and water management; therefore, the present study aims to forecast droughts by determining an appropriate index and analyzing its changes, using climate variables. The work was conducted in three different phases, first being the determination of Standard Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), using global climatic dataset of Climate Research Unit (CRU) from 1901–2018. The indices are calculated at different monthly intervals which could depict short-term or long-term changes, and the index value represents different drought classes, ranging from extremely dry to extremely wet. However, the present study was focused only on forecasting at short-term scales for New South Wales (NSW) region of Australia and was conducted at two different time scales, one month and three months. The second phase involved dividing the data into three sample sizes, training (1901–2010), testing (2011–2015) and validation (2016–2018). Finally, a machine learning approach, Random Forest (RF), was used to train and test the data, using various climatic variables, e.g., rainfall, potential evapotranspiration, cloud cover, vapor pressure and temperature (maximum, minimum and mean). The final phase was to analyze the performance of the model based on statistical metrics and drought classes. Regarding this, the performance of the testing period was conducted by using statistical metrics, Coefficient of Determination (R2) and Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) method. The performance of the model showed a considerably higher value of R2 for both the time scales. However, statistical metrics analyzes the variation between the predicted and observed index values, and it does not consider the drought classes. Therefore, the variation in predicted and observed SPEI values were analyzed based on different drought classes, which were validated by using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)-based Area under the Curve (AUC) approach. The results reveal that the classification of drought classes during the validation period had an AUC of 0.82 for SPEI 1 case and 0.84 for SPEI 3 case. The study depicts that the Random Forest model can perform both regression and classification analysis for drought studies in NSW. The work also suggests that the performance of any model for drought forecasting should not be limited only through statistical metrics, but also by examining the variation in terms of drought characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess, compare and explain safety climate differences between the Indonesian and Australian construction industries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reports a comparative safety climate survey of 415 construction personnel working in the Australian and Indonesia construction industries. Findings: Surprisingly, the results show that the safety climate in Indonesia and Australia are similar and that the differences in safety performance, safety climate must be interpreted within the context of wider health and safety norms, regulations, awareness, knowledge and typical work environments to make any sense. Research limitations/implications: This research contributes a missing international comparative dimension to the emerging research on construction safety climate. Indonesian studies are notably absent from this literature, despite the size of the country and the poor health and safety record of its construction industry. Similar comparisons between safety climate in other countries need to be made. Practical implications: This research allows construction managers operating across international boundaries to better understand the cultural and institutional context in which safety climate is developed. This will assist in the development of more culturally sensitive safety management strategies. Social implications: The construction industry's poor safety record has serious implications for both individuals working in the industry, their immediate families and the communities in which they live. By improving the safety record of the industry these impacts can be reduced. Originality/value: This research reveals, for the first time, the cultural and institutional complexities of comparing safety climate across different countries. The results contribute to safety climate research by highlighting the importance of cultural and institutional relativity in making international comparisons of health and safety research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic processing of ionograms to extract ionospheric propagation characteristics and electron density profile parameters is an important enabling step toward constructing real time data‐assimilative models of the ionosphere. A robust and reliable feature extraction and fitting algorithm that supports both oblique and vertical incidence ionograms has recently been developed to enhance the regional ionospheric model for Australia's Jindalee Operational Radar Network. The so‐called DST‐IIP algorithm is an autoscaling technique based on a constrained quasi‐parabolic segment profile, which is modified from its climatological estimate to fit a set of key peak, edge, and line features in the ionogram image, representing the E, sporadic‐E (Es), and F2 layers. The F2 fitting, in particular, is performed in the ionogram domain, using analytic ray‐tracing and homing to produce a synthetic trace that reproduces the image features. Following thorough testing on a large database of midlatitude Australian ionograms, the DST‐IIP algorithm now runs routinely on‐board DST Group's Digital Oblique Receiving System. This paper provides an overview of the technique, along with sample results and performance statistics. Plain Language Summary: An ionogram image captures the path losses and delays for radio propagation via the ionosphere, an outer charged layer of the Earth's atmosphere that refracts high‐frequency radio waves. In order to relate ionograms from multiple ionospheric paths, the usual approach is to automatically convert these images to a parameterized form representing the midpoint electron density profiles. This paper describes such a technique, based on fitting the parameterized profile to a set of key peak, edge, and line features in the ionogram image. It is shown to be robust and reliable across a variety of path geometries and propagation conditions and now runs routinely on‐board DST Group's own ionospheric sounder (or ionosonde), the Digital Oblique Receiving System. Key Points: An algorithm for automatically scaling oblique and vertical incidence ionograms has been developed in conjunction with a new ionosondeThe algorithm extracts key features describing the E, Es, and F2 layers, to which a parameterized profile of electron density is fittedPerformance is shown to be robust under a variety of ionospheric conditions, and results compare well to other nearby sounders [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerable scrutiny by the physical sciences, recent climate scholarship has highlighted the need for a re-examination of the cultural and spatial dimensions of climate, with contributions from the humanities and social sciences. Establishing a multidisciplinary dialogue and approach to climate research past, present, and future has arguably never been more important. This article outlines developments in historical climatology research and considers examples of integrated multidisciplinary approaches to climate, climatic variability, and climate change research, conducted across the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts. We highlight the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth ( ACRE) initiative as one example of such an integrated approach. Initially, ACRE began as a response from climate science to the needs of the agricultural sector in Queensland, Australia for a longer, more spatially, and temporally-complete database of the weather. ACRE has now evolved to embrace an international group of researchers working together across disciplines to integrate their efforts into a four-dimensional ( 4D) dynamical global historical climate-quality reanalysis (reconstruction). WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:164-174. doi: 10.1002/wcc.379 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the possible causes of mean seal level pressure (MSLP) anomalies in south Australia in August 2014. Topics covered include analysis of weather@home global simulations, the impact of climate change on the monthly MSLP anomalies and the findings that human influence on climate variation increased the chances of extreme high pressure anomalies associated with reduced rainfall, lowland snowfall and frosts.

The identification of extratropical fronts in reanalyses and climate models is an important climate diagnostic that aids dynamical understanding and model verification. This study compares six frontal identification methods that are applied to June and July reanalysis data over the Central Wheatbelt of southwest Western Australia for 1979-2006. Much of the winter rainfall over this region originates from frontal systems. Five of the methods use automated algorithms. These make use of different approaches, based on shifts in 850-hPa winds (WND), gradients of temperature (TGR) and wet-bulb potential temperature (WPT), pattern matching (PMM), and a self-organizing map (SOM). The sixth method was a manual synoptic technique (MAN). On average, about 50% of rain days were associated with fronts in most schemes (although methods PMM and SOM exhibited a lower percentage). On a daily basis, most methods identify the same systems more than 50% of the time, and over the 28-yr period the seasonal time series correlate strongly. The association with rainfall is less clear. The WND time series of seasonal frontal counts correlate significantly with Central Wheatbelt rainfall. All automated methods identify fronts on some days that are classified as cutoff lows in the manual analysis, which will impact rainfall correlations. The front numbers identified on all days by the automated methods decline from 1979 to 2006 (but only the TGR and WPT trends were significant at the 10% level). The results here highlight that automated techniques have value in understanding frontal behavior and can be used to identify the changes in the frequency of frontal systems through time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Australia is one of the world leaders in conservation biology, it is not in conservation policy. Proposed so-called policy "reforms" in environmental policy will undermine many of the important gains made in conservation management. Here I outline four retrogressive policy changes proposed or currently taking place in eastern Australian states. These range from branding climate research as "post-normal" science through to grazing of alpine environments to reduce "blazing" despite overwhelming evidence that it has no such effect. Conservation scientists will need to work extremely hard to communicate their science and underscore the need for scientific data to underpin truly evidence-based conservation policy and evidence-based conservation management. The consequences of failing to do so will be an ongoing decline in the quality of environmental policies and impaired environmental and conservation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The summer mean water vapor transport (WVT) and cross-equatorial flow (CEF) over the Asian-Australian monsoon region simulated by 22 coupled atmospheric-oceanic general circulation models (AOGCMs) from the World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) were evaluated. Based on climatology of the twentieth-century simulations, most of models have a reasonably realistic representation of summer monsoon WVT characterized by southeast water vapor conveyor belt over the South Indian Ocean and southwest belt from the Arabian Sea to the East Asian. The correlation coefficients between NCEP reanalysis and simulations of BCC-CSM1-1, BNU-ESM, CanESM2, FGOALS-s2, MIROC4h and MPI-ESM-LR are up to 0.8. The simulated CEF depicted by the meridional wind along the equator includes the Somali jet and eastern CEF in low atmosphere and the reverse circulation in upper atmosphere, which were generally consistent with NCEP reanalysis. Multi-model ensemble means (MME) can reproduce more reasonable climatological features in spatial distribution both of WVT and CEF. Ten models with more reasonable WVT simulations were selected for future projection studies, including BCCCSM1-1, BNU-ESM, CanESM2, CCSM4, FGOALS-s2, FIO-ESM, GFDL-ESM2G, MRIOC5, MPI-ESM-LR and NorESM-1M. Analysis based on the future projection experiments in RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6 and RCP8.5 show that the global warming forced by different RCP scenarios will results in enhanced WVT over the Indian area and the west Pacific and weaken WVT in the low latitudes of tropical Indian Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The instrumental record for rainfall across Australia is regarded as being sufficiently reliable to produce national monthly gridded rainfall analyses from 1900 onward. Prior to 1900, the rainfall gauge network is much sparser. The possibility of using those nineteenth-century observations that do exist to construct an estimate of rainfall across the southeastern part of Australia (SEA) is explored by constructing a network based on 11 locations comprising either single observing sites or composites of nearby observing sites with long continuous records. It is shown that, during the period 1900-2010, the monthly rainfall reconstruction based on this network captures 98% of the variability of SEA monthly average rainfall. This network, which extends back to 1865, provides a useful view of the Federation Drought, making a comparison possible with other long-term droughts observed in SEA, around the time of the Second World War and the Millennium Drought from 1997 to 2009. A comparison of these three historical low-rainfall periods was conducted using the drought-depth-duration criteria: the ongoing decline in southeastern Australia is seen as being notably worse than the previous two historical droughts. The network also provides an insight into the decadal variability of SEA rainfall in the later part of the nineteenth century; it includes a high peak in the 1870s comparable to similar wet decadal peaks in the 1950s and 1970s. The implications of this longer perspective on the decadal variability in southeastern Australia in light of the current understanding of the ongoing rainfall deficit are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While morbidity outcomes for major disease categories during extreme heat have received increasing research attention, there has been very limited investigation at the level of specific disease subcategories. Methodology/Principal Findings: We analyzed daily hospital admissions for cardiovascular (CVD), respiratory (RD), genitourinary (GU) and mental diseases (MD), diabetes (DIA), dehydration (DEH) and ‘the effects of heat and light’ (HEAT) in Sydney between 1991 and 2009. We further investigated the sensitivity to heat of subcategories within the major disease groups. We defined hot days as those with temperatures in the 95th and 99th percentiles within the study period. We applied time-stratified case-crossover analysis to compare the hospital admissions on hot days with those on non-hot days matched by day of the week. We calculated the odds ratios (OR) of admissions between the two types of days, accounting for other environmental variables (relative humidity, ozone and particulate matter) and non-environmental trends (public and school holidays). On hot days, hospital admissions increased for all major categories except GU. This increase was not shared homogeneously across all diseases within a major category: within RD, only ‘other diseases of the respiratory system’ (includes pleurisy or empyema) increased significantly, while admissions for asthma decreased. Within MD, hospital admissions increased only for psychoses. Admissions due to some major categories increased one to three days after a hot day (e.g., DIA, RD and CVD) and on two and three consecutive days (e.g., HEAT and RD). Conclusions/Significance: High ambient temperatures were associated with increased hospital admissions for several disease categories, with some within-category variation. Future analyses should focus on subgroups within broad disease categories to pinpoint medical conditions most affected by ambient heat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the near-surface responses, in the Southern Hemisphere atmosphere, to a reduction and an excess of sea ice cover in the Ross Sea. Large ensembles (60 members) of the Atmospheric General Circulation Model of the Center for Weather Forecast and Climate Studies (AGCM-CPTEC) are used for this purpose. Locally, when the sea ice cover decreases (increases), heat fluxes, temperature, and pressure increase (decreases). A principal component analysis of temperature and geopotential height identifies the potential remote connections. We have found three main results: first, an association between the sea ice cover in the Ross Sea and a wave train that resembles the Pacific South American (PSA) pattern; second, a relationship between temperatures in the Ross Sea and in the southern South America; and third, an apparent correspondence between reduced sea ice cover in the Ross Sea and the subtropical jet over Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, www.imos.org.au), an AUD $150 m 7-year project (2007-2013), is a distributed set of equipment and data-information services which, among many applications, collectively contribute to meeting the needs of marine climate research in Australia. The observing system provides data in the open oceans around Australia out to a few thousand kilometres as well as the coastal oceans through 11 facilities which effectively observe and measure the 4-dimensional ocean variability, and the physical and biological response of coastal and shelf seas around Australia. Through a national science rationale IMOS is organized as five regional nodes (Western Australia - WAIMOS, South Australian - SAIMOS, Tasmania - TASIMOS, New SouthWales - NSWIMOS and Queensland - QIMOS) surrounded by an oceanic node (Blue Water and Climate). Operationally IMOS is organized as 11 facilities (Argo Australia, Ships of Opportunity, Southern Ocean Automated Time Series Observations, Australian National Facility for Ocean Gliders, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Facility, Australian National Mooring Network, Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network, Australian Acoustic Tagging and Monitoring System, Facility for Automated Intelligent Monitoring of Marine Systems, eMarine Information Infrastructure and Satellite Remote Sensing) delivering data. IMOS data is freely available to the public. The data, a combination of near real-time and delayed mode, are made available to researchers through the electronic Marine Information Infrastructure (eMII). eMII utilises the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNET) to support a distributed database on OPeN-DAP/THREDDS servers hosted by regional computing centres. IMOS instruments are described through the OGC Specification SensorML and where-ever possible data is in CF compliant netCDF format. Metadata, conforming to standard ISO 19115, is automatically harvested from the netCDF files and the metadata records catalogued in the OGC GeoNetwork Metadata Entry and Search Tool (MEST). Data discovery, access and download occur via web services through the IMOS Ocean Portal (http://imos.aodn.org.au) and tools for the display and integration of near real-time data are in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change will affect human health, mostly adversely, resulting in a greater burden on the health care system, in addition to any other coexistent increases in demand (e.g. from Australia's increasingly ageing population). Understanding the extent to which health is likely to be affected by climate change will enable policy makers and practitioners to prepare for changing demands on the health care system. This will require prioritisation of key research questions and building research capacity in the field. There is an urgent need to better understand the implications of climate change for the distribution and prevalence of diseases, disaster preparedness and multidisciplinary service planning. Research is needed to understand the relationship of climate change to health promotion, policy evaluation and strategic financing of health services. Training of health care professionals about climate change and its effects will also be important in meeting long-term workforce demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores potential impacts of the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) on summer climate variability and predictability in the Australia–Asian region through Australia–Asia (A-A) monsoon interactions. Observational analysis is conducted for the period of 1959 to 2001 using ERA-40 wind reanalysis and Climate Research Unit rainfall and surface temperature monthly datasets. Statistically significant correlations are established between the Australian summer monsoon and its rainfall variations with cross-equatorial flows penetrating from South China Sea region and northerly flow in the EAWM. The underlying mechanism for such connections is the response of the position and intensity of Hardley circulation to strong/weak EAWM. A strong EAWM is associated with an enhanced cross-equatorial flow crossing the maritime continent and a strengthened Australia summer monsoon westerlies which affect rainfall and temperature variations in northern and eastern part of the Australian continent. Furthermore, partial correlation analysis, which largely excludes El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects, suggests that these connections are the inherent features in the monsoon system. This is further supported by analyzing a global model experiment using persistent sea surface temperatures (SSTs) which, without any SST interannual variations, shows similar patterns as in the observational analysis. Furthermore, such interaction could potentially affect climate predictability in the region, as shown by some statistically significant lag correlations at monthly time scale. Such results are attributed to the impacts of EAWM on regional SST variations and its linkage to surface conditions in the Eurasian continent. Finally, such impacts under global warmed climate are discussed by analyzing ten IPCC AR4 models and results suggest they still exist in the warmed climate even though the EAWM tends to be weaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates the lag relationship between the runoff throughout southeast Australia rainfall throughout Australia. The study analyzes the relationship between the two events, wherein results show that the rainfall data suggests that the relationship is superior during summer and spring in northeast Australia and during spring in southeast Australia. Other findings show that the runoff certainty in the southeast part is superior during summer and spring season.

This article examines dynamical downscaling with a scale-selective filter in the Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM). In this study, 1D and 2D scale-selective filters have been implemented using a convolution-based scheme, since a convolution can be readily evaluated in terms of CCAM’s native conformal cubic coordinates. The downscaling accuracy of 1D and 2D scale-selective filters is evaluated after downscaling NCEP Global Forecast System analyses for 2006 from 200-km resolution to 60-km resolution over Australia. The 1D scale-selective filter scheme was found to downscale the analyses with similar accuracy to a 2D filter but required significantly fewer computations. The 1D and 2D scale-selective filters were also found to downscale the analyses more accurately than a far-field nudging scheme (i.e., analogous to a boundary-value nudging approach). It is concluded that when the model is required to reproduce the host model behavior above a specified length scale then the use of an appropriately designed 1D scale-selective filter can be a computationally efficient approach to dynamical downscaling for models having a cube-based geometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic interaction between building systems and external climate is extremely complex, involving a large number of difficult-to-predict variables. In order to study the impact of climate change on the built environment, the use of building simulation techniques together with forecast weather data are often necessary. Since most of building simulation programs require hourly meteorological input data for their thermal comfort and energy evaluation, the provision of suitable weather data becomes critical. In this paper, the methods used to prepare future weather data for the study of the impact of climate change are reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. The inherent relationship between these methods is also illustrated. Based on these discussions and the analysis of Australian historic climatic data, an effective framework and procedure to generate future hourly weather data is presented. It is shown that this method is not only able to deal with different levels of available information regarding the climate change, but also can retain the key characters of a “typical” year weather data for a desired period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article assesses the trend of observed and modeled extreme climate in Australia. Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes throughout the continent are primarily dependent on the relation between cold and hot conditions in the area. Analysis shows that increase in occurrences of hot days and warm nights decreases in occurrences of cool days and cold nights. However, data on the observation of temperature changes make it difficult for climatologists to compare observations objectively with simulations from climate models that output data on spatial grids.

Transition mechanisms characterizing changes from hurricanes to midlatitude cyclones and vice-versa (extratropical and tropical transition) have become a topic of increasing interest, partially because of their association with recent unusual storms that have developed in different ocean basins of both hemispheres. The aim of this work is to discuss some recent cases of transition and highly unusual hurricane developments and to address some of their wider implications for climate science. Frequently those dramatic cyclones are responsible for severe weather, potentially causing significant damage to property and infrastructure. An additional manifestation discussed here is their association with cold surges, a topic that has been very little explored in the literature. In the Southern Hemisphere, the first South Atlantic hurricane, Catarina, developed in March 2004 under very unusual large-scale conditions. That exceptional cyclone is viewed as a case of tropical transition facilitated by a well-developed blocking structure. A new index for monitoring tropical transition in the subtropical South Atlantic is discussed. This “South Atlantic index” is used to show that the unusual flow during and prior to Catarina's genesis can be attributed to tropical/extratropical interaction mechanisms. The “Donald Duck” case in Australia and Vince in the North Atlantic have also been examined and shown to belong to a category of hybrid-transitioning systems that will achieve at least partial tropical transition. While clearly more research is needed on the topic of transition, as we gain further insight, it is becoming increasingly apparent that features of large-scale circulation do play a fundamental role. A complex interaction between an extratropical transition case and an extreme summer cold surge affecting southeastern Australia is discussed as an example of wider climate implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the impact of future climate change on the risk of forest and grassland fires over Australia in January using a high resolution regional climate model, driven at the boundaries by data from a transitory coupled climate model. Two future emission scenarios (relatively high and relatively low) are used for 2050 and 2100 and four realizations for each time period and each emission scenario are run. Results show a consistent increase in regional-scale fire risk over Australia driven principally by warming and reductions in relative humidity in all simulations, under all emission scenarios and at all time periods. We calculate the probability density function for the fire risk for a single point in New South Wales and show that the probability of extreme fire risk increases by around 25% compared to the present day in 2050 under both relatively low and relatively high emissions, and that this increases by a further 20% under the relatively low emission scenario by 2100. The increase in the probability of extreme fire risk increases dramatically under the high emission scenario by 2100. Our results are broadly in-line with earlier analyses despite our use of a significantly different methodology and we therefore conclude that the likelihood of a significant increase in fire risk over Australia resulting from climate change is very high. While there is already substantial investment in fire-related management in Australia, our results indicate that this investment is likely to have to increase to maintain the present fire-related losses in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate and consistent broad-scale mapping of fire severity is an important resource for fire management as well as fire-related ecological and climate change research. Remote sensing and machine learning approaches present an opportunity to enhance accuracy and efficiency of current practices. Quantitative biophysical models of photosynthetic, non-photosynthetic and bare cover fractions have not been widely applied to fire severity studies but may provide greater consistency in comparisons of different fires across the landscape compared to reflectance-based indices. We systematically tested and compared reflectance and fractional cover candidate severity indices derived from Sentinel 2 satellite imagery using a random forest (RF) machine learning framework. Assessment of predictive power (cross-validation) was undertaken to quantify the accuracy of mapping severity of new fires. The effect of environmental variables on the accuracy of the RF predicted severity classification was examined to assess the stability of the mapping across the landscape. The results indicate that fire severity can be mapped with very high accuracy using Sentinel 2 imagery and RF supervised classification. The mean accuracy was >95% for the unburnt and extreme severity class (complete crown consumption), >85% for high severity class (full crown scorch), >80% for low severity (burnt understory, unburnt canopy) and >70% for the moderate severity class (partial canopy scorch). Higher canopy cover and higher topographic complexity was associated with a higher rate of under-prediction, due to the limitations of optical sensors in viewing the burnt understorey of low severity classes under these conditions. Further research is aimed at improving classification accuracy of low and moderate severity classes and applying the RF algorithm to hazard reduction fires. • Fire severity was mapped with high accuracy with Sentinel 2 and Random Forest. • The model with both fractional cover and reflectance indices performed the best. • Fractional cover indices especially helped to delineate unburnt from burnt. • Under-prediction of low severity (omission) was associated with high canopy density. • The Sentinel 2 algorithm has potential application to Landsat for archive mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the State of the Climate report which discusses the increasing hot temperature in Australia. It states that the country experienced more days of extreme heat in 2013 than in 30 years between 1910 and 1940. It notes that the national warming trends outpaced the global trend. It mentions that the report was issued as the new conservative government plans to repeal the 23 Australian dollar per ton carbon price.

The article describes the Investigator, the research vessel of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, that will arrive in Hobart, Tasmania in September 2013. The 120 million Australian dollar-ship will replace the Research Vessel (RV) Southern Surveyor. The vessel is said to be significantly bigger and will represent an exceptional increase capability in climate research and weather forecasting.

The article discusses research conducted by Clive McAlpine and colleagues of the University of Queensland on how changes in land cover have affected local climate and worsened droughts in eastern Australia. The researchers investigated land use change from 1951 to 2003 through computer models concerned with climate.