Optimal environmental monitoring under severe uncertainty. Environmental monitoring is a type of quality control that informs managers about the health of the environment and about how well their management systems are performing. Because it is a critical, but expensive, component of sustainable management, it is important to ensure value for resources spent on monitoring and that environmental impacts will be detected if they are occurring. We argue that current approaches to environmental mana ....Optimal environmental monitoring under severe uncertainty. Environmental monitoring is a type of quality control that informs managers about the health of the environment and about how well their management systems are performing. Because it is a critical, but expensive, component of sustainable management, it is important to ensure value for resources spent on monitoring and that environmental impacts will be detected if they are occurring. We argue that current approaches to environmental management ensure neither efficiency nor environmental security. The aim of the project is to develop theories and techniques to make monitoring both cost effective and reliable, thereby providing monetary savings and better environmental outcomes.Read moreRead less
Storm activity in the Arctic and implications for rapid climate change in polar regions. Australia's weather and climate is influenced in a myriad of ways by Antarctica and its environs. The complex manners in which weather systems interact with polar processes are fundamental in understanding these links. The dramatic changes which the Arctic has undergone in recent years present a very valuable environmental framework for understanding how the complex polar weather - climate connections change ....Storm activity in the Arctic and implications for rapid climate change in polar regions. Australia's weather and climate is influenced in a myriad of ways by Antarctica and its environs. The complex manners in which weather systems interact with polar processes are fundamental in understanding these links. The dramatic changes which the Arctic has undergone in recent years present a very valuable environmental framework for understanding how the complex polar weather - climate connections change during a period of rapid change. This is of great national and community benefit in that it will lead to a fuller understanding of the polar regions, and present a broader context in which precipitation and other changes over southern Australia can be understood.Read moreRead less
Rainfall over the Maritime Continent and Northern Australia. Australia's proximity to the tropics results in major influences, both direct and indirect, of tropical weather and climate on society as a whole. Tropical convection is key to all those influences. The prediction of the many natural hazards related to convection as well as a projection of the influence and strength of these hazards under climate change is a matter of high national priority. Through an improved understanding of convect ....Rainfall over the Maritime Continent and Northern Australia. Australia's proximity to the tropics results in major influences, both direct and indirect, of tropical weather and climate on society as a whole. Tropical convection is key to all those influences. The prediction of the many natural hazards related to convection as well as a projection of the influence and strength of these hazards under climate change is a matter of high national priority. Through an improved understanding of convection over tropical Australia and in its vicinity, the proposed research will improve our predictive tools and capabilities, thereby making a major contribution to decision-making in an environmentally sustainable Australia.Read moreRead less
Responding to Climate Change: Australia's Environmental Law and Regulatory Framework. Climate change presents Australia with unparalleled sustainability challenges. Impacts on environmental resources will require an integrated legal and socio-economic regulatory response. An effective and adaptable environmental law framework will be crucial for adaptation and mitigation measures. The project addresses this need by undertaking a comprehensive, interdisciplinary evaluation of Australia's legal ca ....Responding to Climate Change: Australia's Environmental Law and Regulatory Framework. Climate change presents Australia with unparalleled sustainability challenges. Impacts on environmental resources will require an integrated legal and socio-economic regulatory response. An effective and adaptable environmental law framework will be crucial for adaptation and mitigation measures. The project addresses this need by undertaking a comprehensive, interdisciplinary evaluation of Australia's legal capacity to respond to climate change, so identifying appropriate governance structures and regulatory tools. This analysis is vital to positioning Australian environmental law to manage climate change impacts and associated social, ecological and economic costs and to ensure compliance with international obligations.Read moreRead less
Nanocomposite Mesoporous Materials for Gas Separations of Environmental Significance. The management of greenhouse and other acid gas emissions is vital to a sustainable future of both the economy and the ecosystem. This project will develop novel nano-materials for gas separation by tethering organic functional groups to the surface of porous inorganic supports. These materials offer the promise of combining the high selectivity and high capacity of liquid phase absorption systems with the rapi ....Nanocomposite Mesoporous Materials for Gas Separations of Environmental Significance. The management of greenhouse and other acid gas emissions is vital to a sustainable future of both the economy and the ecosystem. This project will develop novel nano-materials for gas separation by tethering organic functional groups to the surface of porous inorganic supports. These materials offer the promise of combining the high selectivity and high capacity of liquid phase absorption systems with the rapid transport rates of gas-solid adsorption systems. Success would open up several new possibilities for reengineering gas separation systems based on the use of these materials in solution, as solid phase adsorbents (pressure swing adsorption) and/or as permeselective gas membranes.Read moreRead less
Extratropical cyclone trends in current and future climate and associations with southern Australia rainfall. A sophisticated cyclone locating and tracking scheme will be applied to the NCEP-2 global atmospheric reanalysis (1979-2003) to derive new and comprehensive compilations of Southern Hemisphere synoptic activity at all tropospheric levels up to 300 hPa. Trends in cyclone behaviour will be identified and related to changes in precipitation over southern Australia. The approach will be exte ....Extratropical cyclone trends in current and future climate and associations with southern Australia rainfall. A sophisticated cyclone locating and tracking scheme will be applied to the NCEP-2 global atmospheric reanalysis (1979-2003) to derive new and comprehensive compilations of Southern Hemisphere synoptic activity at all tropospheric levels up to 300 hPa. Trends in cyclone behaviour will be identified and related to changes in precipitation over southern Australia. The approach will be extended to results from a simulation of future climate under enhanced greenhouse conditions. The extent to which extreme cyclone and precipitation events become more numerous in a warmer world will be determined and the links between them established.Read moreRead less
Precise constraints on the timing and nature of late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climatic transitions in the Southwest Pacific region. An accurate understanding of major climatic transitions during the recent geological past is critical to efforts to understand global climate. This project seeks to investigate precisely when the most recent ice ages began and ended in the Southwest Pacific region relative to other regions of the world, by examining chemical and isotopic records contained in ....Precise constraints on the timing and nature of late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climatic transitions in the Southwest Pacific region. An accurate understanding of major climatic transitions during the recent geological past is critical to efforts to understand global climate. This project seeks to investigate precisely when the most recent ice ages began and ended in the Southwest Pacific region relative to other regions of the world, by examining chemical and isotopic records contained in New Zealand cave deposits. Using state-of-the-art analytical technology, precisely dated records of glacier activity and environmental change will be produced.Read moreRead less
Global objective identification and tracking of atmospheric fronts and the role of fronts in climate change. Fronts, particularly those in the Indian and Southern Oceans, have a very strong impact on day-to-day weather over a vast proportion of Australia. Frontal systems are associated with a broad range of weather and climate parameters which affect people directly. These include precipitation, temperature, wind and a variety of extremes. The quality global climatology of fronts to be compiled ....Global objective identification and tracking of atmospheric fronts and the role of fronts in climate change. Fronts, particularly those in the Indian and Southern Oceans, have a very strong impact on day-to-day weather over a vast proportion of Australia. Frontal systems are associated with a broad range of weather and climate parameters which affect people directly. These include precipitation, temperature, wind and a variety of extremes. The quality global climatology of fronts to be compiled in this project will allow reliable assessments of how frontal systems have changed, and may be expected to change in the next century. Great community benefit will derive from understanding how these are linked with changes in Australian weather and climate extremes, and to decreases in rainfall over southern Australia in recent decades.Read moreRead less
Assimilation of trace atmospheric constituents for climate (ATACC): Linking chemical weather and climate. Changes in atmospheric ozone and carbon dioxide affect many aspects of surface climate from changes in ultraviolet radiation (ozone) to long-term changes in temperature (carbon dioxide). Better mapping of these gases will help us understand, predict and manage these changes. For ozone, it will clarify the link between ozone and surface weather. For carbon dioxide, improved knowledge of the ....Assimilation of trace atmospheric constituents for climate (ATACC): Linking chemical weather and climate. Changes in atmospheric ozone and carbon dioxide affect many aspects of surface climate from changes in ultraviolet radiation (ozone) to long-term changes in temperature (carbon dioxide). Better mapping of these gases will help us understand, predict and manage these changes. For ozone, it will clarify the link between ozone and surface weather. For carbon dioxide, improved knowledge of the impact of tropical deforestation, land clearing and changes in the southern ocean on atmospheric CO2 will support sustainable development in Australia and our region. The project hence addresses the priority goal 'Responding to climate change and variability` under the National Research Priority 'An Environmentally Sustainable Australia`.
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Tectonic Reconstruction of the Evolution of the Alpine-Himalayan Orogenic Chain. This project will construct a computationally explicit model of movements in the solid Earth for the past 150 million years, to study the Earth as a complex system during the collision that produced the Alpine-Himalayan mountain belt. This is the youngest collisional mountain belt on Earth, and at times it stretched from Spain to New Zealand. Earth Scientists want to understand the processes that took place to mak ....Tectonic Reconstruction of the Evolution of the Alpine-Himalayan Orogenic Chain. This project will construct a computationally explicit model of movements in the solid Earth for the past 150 million years, to study the Earth as a complex system during the collision that produced the Alpine-Himalayan mountain belt. This is the youngest collisional mountain belt on Earth, and at times it stretched from Spain to New Zealand. Earth Scientists want to understand the processes that took place to make it, in particular the role of ribbon continents. As a result of this work ordinary Australians will be able to better perceive their interactions with their nearest neighbours.Read moreRead less