Physics-aware machine learning for data-driven fire risk prediction. The 2019/20 Australian fire season was unprecedented in its extent, impact, and the response of fire agencies. In this project, we aim to answer the question: was the scale of these fires driven by known drivers of fire (drought, weather, fuels and ignitions), or were fundamentally new undescribed processes and phenomena involved? We will accomplish this by developing an innovative, physics-aware machine learning model of fire ....Physics-aware machine learning for data-driven fire risk prediction. The 2019/20 Australian fire season was unprecedented in its extent, impact, and the response of fire agencies. In this project, we aim to answer the question: was the scale of these fires driven by known drivers of fire (drought, weather, fuels and ignitions), or were fundamentally new undescribed processes and phenomena involved? We will accomplish this by developing an innovative, physics-aware machine learning model of fire risk and spread, trained and validated on a two-decade satellite fire record. The predictive ability of the model will be tested on the 2019/20 fire season to determine if novel drivers of fire can be identified, and the model itself will be operationalised into a novel short-to-mid term fire risk prediction tool. Read moreRead less
Active Ice-Shelf Rift Systems on the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica. Our work will inform the public on how the Antarctic might contribute to global sea level rise, e.g., are current iceberg production rates accelerating and causing inland ice to flow into the sea more rapidly? Furthermore, a greater understanding of the important Earth systems, including the ocean-ice-atmosphere system, is important to a society contemplating the responsibilities of stewardship of the planet as we move into t ....Active Ice-Shelf Rift Systems on the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica. Our work will inform the public on how the Antarctic might contribute to global sea level rise, e.g., are current iceberg production rates accelerating and causing inland ice to flow into the sea more rapidly? Furthermore, a greater understanding of the important Earth systems, including the ocean-ice-atmosphere system, is important to a society contemplating the responsibilities of stewardship of the planet as we move into the era of potentially profound effects from global climate change.Read moreRead less
Equator to Pole: Reconstructing tropical and Antarctic climate variability over the last millennium and their impacts on southern Australian rainfall. Water resource management is one of the greatest challenges facing sustainable agriculture and urban populations across southern Australia. Key players driving catastrophic droughts in southern Australia are the tropical Indian Ocean Dipole and polar Southern Annual Mode climate systems, which affect moisture availability and transport pathways. T ....Equator to Pole: Reconstructing tropical and Antarctic climate variability over the last millennium and their impacts on southern Australian rainfall. Water resource management is one of the greatest challenges facing sustainable agriculture and urban populations across southern Australia. Key players driving catastrophic droughts in southern Australia are the tropical Indian Ocean Dipole and polar Southern Annual Mode climate systems, which affect moisture availability and transport pathways. This collaborative research project draws together a uniquely-skilled research team to develop targeted coral, ice and cave reconstructions of these climate systems and their impacts on Australian rainfall through the last millennium. This fundamental new knowledge of the drivers of Australian rainfall variability will aid improved predictability of future changes in our valuable water resources. Read moreRead less
Australia's variable rainfall - how dry or wet can it really get? Australia’s rainfall is extremely variable, which means existing weather records are too short to calculate the true risk posed by droughts and floods. This project aims to quantify how naturally variable the rainfall coming from the Indo-Pacific mid-latitudes is, allowing recent rainfall extremes and future projections to be assessed in a long-term context. This project expects to produce new estimates of atmospheric moisture bud ....Australia's variable rainfall - how dry or wet can it really get? Australia’s rainfall is extremely variable, which means existing weather records are too short to calculate the true risk posed by droughts and floods. This project aims to quantify how naturally variable the rainfall coming from the Indo-Pacific mid-latitudes is, allowing recent rainfall extremes and future projections to be assessed in a long-term context. This project expects to produce new estimates of atmospheric moisture budgets between Australia and Antarctica based on a novel, 1000-year length reconstruction of moisture-bearing southern Indian Ocean storms. This new information is critically needed by water managers so that they can properly calculate (and ultimately prepare for) the worst of Australia’s rainfall-related risks.Read moreRead less
The last glaciation maximum climate conundrum and environmental responses of the Australian continent to altered climate states. This project will show how climate systems in south east Australia responded to large scale global change the last time this happened, which was about 21,000 years ago. By determining the climate response in Australia to this change, this project will help predict future response in rainfall and temperature to human-induced and natural climate change.
Flooding in Australia – are we properly prepared for how bad it can get? This project aims to investigate how floods have varied over the past 2000 years. Floods are a recurrent and natural part of Australia’s hydroclimate and are influenced strongly by climate variability. However, these influences are not yet completely understood or accounted for. This project will use novel insights from 2000 years of climate reconstructions to generate new knowledge about how bad flooding can get and what c ....Flooding in Australia – are we properly prepared for how bad it can get? This project aims to investigate how floods have varied over the past 2000 years. Floods are a recurrent and natural part of Australia’s hydroclimate and are influenced strongly by climate variability. However, these influences are not yet completely understood or accounted for. This project will use novel insights from 2000 years of climate reconstructions to generate new knowledge about how bad flooding can get and what causes flood frequency to change over time. A decision-making framework that allows for all the uncertainties associated with managing floods will also be developed. This will provide a critical evaluation of the accuracy of existing flood estimates, and also the reliability of infrastructure and policy based on those estimates.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100141
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$420,000.00
Summary
High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality c ....High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality changes, pollution histories, recent geomorphological change, land-use change, introduction of invasive species and the occurrence of bushfires. A better understanding of the occurrence and timing of these major environmental issues is of national and regional importance.Read moreRead less
Calcification and shell chemistry response of Southern Ocean planktic foraminifers to ocean acidification and changing climates. Plankton that form tiny calcium carbonate shells will be cultured to determine how they will respond to acidification of the Southern Ocean caused by rising CO2 in the atmosphere. The same experiments will be used to gauge from their fossil shells how the Southern Ocean has caused and responded to changing atmosphere CO2 over the last glacial climate cycle
Using the last glacial cycle to understand carbon-climate feedbacks . This project aims to investigate how the ocean’s carbon cycle will respond to anthropogenic climate change by examining its response to past climate variability. The project expects to generate new records of the dust feedback cycle and the microbial decomposition feedback cycle in the poorly studied Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Expected outcomes include new datasets to test climate models, and a new method to detect t ....Using the last glacial cycle to understand carbon-climate feedbacks . This project aims to investigate how the ocean’s carbon cycle will respond to anthropogenic climate change by examining its response to past climate variability. The project expects to generate new records of the dust feedback cycle and the microbial decomposition feedback cycle in the poorly studied Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Expected outcomes include new datasets to test climate models, and a new method to detect temperature-driven changes in microbial decomposition. This should lead to significant benefits including more accurate estimates of how much carbon humanity can safely emit, and the science to inform whether Australia should adopt ocean fertilisation as a strategy to combat climate change. Read moreRead less
Effect of climate boundary changes on the Southern Westerly Winds. This project aims to produce high quality data on how the Southern Westerly Winds (SWW) respond to largescale changes in climate boundary conditions over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. Because the SWW are key drivers of Southern Hemisphere climate, Southern Ocean circulation and global carbon dioxide concentrations, it is important to understand how they respond to changes in boundary conditions. Uncertainty about how they ....Effect of climate boundary changes on the Southern Westerly Winds. This project aims to produce high quality data on how the Southern Westerly Winds (SWW) respond to largescale changes in climate boundary conditions over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. Because the SWW are key drivers of Southern Hemisphere climate, Southern Ocean circulation and global carbon dioxide concentrations, it is important to understand how they respond to changes in boundary conditions. Uncertainty about how they do so limits attempts at accurate predictive climate modelling. This project will test conceptual models of SWW dynamics and provide essential boundary conditions for predictive climate models. The project intends to simultaneously build and support a research capacity and global network, and advance Australia’s knowledge and contribution in the area of global climate dynamics.Read moreRead less