Risks of rapid ocean warming at the Antarctic continental margin. This project aims to comprehensively understand the interconnected processes by which oceanic heat is circulated towards Antarctica. The risk of rapid ocean warming at the Antarctic margin is profound, with change already detected via deep ocean warming, land-ice melt, and ice shelf collapse. Yet this region remains poorly understood, with only limited observations due to both a harsh environment and a lack of standard data stream ....Risks of rapid ocean warming at the Antarctic continental margin. This project aims to comprehensively understand the interconnected processes by which oceanic heat is circulated towards Antarctica. The risk of rapid ocean warming at the Antarctic margin is profound, with change already detected via deep ocean warming, land-ice melt, and ice shelf collapse. Yet this region remains poorly understood, with only limited observations due to both a harsh environment and a lack of standard data streams. This project will use high-resolution global and regional ocean/sea-ice models to examine mechanisms for rapid warming of Antarctic continental shelf waters via both large-scale drivers and fine-scale processes, including mesoscale eddies, tide-topography interactions, and bottom boundary flows. This work will better constrain future rates of ice melt around Antarctica by providing vital knowledge of the ocean processes, dynamics, and feedbacks relating to warm water intrusion onto the Antarctic continental shelf.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100203
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$385,000.00
Summary
Autonomous benthic observing system. This project seeks to improve our ability to monitor marine habitats and characterise their variability by enhancing the Integrated Marine Observing system (IMOS) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Facility. The new AUV infrastructure will reduce operating costs, increase robustness of the sampling effort and insure continued operation for the next decade.
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200100008
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$20,000,000.00
Summary
The Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science. The Centre will revolutionise predictions of the future of East Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Changes in the Antarctic will be profoundly costly to Australia, including sea-level and fisheries impacts; but the speed and scale of future change remains poorly understood. A new national-scale and interdisciplinary Centre is required to understand the complex interactions of the ocean, ice sheets, atmosphere and ecosystems that will gov ....The Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science. The Centre will revolutionise predictions of the future of East Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Changes in the Antarctic will be profoundly costly to Australia, including sea-level and fisheries impacts; but the speed and scale of future change remains poorly understood. A new national-scale and interdisciplinary Centre is required to understand the complex interactions of the ocean, ice sheets, atmosphere and ecosystems that will govern Antarctica’s future. The Centre will combine new field data with innovative models to address Australia’s Antarctic science priorities, train graduate students, develop leaders, engage the public, and enable major economic benefit as Australia adapts to climate change in the coming years and beyond.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
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200100005
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$36,000,000.00
Summary
Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future. This program aims to deliver unprecedented research capability for securing Antarctic environments in the face of uncertain change.
By integrating a highly skilled team with new approaches and breakthrough technologies, the program anticipates discovery science, enhanced environmental forecasting and optimised decision-making to advance Australia’s position as an influential Antarctic nation.
Expected outcomes include better environmental management ....Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future. This program aims to deliver unprecedented research capability for securing Antarctic environments in the face of uncertain change.
By integrating a highly skilled team with new approaches and breakthrough technologies, the program anticipates discovery science, enhanced environmental forecasting and optimised decision-making to advance Australia’s position as an influential Antarctic nation.
Expected outcomes include better environmental management, unparalleled strategic decision-support for an effective Antarctic Treaty, and new minds to address Antarctica’s new challenges.
Anticipated benefits are the means to transform environmental forecasting and management in the Antarctic, for Australia, and to the advantage of global security.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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE210100028
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$3,000,000.00
Summary
Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. This proposal is for an 18-month membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), the world’s largest collaborative research program in Earth and Ocean sciences. The Program studies the history and current activity of the Earth by conducting seagoing coring expeditions and monitoring of instrumented boreholes, using globally unique infrastructure that Australians would otherwise have no access to. Program outcomes ....Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. This proposal is for an 18-month membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), the world’s largest collaborative research program in Earth and Ocean sciences. The Program studies the history and current activity of the Earth by conducting seagoing coring expeditions and monitoring of instrumented boreholes, using globally unique infrastructure that Australians would otherwise have no access to. Program outcomes include understanding past global environmental change on multiple time scales, the deep biosphere, plate tectonics, formation and distribution of resources, and generation of hazards. These outcomes are paramount to Australia’s national science and research priorities, and societal and economic prosperity.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE160100067
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,000,000.00
Summary
Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program:
This project is for a 5-year membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program, the world’s largest collaborative research program in earth and ocean sciences addressing international priorities. The program conducts seagoing coring expeditions and monitoring of instrumented boreholes to study the history and current activity of the Earth, recorded in sed ....Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program:
This project is for a 5-year membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program, the world’s largest collaborative research program in earth and ocean sciences addressing international priorities. The program conducts seagoing coring expeditions and monitoring of instrumented boreholes to study the history and current activity of the Earth, recorded in sediments and rocks below the seafloor. The program’s aims include understanding past global environments on multiple time scales, the deep biosphere, plate tectonics, occurrence and distribution of resources, and generation of hazards. Several multinational expeditions are scheduled and planned in our marine jurisdiction and within the Australasian region. Read moreRead less
Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from ....Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from the coast and also suffers from regionally correlated biases. This project proposes to address these problems through re-tracking radar altimetry waveforms to derive new data in the coastal margin, enabling the production of new inferences on sea-level change and extremes at dramatically improved spatial resolution around Australia.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE140100047
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$3,600,000.00
Summary
Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program: This project is for an Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. The Program will recover drill cores, situate observatories, and conduct down-hole experiments in all the world's oceans from lowest to highest latitudes to address fundamental questions about Earth's history and processes within four high-priority scientific themes: clima ....Australian Membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program: This project is for an Australian membership of the International Ocean Discovery Program. The Program will recover drill cores, situate observatories, and conduct down-hole experiments in all the world's oceans from lowest to highest latitudes to address fundamental questions about Earth's history and processes within four high-priority scientific themes: climate and ocean change - reading the past and informing the future; biosphere frontiers - deep life, biodiversity, and environmental forcing of ecosystems; earth connections - deep processes and their impact on earth's surface environment; earth in motion - processes and hazards on a human time scale.Read moreRead less