BAMOS Vol 27 No.6 December 2014

AMOS

AustralianMeteorological & OceanographicSociety

Cyclone Tracy 40 years on Lessons from the Boxing Day Tsunami A closer look at heatwaves

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Vol 27, No. 6, DECEMBER 2014 ISSN 1035-6576

Contents Editorial........................................................................................................................................................................ 105 President’s Column...................................................................................................................................................... 106 News............................................................................................................................................................................ 107 News from the Centres................................................................................................................................................ 118 Special Features........................................................................................................................................................... 120 Cyclone Tracy ..........................................................................................................................................................................120 Indian Ocean Tsunami............................................................................................................................................................122

Snapshot: Sparkling dandelion.................................................................................................................................................124 Meet a Member: Shayne McGregor.........................................................................................................................................125 Obituary: Bruce Hamon ............................................................................................................................................................126 Workshop Report: Proceedings of the Inaugural Inter-disciplinary Australian Heatwave Workshop ..................................128 Science Article: Future projections of Australian heat wave number and intensity based on CMIP5 models......................134 Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin: 9 July, 1978.............................................................................................................140 The Research Corner with Damien Irving: Software Installation Explained........................................................................141

ISSN 1035-6576 Cover picture: Cyclone Tracy damage, 1974.

Image: Rob Wesley-Smith, Cyclone Tracy collection, Northern Territory Library.

Unless specifically stated to the contrary, views expressed in the Bulletin are the personal views of the authors, and do not represent the views of the Society or any other organisation or institution to which the author(s) may be affiliated.

Editorial

Lessons from the past Hello and welcome to the final issue of BAMOS for 2014.

As each year draws to a close, some of us may reflect on the lessons learned, both personally and professionally, in the more recent past. And in the AMOS sciences, lessons from the past are particularly poignant, yet useful, over these summer months.

Summer marks the anniversary of many bushfires, including Black Saturday. This issue, we take a closer look at heatwaves, with a report from the Australian heatwave workshop and a science article on Australian heatwave number and intensity projections (pages 128–139). We also reflect on the 40th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy, as the Bureau’s Mark Williams takes us through his firsthand experience of the event (pages 120–121).

This month also marks the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami. On pages 122–123, earthquake seismologist Professor Phil Cummins explains the lessons learned from the disaster. Just a few months before the event, Professor Cummins had published a forecast in a Geoscience Australia newsletter of such an event occurring. He had outlined what was needed in the Indian Ocean for the surrounding areas to be prepared.

Before the Boxing Day event, the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia and Emergency Management Australia were already negotiating the establishment of an Australian tsunami alert service. However, it wasn’t until the 2005–2006 Budget, in response to the devastating Tsunami, that the Australian Government pledged $68.8 million to develop the system.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre was officially opened and fully operational in October 2008.

Professor Cummins says because of the effectiveness of the Centre, “if the Indian Ocean Tsunami occurred today, the number of lives lost would be significantly less than the devastating number of fatalities seen in 2004.”

The results of such disasters are without a doubt devastating—most significantly with the loss of life. The damage to property, environment and habitats are also dire consequences, and the financial and social burdens are immense. The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre is just one example of how the atmospheric and ocean sciences play a key role in learning and moving forward from these disasters—many AMOS members, past and present, are instrumental in the ever-evolving work that goes into preparing for, mitigating through and recovering from such events.

Severe thunderstorms are also most frequent this time of year—and Australia has certainly seen plenty of these in the past weeks. AMOS member John Allen looks at a stormy future on page 116. This month, the Bureau started using Twitter to circulate information about tropical

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cyclones in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland over the summer (@BOM_Qld, @BOM_ WA, @BOM_NT). The Bureau will use these accounts to supplement the agency’s official watch and warnings.

Also in this issue, we recognise some of our members with the AMOS awards. I did notice that communication was a standout skill of each recipient. This seemed particularly relevant, given that communication is the main focus of the 2015 AMOS conference, with the theme: ‘Communicating our science: from research to community’.

Last month, I was fortunate enough to attend the 6th International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Parks Congress, which took place in Sydney. As an event held only once a decade, the Congress serves as the only global forum on the world’s protected areas.

Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs journalist for the New York Times, remarked that it was more important and interesting for him to attend the Congress, rather than the G20 Summit that was occurring in Brisbane in the same week. Why? Because the demise of the environment is “what will threaten national security” by pushing societies to their very limits.

Congress Patron, Dr. Sylvia Earle—oceanographer, explorer, author and a former chief scientist at NOAA— also spoke throughout the event. Having led more than a hundred expeditions, including the first team of women aquanauts, she told the oceans reception that she has witnessed firsthand the ruin of the oceans. She was quick to point out that, “if we fail to take care of the oceans, nothing else matters very much.”

But Friedman also remarked that to be of benefit to society, science must tell a story: “People relate to people, and people relate to stories. Statistics, numbers and formulas are great, but stories go down easier and they spread further and faster.”

In the new year I hope to develop a communication plan to help the “stories” of the AMOS sciences go further and wider.

As always, my door is always open (figuratively speaking, please find my details at the back of the publication) to any suggestions and contributions you may have for BAMOS, or any other AMOS communication activities.

I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy exploring this edition of BAMOS. May you and your families enjoy the season ahead, and I wish you all the very best for 2015.

Melissa Lyne Editor

President’s Column

Exciting AMOS announcements Welcome to the last issue of BAMOS for 2014. Among the regular and special features in this issue, we announce the winners of the prestigious AMOS Awards: the Uwe Radok Award, Early Career Researcher Award, Morton Medal, and Gibbs Medal. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so you’ll have to keep reading. Heartfelt congratulations to all of the winners! Congratulations also go out to the recent Australian Academy of Science awardees Professor Trevor McDougall FAMOS and Dr. Nerilie Abrams for winning the Jaeger Medal and Dorothy Hill Award, respectively.

In other news, Dr Sophie Lewis from ANU was recently elected to the Executive Committee of Science and Technology Australia (STA). STA has been a strong advocate for our field and science in general—it is great to have someone from AMOS on their Executive Committee.

Normally at this time of the year the AMOS team is in the final stages of organising the annual conference. As you know, 2015 will be unusual in that respect with the conference being held in July. (Incidentally, the Brisbaneled team are on target for AMOS 2015 to be a fantastic event). However, we still need to have an AGM, which will be held in Melbourne in February. The details are below.

In preparation for the AGM, the AMOS Council has been scrutinising the AMOS rules with particular focus on the subject of AMOS committees. At the AGM we plan to propose changes to the AMOS rules to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the three AMOS Committees (Awards, Equity & Diversity, Education & Outreach) and their Chairs. This follows a lengthy process that we undertook in 2014 to formalise Terms of Reference for those committees. The proposed rule changes will also reduce the responsibilities of Chairs of AMOS Special Interest Groups (which we don’t currently have) and introduce the potential to form AMOS Expert Committees.

Although AMOS is a small society, we are diverse in our areas of focus. We are certainly much more than the silos of ‘weather’, ‘oceanography’ and ‘climate’ that we often segregate ourselves and are becoming much more effective at working in the multi-discipline areas of earth/climate system science. Yet, our community is also strong in many sub-disciplines like data assimilation, atmospheric chemistry, physical oceanography, fluid mechanics, land-surface interactions, biogeochemistry, operational prediction, etc. (just to name a few—sorry to those not on the list). The strength of our sub-disciplines provides the foundation for further multi-disciplinary progress. I feel we need to continue to embrace these sub-disciplines to help strengthen their activities and provide a mechanism for them to better engage with AMOS and vice-versa. This is the motivation for forming Expert Committees. These committees could assist AMOS in a variety of ways (e.g., proposing special sessions for conferences, nominating individuals for awards, and helping AMOS Council with special statements or submissions). Passing rules around their formation at the AGM is the first step towards achieving this.

I’d like to wrap up this column by thanking everyone involved in AMOS for helping to make 2014 another successful year. This includes all the volunteers: council members, regional centres, sub-committees, selection committees, conference committees, the BAMOS editorial team, and the administrative team. Particular thanks go to the AMOS Executive and Jeanette Dargaville for your invaluable assistance this year.

I wish all AMOS members a happy and healthy holiday season and a prosperous new year. See you in 2015!

Todd Lane

2015 AMOS Annual General Meeting & Secretary nomination Save the date! AMOS will host a workshop at The University of Melbourne, “The Interface of Weather and Climate”, on Monday 9 February 2015 (from about 12:30pm - 5pm).

The workshop will feature a number of invited talks and be followed immediately by the AMOS Annual General Meeting. Please keep an eye on: http://www.amos.org.au/aboutus/asset_id/46/cid/15/ parent/0/t/aboutus/title/annual-general-meeting-2015 for the latest updates.

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The link also includes the AMOS Secretary nomination form. The position of Secretary is up for election (all National Council positions are two-year terms and the others aren’t up for election until 2016).

If you would like to nominate for Secretary, please fill out the form and submit (via post or scan and email) to the AMOS Executive Officer by no later than Thursday 15 January, 2015.

News

AMOS award winners The wait is finally over! So without further ado, the AMOS award winners are…

Uwe Radok PhD Thesis Award—Dr. Yi (Vivian) Huang from Monash University Dr. Huang’s thesis “Observations and simulations of cloud thermodynamic phase over the Southern Ocean” is a significant contribution to the knowledge of cloud thermodynamic phase over the Southern Ocean. Her body of work highlights the importance of these clouds for global climate.

Gibbs Medallist—John James, Officer in Charge at the Williamtown Weather Service Office, Bureau of Meteorology Mr. James has more than 30 years of continuous dedicated forecasting experience with the Bureau. Prior to his association with Williamtown, he was a highly respected Senior Meteorologist and team leader within the NSW Regional Forecasting Centre. Mr. James’s contribution to Defence has gone above the normal call of duty and he has served in a multitude of high impact severe weather situations with distinction.

AMOS Early Career Researcher Award—Dr. Sophie Lewis, a research fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the Australian National University In a relatively short time Dr. Lewis has established broad expertise in climate science, publishing on a range of topics including speleothem reconstructions, palaeoclimate simulation, and the detection and attribution of climate extremes. Dr. Lewis has been very active in the public

communication of her research and in her service to the scientific community. Now, she is the leading early career researcher globally on the attribution of extreme weather and climate events, and still also manages to nurture younger scientists through various mentoring roles at multiple levels.

Morton Medallist—Professor David Karoly, The University of Melbourne An internationally recognised expert in climate dynamics and climate change science, Professory Karoly also has an extensive record of national leadership and mentoring.

Professor Karoly has supervised 17 completed PhD students and 16 completed research Masters students since 1983. Many of these graduates have gone on to excel in their own careers, which is testimony to Professor Karoly’s outstanding mentoring of the next generation of scientists. Among his leadership roles, Professor Karoly was the Director of the CRC for Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and was also the Secretary of AMOS during its transition from the Royal Meteorological Society Australia Branch in 1988. Professor Karoly remains very active in publishing, teaching, and supervising graduate students.

Congratulations to all of our winners. The awards and medals will be presented at the AMOS National Conference in Brisbane.

Climate and water outlook videos

Bureau of Meteorology

The Bureau of Meteorology is now making a monthly Climate and Water Outlook video. The last video was released this month, containing the outlook for January– March 2015.

Climate outlook overview

This four-minute video covers rainfall, streamflow and temperature outlooks across Australia, as well as El Niño developments. By integrating climate and water information into a short monthly video, we can now provide a “big picture” overview of environmental conditions in Australia for the months ahead.

• A drier than normal January is more likely over northern and southwestern parts of WA, and the southern NT. The chances of a wetter or drier January are roughly equal over the remainder of the country.

• A drier than normal January to March is more likely over parts of western and northeastern Australia.

Please find our video page at: http://www.bom.gov.au/ climate/outlooks/#/overview/video

• The temperature outlooks indicate a warmer than normal start to 2015, with the January to March outlooks for both daytime and night-time temperatures above normal across most of most of Australia.

And if you subscribe to our e-news service at http://bom. is/enviro-news, you will get an email each time the video is updated. (Subscribe to ‘Climate Outlooks’ under ‘Product Notices’).

• Climate influences include near-El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific, a warm Indian Ocean basin and warmer than normal waters to the southeast of Australia.

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News

Message from the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS) President The couple past years have been very interesting and exciting for our community with our scientific assembly in conjunction with International Association of Cryospheric Sciences held on 8–12 July 2013, in Davos, Switzerland, an exceptional event that no less than 989 participants from 52 countries on five continents attended. The assembly covered numerous fields of atmospheric and cryospheric sciences, enriched by snow hydrology, oceanography, natural hazards, economy and risks, and the history of science. These made up for an attractive programme consisting of 21 mostly joint Symposia featuring several sessions each. More than 350 posters were on display for the whole week while dedicated poster sessions facilitated deeper discussions with the presenters in attendance. At this assembly we had the pleasure to bestow our first early career scientist medal.

We are now fast approaching IUGG2015 (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics 2015), the exciting event that we have been planning for the two years since Davos. The event promises an excellent scientific programme, wide networking opportunities and also a rich social schedule in the city of Prague, a tourist magnet in the heart of Europe ranking amongst the most impressive historical cities in the world. IAMAS-only and IAMAS-led cross-association symposia for IUGG2015 are now available online with descriptions online at http:// www.iugg2015prague.com/. The call for abstracts is open until 31 January 2015 and we encourage you all to take this opportunity to participate in this essential event for our association and also to spread the word. Please also note that the deadline for grant applications is 15 January 2015.

We are hoping that the number of IAMAS attendees and contributors in this event will be higher than ever and for this we count on the efforts of the conveners that I want to thank in advance.

In Prague, we will have two IAMAS Executive Committee meetings that all the EC officers and IAMAS National Correspondents are invited to attend. The dates and times will be confirmed later. There will be several important items to discuss there, so please plan on attending or sending your inputs. In particular, the election of a new IAMAS bureau (2015-2019) will take place during this meeting.

Indeed, I will officially step down as the IAMAS president after IUGG2015. I have had the immense

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pleasure and honor of working with Secretary General Hans Volkert, Vice Presidents John Turner and Joyce Penner, our immediate Past President Guoxiong Wu, Assistant SG Jenny Lin and other IAMAS EC officers and representatives, as well as our colleagues all over the world. It has been indeed a pleasure and a privilege to serve in this community in the past four years where the voluntary work of everyone leads to interesting ideas and concepts, collaborations, fruitful meetings and more. I am sure this tradition, well established by previous Presidents and officers, will continue in the future.

Call for nominations for IAMAS EC 2015-2019 have been issued for the positions of President, Secretary General, two Vice-Presidents and three members-at-large, and I am hoping that the IAMAS Nominating Committee will receive nominations from the national representatives of IUGG Adhering Countries and members of the IAMAS Executive Committee by 15 January 2015 (please send the nominations to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Prof. Guoxiong Wu at gxwu@lasg.iap.ac.cn, or to any of the other members of the Committee with a copy to the administrative assistant Ms. Jenny Lin at JennyLin@mail. iap.ac.cn).

I invite you all to read the IAMAS information e-news sent out by Ms Jenny Lin which contain all of the updates that you need in order to follow our community’s activities.

Taking the opportunity of this letter, I want to wish you all an excellent end of 2014 and beginning of a new revolution of our planet around the Sun! I look forward to seeing you all in Prague for our major IUGG 2015 event and in the future at other venues.

—Athena Coustenis, President, IAMAS

Postscriptum: As the out-going Secretary-General of IAMAS I chime in with our president’s remarks urging all those engaged in the voluntary network of IAMAS and its 10 commissions to consider further personal activities for our association and raising the interest of younger colleagues. Have a good start into 2015 and see many of you face-to-face in Prague!

—Hans Volkert, Sec.-Gen., IAMAS

News

International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS) News

IAMAS Bureau meeting at “DLR-Oberpfaffenhofen” in July 2014 near Munich, Germany. Left, from the left: Joyce Penner (Vice-pres.), John Turner (Vice-pres.), Athena Coustenis (President), Hans Volkert (Sec.-Gen.@DLR), Guoxiong Wu (Past-pres.), Zheng Lin (Ass. Sec.-Gen.) in front of HALO research aircraft. Right: the Bureau at the “DLR-Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre” (IPA) in serious discussion with Markus Rapp (IPA-director; 4th from left) and Thomas Gerz (IPA, far right)

Free access to the Special Section commemorating the 30th anniversary of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (sponsored by the Chinese National Committee for IAMAS and The Institute of Atmospheric Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences, published by Springer and Science Press), we invite you to freely read and download a special collection of invited papers to reflect the current and emerging hot topics in the field of Atmospheric Sciences until Jan 30th, 2015 (http://link. springer.com/journal/376/32/1/page/1)

Polar Ponderings: Notes from the International Commission on Polar Meteorology The International Commission on Polar Meteorology (ICPM) is excited to announce a new mailing list to keep in touch with all of its members. This will enable an easy means of keeping the community up to date on plans for ICPM sponsored meetings, and sessions at IAMAS and

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IUGG. Anyone wishing to join the ICPM email list should fill out the form on the following web page: http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/subscribe.php?list=9 The ICPM is also calling for submissions to design a new logo. Proposal logos can be submitted to either Thomas Lachlan-Cope (tlc@bas.ac.uk) or Matthew Lazzara (mattl@ssec.wisc.edu) at any time between now and the IUGG meeting. During the ICPM business meeting, a logo will be selected for the commission.

The ICPM is happy to endorse the 10th Antarctic Meteorological Observing, Modeling, and Forecasting Workshop (AMOMFW) that will be held June 17–19, 2015 at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, United Kingdom. A web site regarding the meeting will be made available in the coming months at: http://amrc.ssec.wisc. edu/meetings.html This meeting covers a variety of topics associated with the Antarctic Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences including the range of topics from observing, to forecasting to modeling to research.

News

Welcome, RV Investigator Sarah Schofield, CSIRO

Federal Industry Minister the Hon. Ian Macfarlane MP declares the RV Investigator to be the best in the world. Image: CSIRO

At the Welcome to Port Celebrations in Hobart on Friday 12 December, the RV Investigator transitioned from being a CSIRO ship building and commissioning project to being Australia’s new Marine National Facility ship, ready to embark on its maiden voyage in March 2015.

The 94 metre, $120 million research vessel is important in many ways, three of which are: First of all, she’s good news for Tasmania. Between them, Investigator and the Marine National Facility pump somewhere between $7 million and $11 million a year into the local economy. In the past ten years Hobart has become a marine and Antarctic science hub. CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship and the University of Tasmania’s $45 million Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) headquarters are located there, along with a large number of other marine and Antarctic bodies.

Investigator will enhance this.

Secondly, she’s good news for Australia in general. We will be using the expanded scientific capability of the Investigator to work on projects that are specifically selected to benefit our nation, like: •

helping increase aquaculture productivity,

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• giving us a better understanding of the dominant role of the ocean in weather and climate variability, • revolutionising management, and

fisheries

science

and

• providing a greater understanding of the changing dynamics of the ocean floor (such as the movement of tectonic plates, which can trigger tsunamis).

And third, as Federal Industry Minister the Hon. Ian Macfarlane MP explains, she brings greater capacity to do research across Australia’s marine territory. For example, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our deepest oceans, and only 12% of the ocean floor within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone has so far been mapped. With the Investigator we will now be able to map the ocean floor to any depth, search for resources, better understand our fisheries, collect weather data 20km into the atmosphere and much more.

The Welcome to Port Celebrations were absolutely fantastic and started with our Minister, the Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane, touring the Investigator.

The Minister declared the ship to be the best research vessel in the world and we’re inclined to agree!

News

Australia’s living skin bared in stunning three dimensions CSIRO

Soil sampling provides important data for the Grid and many parts of Australia have little data available.

Image: Rebecca Bartley, CSIRO Australia’s vast and complex land surface has been exposed in new ways thanks to the most comprehensive nation-wide digital maps of our soils and landscapes yet produced.

The entire country is now represented as a digital grid with two billion ‘pixels’ that are about 90 by 90 metres, down to a depth of two metres below the surface.

The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia, launched last month at the National Soil Science Conference in Melbourne, is the result of a partnership between CSIRO, the University of Sydney, several federal, state and territory government agencies and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).

The Grid draws information from the partner agency databases weaving together both historical and current data generated from sampling, laboratory sensing, modelling and remote sensing.

The Grid also includes estimates of reliability and is designed to integrate new data in the future—even data generated by technology that has not yet been invented.

Soil and landscape attributes such as soil water, nutrients and clay, affect the sustainability of Australia’s natural resources and the profitability of sectors such as agriculture, mining and infrastructure.

CSIRO Research Director Mike Grundy said the Grid had already woven together hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of past soil and landscape science into a new ‘digital tapestry’.

“The research community has known we need better ways to make this diverse information available; new science

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and technology has let us make the most of the rich data we have,” Mr Grundy said.

“From exploring new land use options, to making the most of water, to finding habitats for endangered native species, this technology has applications we are only just beginning to imagine.”

The Grid will be beneficial to a wide range of applications and users including urban and regional planners, land managers, farming groups, scientists and engineers.

Alexandra Gartmann, CEO at Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal and former CEO of Birchip Cropping Group, has worked with rural industries for almost two decades. Ms Gartmann said she was excited by the new technology.

“Knowledge is power, and our agricultural industries have a very narrow margin for error these days, so the more knowledge to reduce poor decisions, the better,” Ms Gartmann said.

“Agribusiness will benefit from this technology, both at the farm scale—with data to inform production models and risk management decisions—and industry scale, as it draws together many years of past research and knowledge for future investment decisions.

“The Soil and Landscape Grid is a huge leap forward. With its national datasets and consistent and comparable data, it has huge potential for regional development, informing planning and decision-making.”

For more information visit the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia website at: http://www.clw.csiro.au/aclep/ soilandlandscapegrid/

News

Strong partnerships see Australia benefit from satellite data Bureau of Meteorology

A Bureau of Meteorology delegation has completed a successful visit to Japan and China, which focused on data and applications from the next generation of meteorological satellites for the Asia-Pacific region.

Bureau of Meteorology Director, Dr Rob Vertessy, said the discussions with the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and China Meteorological Administration (CMA) focused on implementation plans and data sharing arrangements for meteorological satellites—for both operational use and research purposes.

“For Australia, satellite data is invaluable in weather forecasting due to the size of the country and the expense involved in obtaining ground-based observations over land and oceans,” Dr Vertessy said.

“Through the cooperation and generosity of our international partners, the Australian community benefits from the Bureau’s access to valuable satellite information.

This information assists in our delivery of critical weather forecast and warning information.”

The JMA launched its newest satellite, Himawari-8, in October and the satellite is expected to start transmitting

data for operational use in mid-2015. (On 18 December 2014, Himawari-8 captured its first images from all 16 bands—Ed.) The CMA is preparing to launch its meteorological satellite, Fengyun-4, in 2016. This satellite will have a range of experimental capabilities, including a lightning mapper and a sounder for measuring temperature and moisture in the atmosphere.

“Both Himawari-8 and Fengyun-4 will offer great leaps in available data, which combined with a planned increase in the Bureau’s supercomputer capability to analyse and interpret this data, will continue to drive improvements in forecast accuracy.

“The capabilities offered by Himawari-8 and Fengyun-4 will enable the development of new weather services and the strengthening of existing scientific relationships across the region.

“The Bureau of Meteorology wishes both JMA and CMA every success in their respective satellite missions and looks forward to a bright future with ongoing international collaboration.”

New climate guide to ocean food web studies Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania Ocean science has a new guide to future investigation of climate change impacts on the marine food web, based on research released this month in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The guide enables quick identification of regions experiencing complex climate change and gives an initial assessment of the effects of changing properties on phytoplankton such as temperature, light, salinity, and access to iron. It also highlights knowledge gaps of phytoplankton responses to the changes.

Led by the University of Tasmania’s Professor Philip Boyd, from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, the research will be utilised in Southern Ocean studies next year as part of Australia’s $24m Antarctic Gateway Partnership, (for more on this, please see next article—Ed).

Professor Boyd, a marine biogeochemist, leads a Southern Ocean project to better understand the differences in sensitivity to environmental change of open water versus sea ice microbial foodwebs.

These much-needed insights into influences on marine life from mid-water microbes to seafloor communities will be generated using a suite of observation instruments, laboratory culture experiments, and regional analyses.

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Professor Boyd said climate change is altering oceanic conditions in a complex manner. “So far, Earth system modelling studies have focused on how alteration of individual properties will affect marine life, but none have simulated the impact of multiple biologically influential property changes.”

“Although Earth system model experiments have been pivotal to better understanding the ramifications of climate change on the ocean, this rich source of information has been under-used as the basis for the design of studies to manipulate conditions for marine life.”

“In a future ocean, regions will encounter different permutations of change which will probably alter the dominance of key phytoplankton groups and modify regional productivity, ecosystem structure, and ocean chemistry.”

“Understanding regionally-distinct patterns or hotspots of oceanic change can help guide laboratory and field studies for the oceanographic modelling and environmental manipulation communities as well as the interpretation of interactive influences in global models,” he said.

News

$24 million Antarctic-Southern Ocean science grant detailed Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania A $24 million science grant announced last month will fund a multi-million dollar remotely-operated submersible that can explore hundreds of kilometres under thick Antarctic ice. The grant also includes the development of a sea ice charting service for polar mariners in East Antarctica.

And it will increase the number of Australian scientists working in Antarctica, with the employment of nearly 40 young researchers and technicians.

The grant is part of the Federal Government’s Antarctic Gateway Partnership, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) under its Special Research Initiatives scheme.

The Gateway Partnership involves the key Southern Ocean and Antarctic research organisations in Tasmania: the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and the Australian Maritime College, the CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, and the Australian Antarctic Division.

Chief Investigator for the Gateway Partnership, Professor Richard Coleman, said the funding will complement research programs and priorities developed in Australia’s Antarctic Science Strategic Plan to understand the role of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the global climate system.

“The Partnership will provide an exciting capacitybuilding development that will expand research programs in a climatically and ecologically significant region.”

“Importantly, the Gateway funding is providing the opportunity to get more scientists to the ice. This summer alone, it is supporting ocean acidification research at Casey, marine science in the Totten and Mertz Glacier regions, and ice sheet research in Enderby Land.”

“The Partnership will further establish Tasmania as a gateway for Antarctic research, education, innovation, and logistics with research on Antarctic ice sheets and ice shelves, new understanding on polar marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, and the development of specialist polar marine technologies,” Professor Coleman said.

The project also will involve collaboration with researchers from more than ten countries. He said the Partnership will develop capabilities that will endure long after the special research funding has concluded.

Among the Gateway Partnership objectives are • Developing a marine technology hub to build next generation hybrid autonomous vehicles for measurements within the polar environment.

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• Establishing a sea-ice charting and forecasting capability for polar mariners in the East Antarctic sea ice zone.

• Advancing understanding of how the oceans influence melting of the East Antarctic ice shelves and to quantify present and future contributions of Antarctic ice sheet loss and sea level rise.

• Providing much-needed insights into the environmental conditions that control marine life in and around Antarctic ice shelves.

• Reducing the unacceptably large range of estimates of the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level since the last major glacial expansion concluded about 22,000 years ago.

Professor Coleman said Antarctica and the Southern Ocean exert immense influence on global and regional climate systems, and physical, chemical, and biological changes will confront Australians with respect to coastal communities and sea level, weather patterns and extreme events, and the health of the marine environment.

“The largest uncertainty in estimates of future sea level rise is the response of the Antarctic ice shelves to the warming of the surrounding oceans.”

“The processes regulating the melting of ice shelves are poorly known and projections of future sea level rise are therefore uncertain. Satellite data suggests that parts of the ice sheet area experiencing rapid change at the margins while the dramatic collapse of the West Antarctic ice shelves and the significant expected reductions in sea ice extent and variations in surface area over the next century emphasise the pressing need to better understand oceanice system dynamics.”

“To understand these dynamics we need to be able to make measurements beneath ice shelves and also the sea ice, an area which is highly productive in the marine food chain where microbes drive the cycling of nutrients and carbon.”

“To do much of this science in such a harsh environment we need new remotely-operated technologies. The Partnership program includes the development of polar capable autonomous underwater vehicles, fitted with an array of scientific sensors, and capable of travelling hundreds of kilometres providing near real-time observations on under-sea ice conditions,” Professor Coleman said.

News

Climate-based tools offer new hope for malaria prediction Bureau of Meteorology

In a small corner of the Southwest Pacific, a groundbreaking project is using the latest seasonal climate forecasts to do battle against the world’s deadliest malaria parasite.

When the next malaria season begins in the Solomon Islands in January 2015, a group of committed climatologists stretching from Australia across the South Pacific will be keeping a very close eye on local outbreaks of the deadly disease.

The group, under the auspices of the Bureau-managed Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac), is developing predictive tools that use a range of long-term climate outlooks to evaluate the risk of malaria in the Solomons’ most populous islands.

As three-month seasonal rainfall outlooks and El Niño forecasts have become ever more accurate, the team has for the first time been able to develop a system for forecasting annual malaria risk. Their system combines rainfall outlooks with demographic data and the presence of brackish water where mosquito larvae breed.

The results are a Rainfall–Malaria Model and a series of detailed Malaria Transmission Suitability Maps for the Solomons’ nine malaria-prone provinces. These tools have shown compelling accuracy in linking local rainfall patterns with malaria outbreaks spread by Plasmodium falciparum—the deadliest of four malaria parasites that infect humans.

“Our analysis of rainfall figures since 1998 has given us strong confidence that low rainfall associated with El Niño between October and December will result in a higher risk of malaria over the following six months,” explains Jason Smith, a Bureau scientist supporting the COSPPac program. “On the other hand, normal or high rainfall between October and December generally results in a medium or lower risk of malaria.”

Across the Southwest Pacific, as in most tropical regions, the links between rainfall and malaria have long been documented: In the Solomons, there are still remains of pipes built by the British in the 1940s to drain brackish water into the ocean. But it is only now, with the advent of accurate three-month climate outlooks, that climate forecasting has become a practical weapon in the battle against malaria.

A model for regional replication The development of a climate-based malaria monitoring and early warning system—or ‘MalaClim’, as the project’s lead scientist Dr Isabelle Jeanne calls it—is one of the key objectives of the current phase of COSPPac, which is funded by the Australian Government until June 2016.

The pilot project was launched at a workshop in Honiara in September 2014. The workshop also attracted senior climatologists from Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, whose governments are both keen to replicate the project.

In the Solomons, the MalaClim team is now fine-tuning and validating its Suitability Maps and the rainfall– malaria outlook for northern Guadalcanal and Central Province, which will be put to the test during the next malaria season between January and June 2015.

During lower rainfall periods, water forms stagnant pools providing optimal mosquito breeding environments. This varies season to season.

During higher rainfall, stagnant pools are flushed, diminishing the quality of mosquito breeding environments.

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These islands offer a perfect baseline for the project.

Not only do they account for about 40 per cent of the Solomons’ malaria cases, but on the most populous part of the island of Guadalcanal the links between rainfall and malaria are well understood.

In particular, researchers have found a compelling link between heavy rainfall and a low incidence of malaria in the following season. Unlike many tropical regions, where

News rain simply provides more water for mosquitos to lay their eggs, in northern Guadalcanal heavy rainfall initially generates positive conditions for mosquito breeding but then flushes the brackish streams where they breed into the sea. As a result, the prolonged heavy rain of La Niña years usually leads to a significant decline in malaria cases.

The other factor that makes the Solomon Islands an ideal testing ground is the undoubted commitment of its government to the project. Over the past 18 months the Bureau has developed strong partnerships with the country’s National Vector-Borne Disease Control Program (NVBDCP) and the Solomon Islands Meteorological Service (SIMS), and the government is currently installing 16 new rain gauges next to health centres in the project area.

“Together with Vanuatu, the Solomons have a real chance to become the first Pacific nation to successfully eliminate malaria in certain provinces,” says NVBDCP Director Albino Bobogare. “Already, there is a very low level of malaria transmission in Isabel Province, and we have made good progress towards eliminating the disease in the southeastern province of Temotu.”

The frontline of the battlefield is now in the other provinces, where the concerted distribution of bed nets has resulted in the virtual eradication of two of the islands’ three mosquito species. The third, Anopheles farauti, has been found to be much more resilient, adapting to different breeding sites, travelling further afield, and even changing its behaviour to bite humans earlier in the day before they are under their bed nets.

MalaClim is thus focusing on farauti and its deadly cargo— the Plasmodium falciparumparasite—which is responsible for about two-thirds of the 45,000 malaria cases that still strike the islands each year.

“It is the parasite’s transmission that we have to target, not the mosquito,” explains Dr Jeanne. “Even with spraying insecticide and clearing water around villages, it’s virtually impossible to get rid of the mosquitos entirely.”

The project is currently fine-tuning Suitability Maps for each of the Solomons’ provinces, overlaying data on their population centres, localised rainfall patterns, the presence of fresh and brackish water, and malaria data from local health centres.

The results will have multifaceted uses for the country’s busy NVBDCP managers—informing the continuing distribution of bed nets, the spraying of insecticide, the installation of further rain gauges, the draining of brackish water, and the delivery of diagnostic tools, treatments and public awareness campaigns.

“This is the beginning of a long story,” says Lloyd Tahani, Deputy Director of SIMS. “Health is one of the four priorities of the UN’s Global Framework for Climate Services, and we are delighted to have initiated such a strong collaboration between SIMS, the NVBDCP, and the Bureau of Meteorology to develop this important monitoring tool.”

Reproduced with the permission of the Bureau of Meteorology from http://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/603/a-buzz-inthe-air-climate-based-tools-offer-new-hope-for-malariaprediction-in-the-pacific/

Project team members from Solomon Islands National Vector-Borne Diseases Control Program COSPPac, and the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu Meteorological Services

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Comment

Australia faces a stormier future thanks to climate change John Allen

Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Severe Thunderstorms, Tornadoes, Convection & Climate Predictability at Columbia University

‘The Shelf’ - A shelf cloud associated with a squall line stretches across the Victorian plains near Mitiamo. Image: John Allen The supercell that hit Brisbane on 27 November this year caused more than $500 million worth of damage, produced hail up to 7.5 cm in diameter, and lashed the city with winds of more than 140 km an hour.

In the news, we hear about tornadoes or supercells, and wonder if climate change is beginning to have an impact on these events.

In fact, the evidence suggests that while there has been no increase in severe storm activity in the past, we are likely to see stronger and more frequent storms in the future.

The science of storms Growing up in Sydney’s western suburbs, I remember the summer thunderstorms appearing in the afternoon to the west, and wondering just why we see these castles in the sky.

Thunderstorms form when moisture and warmth near the Earth’s surface is overlapped by cooler air, causing an “updraft” of rising air. The more warm and moist the air, the stronger the thunderstorm’s updraft.

Thunderstorm clouds are like the bubbles you see in a saucepan of water on the stove, where the heated water rises through cooler water above. Most of the time, a thunderstorm fills the sky for an hour, rises, rains and then disappears as if it was never there.

But in certain situations, these storms can become “severe”, producing hail in excess of 2 cm, wind gusts above 90 km per hour and sometimes tornadoes. To form, severe thunderstorms typically need some degree of

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changing wind speed and direction at different levels of the atmosphere—known as wind shear.

If you’ve ever looked up at the sky and seen clouds moving in different directions, that is wind shear. Wind shear organises thunderstorms, moving rain away from the updraft, and allowing the storm to grow outside the normal lifetime of a thunderstorm, becoming stronger.

The strongest of these organised storms are known as supercells and produce most hail larger than 5 cm, as well as tornadoes.

Severe storms widespread in Australia Every year, Australia sees many severe thunderstorms, but we only hear about the few that hit populated areas, as someone needs to be present to observe the effects of a storm.

Has 2014 been particularly stormy?

Overall, the frequency of severe storms in 2014 was about average, or even slightly below. Perhaps we are just forgetting some of those days when the storms weren’t as extreme, or those which missed populated areas.

The Brisbane supercell hailstorm of November 27 has a damage bill rising above $500 million, but is far from unprecedented in either hail size or damage (in 1985 a similar event caused $1.7 billion in equivalent damage).

Similar hail events have often befallen Melbourne (2010, 2011), Perth (2010), and Sydney (2007).

Comment An example of a supercell thunderstorm updraft near Chingapook, Victoria. The red lines show where warm moist air moves towards the storm, and rises through the cooler dry air roughly outlined by the blue line.

Wind shear pushes the precipitation away from the updraft, and allows the storm to rotate clockwise, producing a supercell. Image: John Allen

In terms of damaging winds, estimated gusts (around 140 km per hour) were not as strong as the 1985 storm (around 185 km per hour), but similar to the storm that affected the Brisbane suburb The Gap in 2008.

If we just look at days favourable to severe thunderstorms, there is little indication that there is an increasing frequency of severe thunderstorms outside of natural variability since 1979.

In reality, severe thunderstorms are found over the entire continent, but the intersection between tropical moisture and stronger wind shear means that they are most commonly found over the east coast and interior, stretching from Rockhampton to Melbourne.

To estimate their frequency, we can use a combination of potential updraft strength and wind shear to give an idea of how many days conditions are right for severe thunderstorm development. Using this approach, we can estimate Brisbane gets around 25 favourable days, Sydney 20 and Melbourne 10 days per year.

If the air above the surface warms as well, then it is possible that warming the surface won’t result in as many thunderstorms, but they will be stronger.

If we don’t get as many patterns which pull the conditions favourable to thunderstorms together, then maybe the frequency won’t change or will simply shift the season.

It is important to remember that even as the climate changes, our poor knowledge of past events is insufficient to say with any degree of certainty that a severe thunderstorm is beyond what was possible before.

What this change does mean is an increasing likelihood that we will see severe thunderstorms more often, and the question remains as to whether Australia as a nation is prepared to respond.

This article originally appeared in The Conversation on 19 December 2014 at http://theconversation.com/australiafaces-a-stormier-future-thanks-to-climate-change-35327

Will severe storms become more common?

In a warming climate, results for Australia, the United States and Europe have shown that the the surface air becomes warmer and moisture increases, making updrafts stronger, while the wind shear available to organise storms appear to decrease.

This battle between the elements seems to end with the strength of updrafts winning, and results in more days with stronger severe thunderstorms. Over the east coast, projected increases by the end of the 21st century for Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane range between 114% and 160% of present levels.

Are we certain though? Several factors remain unexplained in a warming climate.

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Locations with reported severe thunderstorms for Australia for the period 2003-2010. 1550 events represent observations of tornadoes (red), hail (blue) and wind (green). Image: John Allen

News from the Centres

NSW Centre News Nicola Maher & Fiona Johnson NSW Centre

We held the AMOS NSW Student Symposium on 31 October at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. This event was sponsored

by AMOS and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

The Symposium gave students a friendly environment to both practice presenting and to interact with similarminded research students from different universities and departments around NSW. The day included a variety of topics, ranging from research on ENSO and the ocean circulation, to changes in the carbon cycle, hydrological modelling and estimating wildfire fuel. Each talk was extremely interesting and student engagement was high.

There was also a post-doctorate panel, where three early career researchers answered questions. And there was a talk by Professor Matthew England entitled “How to succeed as a PhD student”.

The best talk prize went to Maxime Colin for his talk entitled “Study of radiative heating rates and cloud radiative forcing, at the tropical tropopause layer”. The runners up were Kaitlin Alexander, speaking about a

simplified model of ocean circulation, and Tammas Loughran on the meteorological effects of superflares on Earth-like planets. Congratulations to all of our prize winners and we hope to see many new faces next year.

The NSW AMOS centre AGM was held on Monday 8th December at the CCRC at UNSW. A big thank you to the 2014 committee for a great year of technical events including our first events for undergraduate students, first members’ dinner, and the annual Hunter Valley seminar, which was held in October, with two speakers.

The 2015 committee is really strong and we look forward to an exciting program of events. The 2015 committee was elected as follows: Anthony Kiem (chair, University of Newcastle), Agata Imielska (vice-chair, Bureau of Meteorology), Andrew Magee (secretary, University of Newcastle), Ian Macadam (treasurer, UNSW), Fiona Johnson (UNSW), Tammas Loughran (UNSW), Nicola Maher (UNSW), Steven Phipps (UNSW) and Johanna Speirs (Snowy Hydro).

Happy Christmas to all and we look forward to seeing you at our NSW events in 2015.

Melbourne Centre News Shannon Mason

Secretary, Melbourne Centre The 3rd AMOS Postgraduate Symposium was held at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday 19 November. The annual event provides a friendly setting for undergraduate and postgraduate students to present a 12-minute conference-style talk, sharing both their science and some aspect of their experience as a research student. More than 35 students registered from seven institutions, with 19 students presenting their research across topics from heat stress and the urban climate during heat waves, to polar lows and sea ice in the Southern Ocean.

Ph.D. candidate Ariaan Purich (UNSW and CSIRO) was awarded the prize for best presentation for her talk entitled, “Southern Ocean temperature and sea ice trends in CMIP5 models”.

To conclude we were joined by guest panelists Dr Ailie Gallant (Monash University), Dr. Robyn Schofield

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(University of Melbourne) and Damien Irving (University of Melbourne) for a wide-ranging discussion about science and the media—including engaging with the public using traditional and web media, communicating with other scientists using social media and blogs, and new and emerging tools for Open Science and collaboration.

This very successful event was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and hosted by the University of Melbourne School of Earth Sciences.

The AMOS Melbourne Centre is grateful to the organising committee, all attendees, guests and contributors for their hard work, attention and great science.

The Priestley Cup was also held on 5 December, followed by the AGM. More to come in the next BAMOS.

News from the Centres

ACT Centre News Bob Cechet

Chair, ACT Centre

The ACT Centre held its AGM–Christmas party BBQ on 27th November, with 26 members and non-members attending. The night featured a judging of three presentations for the ACT AMOS student presentation prize ($150). The candidates were: • Jacqueline Clements, University of New South Wales (Honours student): An investigation into the effects of thermal fronts in the waters off the east coast of Australia on acoustic propagation.

• Sonya Wellby, Australian National University (4th year student): The impact of weather events on solar energy generation.

• Rachael Griffiths, University of New South Wales (1st year PhD student): Impacts of vegetation regrowth on wind behaviour in complex terrain: A statistical approach.

The AMOS Canberra Branch AGM was held after the presentations—between the main course (pizza and salad) and dessert.

A new committee was elected. Bob Cechet stood down as Chair and Jason Sharples stood down as Secretary/ Treasurer. The Chair thanked all the committee for their efforts in 2014—making particular mention of the new student sub-committee which held two very memorable functions during the year. The new committee is: • Chair: unfilled (Bob Cechet will continue until first meeting of 2015) •

Secretary: Rachael Griffiths

•

Treasurer: Clem Davis

• General Committee: Bob Cechet, Patrick De Deckker, Jeff Kingwell, Jay Larson, Lucy McGarva, Fatemeh (Mona) Ziaeyan Bahri For once we had some controversy at the AGM where Emeritus Professor Patrick De Deckker (not a judge in the ACT AMOS student presentation prize) questioned

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the process and fairness of awarding the prize which compared students at different levels of development (4th year, Honours & 1st year PhD).

He followed this by making a passionate plea that the standard of the presentations was exceptional (adding that he had been around for a while) and that all of the candidates should be awarded the $150 prize. This plea was very well received by the audience (the candidates in particular), and discussion of the suggestion by Emeritus Prof. Patrick De Deckker was scheduled for the first committee meeting in February.

The ACT AMOS student presentation prize was awarded to Rachael Griffiths (University of New South Wales).

Congratulations Rachael!

The judging for the AMOS prize of $250 provided by the AMOS National Council, as well as the ACT AMOS undergraduate prize of $150 continues, and the winners will be presented at the first committee meeting of 2015.

In 2015 we welcome some young, bright and keen individuals onto the ACT AMOS committee (I must say a welcomed addition to some of the older members who seem to suffer at times from a jaded disposition).

We plan to continue our bi-monthly public seminar series at the CSIRO Discovery Centre, and wish to thank CSIRO for their support over the last few years. Details of our meetings will be placed on the AMOS Canberra Regional Centre website, and anyone visiting Canberra at those times are invited to attend.

ACT AMOS will continue to organise workshops during National Science Week and we have a planned field excursion with the NSW AMOS Branch to a winery in the Southern Tablelands where science will be presented and discussed over a few glasses of the local varieties.

Seasons Greetings from the AMOS Canberra Centre!

Special Feature

In the eye of the storm The Bureau’s Mark Williams on surviving Cyclone Tracy Melissa Lyne

The Bureau’s Mark Williams in 1974, in the bathtub that helped shield him and Greg Bond from Cyclone Tracy. The house had fallen apart around the pair.

Image: Greg Holland.

Forty years ago, the Bureau’s Mark Williams was starting out as a junior forecaster in Darwin. Mark says while he was not rostered on for duty the night that Cyclone Tracy hit, he remembers the calm before the storm well: “there was no rain leading up to the cyclone, and certainly no unusual wind.”

Re-visiting Christmas Eve 1974, Mark says he was housesitting an elevated three bedroom house with fellow forecaster Greg Bond.

“We knew that this was no passing storm when the winds got stronger and stronger and maintained a north to northeast direction which suggested that it was moving slowly and likely to pass very close to or over us,” he recalls.

“As the storm approached and the wind increased the house started to disintegrate. Eventually the roof came off and then the walls collapsed.”

“Greg and I spent the night from about 3 a.m. til dawn sheltering behind a bath, which was about the only thing left on the floor. We were very lucky not to be hit by flying debris.”

Others were not so lucky. By Christmas morning, 66 were dead. Hundreds of others were left seriously injured, and Darwin itself was devastated, with about 70% of its buildings flattened. The strongest winds were recorded

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at 3:05 a.m. at 217 km/h, just before the anemometer at Darwin Airport was also destroyed in the storm. Some speculate that the storm may have reached the level of a category 5 cyclone.

Darwin’s Christmas spirits were in full swing in the immediate lead up to the storm. About three weeks beforehand, the city’s residents were preparing for Cyclone Selma. Though the system was nowhere near as intense as Tracy, it had quickly changed direction and moved away from the coast on the very same day it was closest to Darwin. In the end, it did not affect Darwin much past being a nuisance.

“This may well have led some people into a false sense of security,” reflects Mark. Similarly, “the conditions leading up to Tracy were very benign, and there was nothing unusual about the weather.”

But Tracy went on to become the most compact cyclone of that intensity ever recorded to hit the mainland. It was a storm quite different to some of the more recent tropical cyclones in Australian history, such as Larry and Yasi.

“Tracy was very slow moving, and it was small and intense,” Mark explains. “I think probably the fact that it was so slow moving was why it was so destructive. Larry and Yasi were larger.

“It also passed directly through the centre of Darwin, so it

Special Feature

Track map of cyclone Tracy from 21 -25 December 1974. Image: Bureau of Meteorology.

could not have been more of a direct hit.”

The damage bill left behind rose well into the millions— and was approximately AUS $4.45 billion by today’s standards.

With all communications in and out of Darwin lost after the storm, Mark’s parents did not know whether he was alive for several days. “My father only found out when he got a call from the Regional Director of South Australia, who had somehow got a message from the Regional Director of the Northern Territory that everyone in the Bureau was OK.” Mark managed to drive out of Darwin after about two weeks, in his own car that was damaged, but still drivable.

Many did not return to Darwin after being evacuated, but Mark was back within a few weeks. He’d responded to the NT office callout for volunteers to help with the forecasting effort.

Upon his return, he found the suburbs and associated foliage obliterated.

“It took a long time—years—before reliable electricity was restored. This was a major problem. It also took years for houses to be built to revised building standards. It felt more like a mining town for a long time. Even when I left about 10 years later it was not the same.”

Mark visited Darwin with his family over the winter this year, and says that it is only now, forty years later, that the older suburbs actually “feel” like they did before the cyclone.

“This is because it has taken this long for the trees to become fully established.”

The lessons learned from Cyclone Tracy have proved valuable to meteorology, and have helped improve the accuracy and service of forecasts today. “In particular there are more observations—satellite pictures, better radar coverage—to base the forecast on. As time has gone on the cyclone preparedness and emergency response has also evolved, right around the country.”

Registration Centre after Cyclone Tracy. Image: Bert Wiedemann, Cyclone Tracy collection, Northern Territory Library.

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Special Feature

10 years after the Tsunami: what have we learned?

Professor Phil Cummins Geoscience Australia seismologist if the present sequence of megaquakes is at an end.

Indian Ocean Tsunami propagation 26 December 2004.

Though no one realised it at the time, the 2004 SumatraAndaman earthquake was the first in a series of massive earthquakes to shake the globe. At magnitude 9.1 it is among the three largest earthquakes ever recorded since instrumental recordings began at the turn of the 20th century. The following seven years saw the occurrence of another three of the ten largest earthquakes ever recorded (including the giant earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan in 2011). This sequence of four megaquakes occurring over 2004–2011 rivals another series that occurred over 1952–1965, when another four of the ten largest earthquakes ever recorded occurred around the Pacific Rim—including a magnitude 9.5 offshore from Chile in 1960—the largest earthquake ever recorded.

We still know very little about why megaquakes occur in clusters like this. One explanation for the recent large events is the mechanism of stress transfer, in which the Sumatra subduction zone ‘unzipped’ in a series of massive earthquakes that ruptured sequentially from northwest to southeast from 2004–2007. But this does not explain the presence of a large “gap” in central Sumatra. In this section the recurrence of earthquakes that occurred in 1797 and 1833 was—and still is—widely anticipated, not only by scientists but by the many residents of the city of Padang, who are crowded into a low-lying coastal strip that will almost certainly be inundated by the resulting tsunami. However, the “unzipping” of the subduction zone mysteriously skipped this segment during the 2004– 2007 sequence. Likewise, we don’t know what role, if any, the 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake may have played in triggering distant events like the 2010 Maule, Chile and the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquakes. And we don’t know Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 122

What we do know is that the 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake generated a massive tsunami—the Indian Ocean Tsunami—that killed over 227,000 people, more than ten times the number of lives lost in the remaining nine of the ten largest earthquakes combined (the total fatalities for these was about 21,000). Why did the Indian Ocean Tsunami kill so many compared to other earthquakes of similar size? First, the earthquake occurred just offshore of a major population centre. The population of Banda Aceh was more than 264,000 before the tsunami, and these in addition to the populations of towns along the western coast of Aceh were severely affected by the tsunami. The town of Lhok Nga, where observations of tsunami run-up height reached over 30 m, had a pre-tsunami population of 7,000, reduced to 400 after the tsunami. Banda Aceh itself suffered over 61,000 fatalities, almost 25% of its population. In all, Indonesian fatalities are thought to number at least 167,000 (estimates range as high as 220,000), over 70% of the total Indian Ocean Tsunami fatalities. Even when only the Indonesian fatalities are considered, the Indian Ocean Tsunami is the world’s deadliest tsunami disaster.

But the Indian Ocean Tsunami was unique among tsunami disasters in the scale of fatalities caused on a regional scale.

Because the rupture extended far north from Sumatra into the Andaman Sea, both India and Sri Lanka in the west, and Thailand in the east, were directly in the path of the main plume of tsunami energy. In addition to the 167,000+ fatalities in Indonesia, over 61,000 died in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Around 2,000 Europeans, many tourists visiting Thailand, were killed, including over 500 each from Sweden and Germany. Twenty six Australians also died while overseas in southeast Asia, and dozens were swept to sea by the large waves and strong currents generated when the tsunami reached Australia’s western coast.

In addition to the large coastal populations exposed to the tsunamis, the major contributing factor to the massive loss of life was a lack of preparedness. A large tsunami in the Indian Ocean was not without historical precedent.

The tsunami generated by the eruption of Krakatau in 1883 killed over 35,000 people along the Sunda Strait separating Java and Sumatra. Massive earthquakes in 1797, 1833 and 1861 had occurred off Sumatra, and both the earthquakes and the tsunamis they generated were well documented by Dutch historians. However, these earthquakes had occurred well south of Aceh. While these large local tsunamis destroyed coastal villages, there were at that time no major population centres along this part of the Sumatra coast. The population of Padang, now

Special Feature Seismogram-Magnitude 9.1 Earthquake 26 December 2004, Sumatra, Indonesia.

over 800,000, was only 4,000 in 1797. Furthermore, the ruptures of these earthquakes were too far south to have affected Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. So, while there had been large earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, there was no historical precedent for a tsunami affecting large coastal populations. As a consequence there was no warning system, and coastal populations did not know to evacuate low-lying coastal areas in the event of a large earthquake. An exception was the island of Simeulue, to the west of Aceh, where an oral tradition preserved from experience of a smaller tsunami in 1907 caused residents to run to higher ground when they felt the earthquake, saving many lives. In retrospect, it seems clear that better preparedness could have prevented many tens of thousands of deaths.

Much has changed in terms of preparedness in the ten years since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. A warning system for the Indian Ocean has been established, and many at-risk populations are well aware of the danger of tsunamis, and in many cases are drilled in evacuation procedures. The tsunami risk is taken seriously even in subduction zones that have not historically experienced a megaquake. Were an event like the Indian Ocean Tsunami to occur again today, it seems extremely unlikely that the fatalities caused at regional and greater distances would be anywhere near the scale of the death toll in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand in 2004. This is because, with lead times of several hours between detection of an event and its impact on regional or distant shores, conventional tsunami warning systems are generally very effective.

However, it is important to bear in mind that over 70% of the Indian Ocean Tsunami fatalities, 167,000 or more, were killed by the local tsunami that arrived on the shores of Sumatra within minutes after the earthquake rupture.

Local tsunami warning remains a hideously difficult problem, in which decisions must be made and warnings disseminated within minutes, and coastal populations must evacuate within tens of minutes. This in urban areas that are congested at the best of times, and possibly impassable after suffering the effects of a major earthquake.

False alarms are inevitable, and the consequent erosion of public confidence in warning systems are difficult to avoid. Japan’s experience of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami serves notice that even in the presence of the best warning systems, sophisticated communications and tsunami-aware coastal communities, local tsunamis are still able to inflict massive fatalities. Indonesia and its neighbours can minimise losses by strengthening all these Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 123

elements of mitigation, but it is still a big challenge to completely avoid high fatality events.

Tsunamis are not the only hazard that can cause massive fatalities. Large as the Indian Ocean Tsunami death toll in Aceh was, there are at least 40 cities in Indonesia larger than Banda Aceh, including the megacity of Jakarta. By virtue of location many of these cities may be relatively sheltered from tsunamis. But they, like many of their cousins in neighbouring countries, have highly concentrated urban populations that typically reside in poorly constructed, masonry homes prone to collapse if subjected to strong earthquake ground motion. Such strong ground motion does not have to come from a megaquake: 316,000 deaths were caused in Port-auPrince by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, with a magnitude of “only” 7. Virtually every city in the belt of active tectonics stretching from the Himalayas, through Bangladesh and Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as much of Papua New Guinea, could potentially experience such an earthquake.

Is a massive-fatality earthquake/tsunami event in the Southeast Asian region inevitable in the 21st century, and if so are mitigation efforts pointless? The explosion in population and urbanisation over the latter half of the 20th century in such a seismically active area would indeed seem to make the eventual occurrence of such a megadisaster all but certain. So the question then becomes “are mitigation efforts worthwhile”? Absolutely. If the Indian Ocean Tsunami were to occur today, it is likely that the regional warning system would reduce the 61,000 fatalities at regional and greater distance to at most a few thousand.

Even if local warning and evacuation procedures were only partially successful, they could reduce fatalities to tens rather than hundreds of thousands. If the effectiveness of tsunami warning systems and community awareness can be maintained over the long term, and if this can be combined with improved building practices, hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of lives can be saved. But we need to draw upon these efforts now, while memories of the Indian Ocean Tsunami are still fresh and it is still possible to channel some of the region’s recourses into mitigation efforts. It’s the best thing we can do to give meaning to such a devastating natural hazard that changed the lives of so many on that day in 2004.

Reproduced with the permission of Geoscience Australia from http://www.ga.gov.au/news-events/features/ten-yearson-2004-indian-ocean-tsunami

Snapshot

Sparkling dandelion 1 May 2011 Debbie Hartley, for the front cover of The 2015 Australian Weather Calendar

Published jointly by the Bureau of Meteorology and AMOS since 1985, the popular not-for-profit calendar is now in its 31st year, with annual sales of 60,000 across more than 80 countries worldwide.

When she lived in Kambah, ACT, Debbie Hartley took a camera out into her back yard early each morning, “because overnight anything can happen”.

On 1 May 2011 she found a dandelion sparkling with frost. “When the sun comes up,” says Debbie, “you’ve got to start photographing really quickly or you’re going to miss it all.”

Debbie was using a Canon 7D camera with a 100 mm macro lens.

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The sea, which takes a long time to heat up or cool down, moderates coastal climates and keeps them warmer in winter.

The ACT, though, lies inland of the Great Dividing Range, 150 km from the coast. It has a relatively dry continental climate and gets very cold in winter.

The plains of Russia and central North America also have continental climates.

If you have an image of the weather near you to share, please send it to melissa@amos.org.au, or post it to the AMOS Facebook or Instagram accounts. — Ed

Meet a Member

Shayne McGregor 1. Where does this email find you?

Sitting at my desk at the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre.

2. What do you do?

I am a research associate and ARC DECRA fellow who works on developing our understanding of interannual to decadal scale climate and sea level variability. This covers the past (paleoclimate data), present (the observational record) and future (coupled general circulation model projections).

3. Why did you get into it?

My initial look into research was due to my then lecturer, Dr. Neil J. Holbrook, at Macquarie University. After realising how much I enjoy research and working in climate science I went on to complete my Masters and Ph.D. with Dr. Holbrook.

4. What is the best thing about what you do?

I have always really enjoyed trying to understand how things work. This job allows me to do this and has the added benefit of letting me work on puzzles with global relevance. For instance, my current research is focusing on developing our understanding of the termination of the infamous El Niño and La Niña events that are known to wreak havoc on weather and climate around the globe.

5. What did you want to do when you were 10?

I really can’t remember, but from the age of about 14 I wanted to be a motor mechanic.

6. How do you relax?

Surfing and spending time with family and friends.

7. What is your favourite holiday destination?

My favourite holiday is with my family by the beach somewhere.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 125

AMOS member Shayne McGregor.

Shayne’s work was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and in Nature Climate Change.

Congratulations Shayne!

McGregor, S., P. Spence, F. U. Schwarzkopf, M. H. England, A. Santoso, W. S. Kessler, A. Timmermann, C. W. Böning, 2014: ENSO driven interhemispheric Pacific mass transports, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 119(9), 6221-6237.

McGregor, S., A. Timmermann, M. F. Stuecker, M. H. England, M. Merrifield, F.-F. Jin, Y. Chikamoto, 2014: Recent Walker Circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming, Nature Climate Change, 4 (10), 888-892, doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE2330.

Obituary

Bruce Hamon 1917–2014

by Alastair Greig

Vale Bruce. Image: Margaret Hamon

Bruce Hamon was considered to be the father of physical oceanography in Australia with a long and distinguished professional career at CSIRO, which began as part of the war effort in the early 1940s.

He was also well known as a local historian who witnessed the transformation of the South Coast village of Bawley Point from the timber age to the present.

Bruce Valton Hamon was born in Sydney on 11th August, 1917, the son of Leslie and Alma Hamon of Bawley Point. Bruce’s parents had moved to Bawley Point from Milton, where his great-grandparents had settled in the 1850s. His father worked as a mill hand at the Bawley Point timber mill. Bruce’s mother was sent to Sydney to await his birth, and remained there with him during his first year.

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After the timber mill burnt down in April 1922, the population of Bawley Point was reduced to around a dozen households. Yet, Bruce’s mother was determined that he would advance his education as far as possible and at the age of 11, after the closure of Murramarang School, he attended Termeil School, traversing the 10 km journey daily on his pony Titch. Then at the age of 13, Bruce received a bursary to attend St Patrick’s School in Goulburn where he boarded for four years.

During his time there, his mother opened what became the highly acclaimed Bawley Point Guest House. The house still stands on Johnston Street in Bawley Point, although it closed as a Guest House in 2001.

Obituary

Most of the visitors at the Guest House came from Sydney. One keen fisherman, the Head of Electrical Engineering at Sydney University, Professor John Madsen (later knighted in 1954), encouraged Bruce to consider engineering at university. Young Bruce thought engineers drove steam trains.

Bruce was accepted into Sydney University and studied Electrical Engineering for four years, followed by an additional year of Mathematics and Physics. In 1941, his technical skills were in high demand as a result of the war and he began his career-long association with the CSIRO by joining the National Standards Laboratory. He soon became adept at designing precision resistors that improved measurement accuracy.

Bruce was also involved in various war-time projects, including one associated with improving the range accuracy of coastal defence guns in Sydney Harbour. This also involved an assignment to Britain between June 1943 and February 1944. On his first international flight, to San Francisco, his seating allocation consisted of mailbags. On his return to Sydney, he was involved on projects de-gaussing ships, limiting their risk to magnetic mines.

After the war, Bruce continued his work on precision instruments, venturing into the design of oceanographic electronic devices. He also led a research team calibrating instruments for measuring salinity, temperature and depth. This interest drew him to the CSIRO’s Division of Fisheries at Cronulla in February 1957, and he spent the following year on a UNESCO Fellowship in Marine Science at Britain’s National Institute of Oceanography, in the company of his wife and daughter, Margaret. On his return to Australia, Bruce became interested in currents, tides and waves, and he was credited with “discovering” the “continental shelf wave” (although modestly Bruce observed that they are mentioned in The Royal Society Philosophical Transactions of June 1665). Other significant contributions included the development of world’s first Temperature-SalinityDepth profiler and pioneering an understanding of the East Australian Current and its eddies.

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He retired from the CSIRO in August 1979 and became an Honorary Associate at the Marine Studies Centre at Sydney University, the university where his initial training commenced. He remained an active researcher, specialising in time-series data for tides and sea levels. Throughout his career, Bruce published some 70 papers in various journals such as The Journal of Scientific Instruments and the Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, with the latter devoting a special issue to his work in 1983. His renown was international, and one Canadian company continues to advertise “Hamon Type Resistance Transfer Standards”.

He later recalled how much he enjoyed his working life at CSIRO, especially “the freedom to choose projects”. Testimonies from those who Bruce worked with or supervised confirm that he commanded enormous respect by allowing his team latitude in pursuing their interests and balancing work with non-work life. Through this approach, Bruce built a work culture characterised by trust, loyalty and mutual respect.

His retirement allowed him to pursue his other interests, including fishing, birdwatching, astronomy and woodwork. He put his woodworking skills to good use making many wooden items for Technical Aids for the Disabled. Bruce maintained an association with Bawley Point throughout his life, and in 1994 completed what has become the standard local history of the region: They Came to Murramarang. The book has been widely praised and the publication of a new edition is imminent. In 2005 he returned to Bawley Point to live.

Surrounded by family members and friends, Bruce was able to remain living independently at Bawley Point until March, 2013, when he moved to the excellent care of IRT Crown Gardens at Batemans Bay. He passed away peacefully on 24 August, 2014.

Bruce’s wife, Anne, predeceased him in 1992. He is survived by his daughter Margaret.

Workshop Report Proceedings of the Inaugural Inter-disciplinary Australian Heatwave Workshop May 2014, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.

Sarah E. Perkins ARC DECRA Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre & ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, UNSW

Abstract The 2014 Australian heatwave workshop, held at the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW, brought together members of the physical sciences and impacts community for the first time. The aim of the workshop was to discover and foster links between Australian heatwave research, and seasonal and operational forecasting, with the goal of utilising the practical implications of such links to optimise heatwave research. This objective stems from the current lack of heatwave knowledge exchange between physical scientists and impacts researchers, including both breakthroughs and known unsolved hurdles. More than 45 key researchers attended, and addressed topics including various physical aspects of heatwaves such as recent events, new developments in detecting marine heatwaves, long-term changes, and important synoptics and dynamics. Impacts-based topics covered human health, agriculture, marine systems and flying foxes.

Extended discussions formulated ideas on how physical scientists and impacts researchers can collaborate, as well as identifying key issues surrounding heatwave research that need to be addressed. These issues include the access of required data by all stakeholders; working towards a unified framework on the measurement of heatwaves; further understanding the role of natural variability and physical mechanisms in heatwave manifestation, the development of a “general guide” on Australian heatwaves; probabilistic seasonal outlooks; and the application of detection and attribution methods to high-impact events.

The workshop was considered successful, and has resulted in an active network between the participants. In order to ensure the gap of heatwave knowledge exchange is diminished, the workshop is expected to continue on an annual basis, with more involvement from the impacts sector in 2015.

1. Introduction In recent years, there has been a surge in the research effort investigating Australian heatwaves from a climatological, meteorological and physical perspective. Studies include, but are not limited to, the definition of heatwaves (Nairn and Fawcett, 2013), changes in heatwave intensity, frequency and duration in the observational record (Perkins and Alexander, 2013), dynamics behind events (Parker et al., 2013; Parker et al., 2014), large-scale drivers of heatwaves (Marshall et al. 2014; Hudson et al. 2014),

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synoptic climatologies (Pezza et al., 2012), ascertaining the human contribution to observed changes (Lewis et al, 2013; Perkins et al., 2014), understanding future projections (Cowan et al., 2014; Purich et al., 2014), and identifying oceanic heatwaves (Pearce and Feng 2013; Oliver et al., 2014). Such studies have made considerable progress in understanding the complex nature of these unique extreme events but were generally conducted independently of one another. This became evident at the ARC Centre for Excellence in Climate System Science (ARCCSS) 2013 annual workshop, where much of the discussion involved the findings of these studies. An outcome of the ARCCSS workshop was to coordinate a specific heatwave-focused workshop, and bring together the leading researchers in this field to promote collaboration in what is an emerging field.

Rather than just bringing together key physical scientists, it was determined that any heatwave workshop would be more effective if leading researchers from the impacts community were also involved. Even though heatwaves are by definition rare events (Perkins and Alexander, 2013), their impacts are devastating for a wide range of sectors. For example, the total deaths attributable to the 2009 heatwave preceding the Black Saturday fires were more than double the number of deaths directly caused by the fires themselves (Victorian Department of Health, 2009). A heatwave during 2002 killed over 3500 fruit bats in a single colony (Welbergen et al., 2008). Crop yields are also significantly affected by heatwaves during certain times of the year (Barlow et al., 2013). And, in our oceans, the unprecedented 2010–2011 “Ningaloo-Nino” (Feng et al., 2013) caused the first ever recorded bleaching event in the Ningaloo Reef, catastrophic damage to local seaweed populations (Smale and Wernberg, 2013; Wernberg et al., 2013), and massive mortality of fish species (e.g. Pearce and Feng 2013).

The importance of collaboration between physical scientists and impacts researchers on Australian heatwaves is two-way. Physical scientists need to produce metrics, datasets and results that are useful for the impacts community, while the impacts community need to provide information on what are practical heatwave analyses for their research. Moreover, an open dialogue between these communities allows for the exchange of the current status of heatwave research, including both advances and limitations. This would aid in applying any appropriate

Workshop Report advances across the communities more quickly and efficiently, whilst also understanding, and perhaps even advising on, current challenges and limitations within each community. However, until the occurrence of this workshop, there had been little recorded effort in bringing together these communities to focus on heatwaves in Australia. The Australian heatwave workshop program is given in Section 2, with the breadth of presentations highlighted, and areas of required research development discussed in Section 3. Concluding remarks and future directions are given in Section 4.

2. Workshop Program The Inaugural Inter-disciplinary Australian Heatwave Workshop, sponsored by the ARCCSS, was held at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on the 5–6 May 2014, and brought together 47 participants from multiple research fields.

Participants included climate scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), CSIRO, and four university nodes of the ARCCSS (32 physical scientists in total). Health researchers from the Australian National University, the University of Adelaide and Sydney University also participated, as did ecosystems and fauna experts from the University of Western Sydney, the Antarctic Climate Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (University of Tasmania), the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia, an agricultural expert from the Department of Primary Industries Victoria, and representatives from the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage (15 impact researchers in total). The stated aim of the workshop was: “To discover and foster links between Australian research of heatwaves, and seasonal and operational forecasting —How can we optimize heatwave research for practical implications?”

The second breakout session required participants to select one of the below groups, and discuss relevant heatwave issues: •

Human health impacts

•

Ecosystem and agricultural impacts

•

Real time forecasting of heat waves

The program was designed to allow for open discussion after presentation and breakout sessions and at the conclusion of the workshop. This facilitated productive discussions on what needs to be addressed in future heatwave research, as well as any future workshops.

3. Workshop content and issues highlighted Below is a brief background on the talks delivered at the workshop. Most presentations are freely available on the ARCCSS website (https://www.climatescience. org.au/content/743-australian-heatwave-workshop2014#overlay-context=content/743-australian-heatwaveworkshop-2014).

Changes in observed heatwaves since 1950 were discussed (Sarah Perkins, UNSW), while specific focus was also given to recent events, in particular the January 2013 event (Blair Trewin, BoM; see Figure 1). Climate extreme metrics developed by physical scientists for impacts purposes were introduced (Lisa Alexander, UNSW), a summary of the development of the BoM’s heatwave forecasting system was given (John Nairn, BoM), and plans were highlighted to include this framework in the Bureau’s seasonal forecasting model (Andrew Marshall, BoM).

Participants were invited to attend the workshop centered on their evidential interest in heatwaves and commitment to contributing to projects arising from workshop outcomes. Twenty talks were delivered that encompassed a range of physical aspects and impacts of heatwaves. Two breakout sessions were also convened, the first of which required participants of different disciplines to mix, and discuss the following topics: • What is the main barrier(s) to the effective study of heatwaves and their impacts?

• What observational, simulation or projection data are available, either for heatwaves or their impacts?

•

How can we better meet the needs of users?

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Figure 1: Map showing the highest daily maximum temperature recordings between 27/12/2012–18/01/2013. 42oC was reached over 75% of Australia, and 45oC was reached over 47%. Adapted from Blair Trewin’s presentation (https://www.climatescience.org.au/sites/default/files/02%20Trewin%20 -%20notable%20events%20of%202013-14.pdf).

Workshop Report Four presentations delved into the dynamics of heatwaves in southern Australia, where teleconnections between various modes of climate variability and tropical convection where highlighted (Teresa Parker, Monash University), as well as the role of surface soil moisture deficits and upper-level anti-cyclones (John McBride, University of Melbourne).

One presentation specifically explored the roll of antecedent soil moisture conditions in the heatwave preceding the Black Saturday fires (Jatin Kala, UNSW), while Rossby wave trains and sea-surface temperatures were also explored for Melbourne heatwaves (Ghyslaine Boschat, University of Melbourne).

Two talks explored the attribution of extreme events to human influences, and gave examples of such studies on the extreme heat during September 2013 (Julie Arblaster, BoM), and the extreme 2012/2013 summer (Sophie Lewis, University of Melbourne), the latter finding that the occurrence of a summer as warm as 2012/2013 has increased five times due to human greenhouse gas emissions (see Figure 2). An overview was given on a “citizen science” project, Weather@Home, that will produce an extensive model ensemble useful in further heatwave attribution research (Mitchell Black, University of Melbourne). Future heatwave projections under different emissions scenarios were also discussed (Tim Cowan, CSIRO).

Figure 3: The unprecedented 2011 marine heat wave off Western Australia showing (a) the anomalous March/2011 sea surface temperature and weekly temperatures at 10 m depth for (b) Jurien Bay and (c) Hamelin Bay indicating the 2011 record (red dots) and the 2006-2010 climatological seasonal cycle (blue dots). Adapted from Wernberg et al. (2013) and Eric Oliver’s presentation (https://www.climatescience.org.au/sites/default/ files/13%20OliverEric_MarineHeatWaves.pdf).

Preliminary results on the role of urbanization on the intensity and persistence of heatwaves was presented, particularly noting the effects on nighttime temperatures (Daniel Argüeso, UNSW).

The influence of atmospheric heatwaves on ocean events, and leading research on the development of statistical techniques in measuring oceanic heatwaves was also summarized (Eric Oliver, University of Tasmania), with a particular focus on the “Ningaloo Nino”, occurring off Western Australia during 2010/2011 summer (see Figure 3).

Figure 2: Probability density functions (PDFs) of average annual temperature anomalies computed for observations (black), and the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 model ensemble for natural only simulations (green), and those that include anthropogenic greenhouse gases (red). Vertical lines show the anomalies of the 1998 and 2013 calendar years. There has been a 5-fold increase in the likelihood of a year as anomalous as 1998 occurring, due to human activity. Adapted from Sophie Lewis’ presentation (https://www.climatescience.org.au/sites/default/ files/11%20lewis_may_2014.pdf).

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Four key heatwave impacts talks were given, including a discussion on the importance of heat dissipation mechanisms in humans, and the difficulties of thermoregulation when ambient temperature is too high (Liz Hanna, the Australian National University). The impact of hot days during wheat grain fill and flowering (see Figure 4, next page), and the heat tolerances of different bovine species, were highlighted (Dale Grey, Victorian Department of Primary Industries), while the catastrophic impact that extreme heat has on flying fox communities was made apparent (Justin Welbergen, UWS). Very high mortality occurs at temperatures above 42oC, particularly in lactating females and their young. The impacts of ocean heatwaves on marine ecosystems were also summarized, specifically for kelp forests and fisheries (Thomas Wernberg, University of Western Australia).

Workshop Report

Figure 4: Frost and heat risk distribution at Longerenong, Victoria. Increased heat risk early in Spring could coincide with frost, impacting the wheat crop cycle. Adapted from Dale Grey’s presentation (https://www.climatescience. org.au/sites/default/files/05%20GREY%20-UNSW%20heat%20 wkshop%20may%202014%20dg.pdf).

Lastly, insight was given on communicating changes and impacts of heatwaves to the general public. The benefits of being prepared before an event occurs, and how to take advantage of reactive media opportunities to communicate relevant research were highlighted (Alvin Stone, UNSW).

The breakout groups facilitated fruitful discussion among participants. The first session identified multiple barriers that inhibit the effective study of heatwaves, which can be segregated into physical, social, political and communicative areas: • Physical limitations were identified as resources required for, and inherent confidence in numerical modeling; the ambiguity in threshold definitions; the role of climate variability; and issues behind timescales of predictability, including seasonal forecasts.

• Political limitations were highlighted through the lack of ongoing funding of research projects in the communication channels between federal and state governments; and the sharing of any underpinning data.

• A range of social issues included the uneven climate understanding between experts and other community members; the multiple stakeholders involved and their different vulnerabilities; and the lack of delayed or non-obvious impacts that heatwaves may induce.

• Communication barriers include the need to facilitate individual action to reduce impacts; the multiple; and sometimes incorrect sources of information on changes in the climate, and the difficulty in communicating the underlying physical heatwave mechanisms.

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Multiple sources of heatwave data and information were highlighted. Direct climate data sources included the BoM’s station networks (e.g. ACORN-SAT; Trewin, 2013; or AWAP; Jones et al., 2009); global and regional climate model output such as near and long-term forecasts and multi-member ensembles; reanalysis and satellite data; and scientific literature and historical documents.

Climate data was identified as being available, but not always in a usable form. Impacts data was identified as more specific, including biologically-based datasets of crop yields and animal populations; health data such as hospital admissions and ambulance call-outs; power and energy demand; insurance claims and economic data; and the condition of civilian infrastructure. On the whole, impacts data was deemed more difficult to obtain and interpret, and often is on finer spatial and temporal scales than that provided by the climate community. Participants identified this as an area requiring specific attention in the future to enable better inter-disciplinary research and meet end-user requirements.

A range of the end-users of heatwave research were established, including emergency services, farmers, fisheries and marine park managers, tourism services, insurance groups, parks and wildlife officers, and natural resource management groups. It was highlighted that such groups often want location-specific data, with some being prone to meeting this need by using non-verified forecasts.

In order to better meet user needs their expectations need to be managed, and on-going support provided by climate and heatwave specialists is required such that any new and beneficial development may be directly communicated.

Better education on climate mechanisms, user-driven products and iterative product development would also aid in closing gaps between heatwave specialists and endusers.

The second breakout session identified particular issues within stakeholder groups. The ecosystem and agriculture group highlighted that the potential impact to any ecosystem by an extreme heat event is closely related to the system’s exposure, sensitivity, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. They identified the need for a unified heatwave measurement framework, as many questions related to the impacts of heatwaves on ecosystems and agriculture are common. They suggested tools that may be of use to them in the long-term, such as soil temperature forecasts for terrestrial systems, and the downscaling of Blue Link (http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/forecasts/index. shtml) for marine systems. They called for more work to increase the resolution of available climate data and a general user’s guide for its appropriate use, and education on how heatwaves are physically defined.

The human health impacts group highlighted the benefit of partnerships with industry and the military would

Workshop Report deliver benefits from better understanding of cognitive impairment during extreme heat, the importance of acclimatization and rates of dehydration, and support better prevention and management. They suggested that event attribution could be extended to heatwaves and heatwave morbidity/mortality, which would require strong partnerships between health and climate researchers.

They also stated other avenues of research that have not yet been fully explored, such as sleeping disorders due to extreme nighttime heat, violence and road rage during warm weather, and the gender issues of vulnerability, as men can underestimate their vulnerability to heat exposure. This group suggested that due to our extreme climate, Australia should take the lead at an international level to understand heatwave impacts on human health.

The third group acknowledged that in order for heatwaves and their impacts to be forecast effectively and accurately, considerable ongoing collaboration is required between meteorological and impacts groups, along with continuing data sharing. They suggested that probabilistic forecasting tools may be useful for events with at least four days lead time, so that appropriate preparedness measures may be activated. The group also recognized that the heatwave tools currently used in forecasts and climatological research are not necessarily on the same systems or scales, which needs to be rectified for seamless research across the meteorological and climatological fields, and eventual real-time implementation. Communication was identified as important in heatwave forecasts, particularly in managing user expectations, making clear issues related to scale, and the understanding of what information a forecast can provide, and to whom it does.

4. Concluding remarks and future directions Key issues highlighted that require addressing for the practical implementation of heatwave research included: • Communication and education of the limitations of climatological/meteorological data with end-users; • The development of a “general guide” to heatwaves for an interdisciplinary community; • Understanding the role of natural variability on the intensity, frequency and duration of heatwaves; • Further development of heatwave forecasts to include probabilistic projections, seasonal forecasts and other identified variables; • Applying event attribution methods to measured impacts of heatwaves; • Striving towards measurement framework;

a

common

heatwave

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• Improvements in numerical modeling, such as model confidence and spatial/temporal scales; • Working towards mediating differences in scale between impacts groups and the meteorological/climate science community; and • Making data from all sectors more accessible to other researchers and end-users.

Such issues are on-going and unlikely to be resolved in the short-term. Moreover, to assure that they are being addressed in an appropriate and effective manner, consistent contact between impacts researchers and meteorological/climate scientists is necessary. In the short-term, this has been addressed by a cross-discipline “heatwaves” mailing list and a “google groups”, which provide informal platforms for the sharing of relevant papers, potential collaborative project ideas, and exploiting the inter-disciplinary expertise of the members.

All participants agreed that the workshop should occur on a regular basis, with the next workshop slated for earlymid 2015. Moreover, it was agreed that the effectiveness of the workshop could be improved on by including other sectors, such as emergency services, power, and representatives for other ecosystems, and increasing the number of impacts researchers. This will be addressed in the next installment.

Anyone interested in joining the heatwave mailing list or group, or would like to be involved in the next workshop should contact Sarah Perkins (sarah.perkins@unsw.edu. au).

Sarah would like to thank Liz Hanna (ANU), Rebecca Harris (University of Tasmania), Andrew Marshall (Australian Bureau of Meteorology), Eric Oliver (University of Tasmania) and Ariaan Purich for their input on this report.

References Barlow, K.M., B.P. Christy, G.J. O’Leary, P.A. Riffkin and J.G. Nuttall (2013), Simulating the impact of extreme heat and frost events on wheat production: the first steps . 20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Adelaide, Australia, 1–6 December 2013.

Cowan, T., A. Purich, S. Perkins, A. Pezza, G. Boschat and K. Sadler (2014), More frequent, longer and hotter heat waves for Australia in the 21st century. J. Climate, 27, 58515871; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00092.1.

Feng, M., M.J. McPhaden, S. Xie and J.Hafner (2013), La Niña forces unprecedented Leeuwin Current warming in 2011. Sci. Rep. 3, 1277; DOI:10.1038/srep01277.

Workshop Report Hudson, D., A. Marshall, O. Alves, G. Young, D. Jones and A. Watkins (2014), Forewarned is forearmed: Extended range forecast guidance of recent extreme heat events in Australia. Weather and Forecasting, submitted.

Jones, D. A., W. Wang and R. Fawcett (2009) High-quality spatial climate data-sets for Australia. Aust. Meteor.

Oceanogr. J., 58, 233–248.

Lewis, S.C., and D.J. Karoly (2013), Anthropogenic contributions to Australia’s record summer temperatures of 2013. Geophys. Res. Lett., 40; DOI:10.1002/grl.50673.

Marshall, A.G., D. Hudson, M.C. Wheeler, O. Alves, H.H. Hendon, M.J. Pook, and J.S. Risbey (2014), Intra-seasonal drivers of extreme heat over Australia in observations and POAMA-2. Clim. Dyn., 43, 1915-1937. DOI: 10.1007/ s00382-013-2016-1 Nairn, J. and R. Fawcett (2013), Defining heatwaves: heatwaves defined as a heat impact event servicing all community and business sectors in Australia. CAWCR Technical report No 060. Published by The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research A partnership between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. Oliver, E.C.J., S.J. Wotherspoon, M.A. Chamberlain and N.J. Holbrook, 2014: Projected Tasman Sea Extremes in Sea Surface Temperature through the Twenty-First Century. J. Climate, 27, 1980–1998; DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00259.1 Parker, T.J., G.J. Berry, and M.J. Reeder (2013), The influence of tropical cyclones on heat waves in Southeastern Australia, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 6264– 6270; DOI:10.1002/2013GL058257.

Parker, T.J., G.J. Berry and M.J. Reeder (2014), The structure and evolution of heat waves in southeastern Australia. J. Climate, Vol 27, 5768-5785. DOI: 10.1175/ JCLI-D-13-00740.1 Pearce A.F., Feng M. (2013) The rise and fall of the ‘‘marine heat wave’’ off Western Australia during the summer of 2010/2011. J Mar Sys 111-112:139-156.

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Perkins, S.E. and L.V. Alexander (2013), On the Measurement of Heat Waves. J. Climate, 26, , 4500-4517; DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00383.1 Perkins, S.E., S.C. Lewis, A.D. King and L.V. Alexander (2014), Anthropogenic activity increased risk in Australian heatwave frequency and intensity during 2012-2013 [in “Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective”], Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., accepted.

Pezza, A.B., P. van Rensch, and W. Cai (2012), Severe heat waves in southern Australia: Synoptic climatology and large scale connections. Climate Dyn., 38, 209–224, doi:10.1007/ s00382-011-1016-2.

Purich, A., T. Cowan, W. Cai, P. Uotila, P. van Rensch, A. Pezza, G. Boschat and S. Perkins (2014), Australian heat waves: a CMIP5 analysis. J. Climate, accepted, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00098.1.

Smale, D.A. and T Wernberg (2013) Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species. Proc. R. Soc. B., 280, 2012-2829; DOI: http:// dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2829 Trewin, B. (2013), A daily homogenized temperature data set for Australia. Int. J. Climatol. 33, 1510–1529; DOI: 10.1002/joc.3530 Victorian Department of Health (2009), January 2009 heatwave in Victoria: an assessment of health impacts.

Published by the Victorian Government Department of Human Services Melbourne, Victoria.

Welbergen J.A., S.M. Klose, N. Markus and P. Eby (2008), Climate change and the effects of temperature extremes on Australian flying-foxes. Proc. R. Soc. B., 275, 419–425; DOI:10.1098/rspb.2007.1385 Wernberg T, Smale D.A., Tuya D., Thomsen M.S., Langlois T.J., de Bettignies T., Bennett S. and Rousseaux .S. (2013), An extreme climatic event alters marine ecosystem structure in a global biodiversity hotspot. Nature Climate Change, 3. | DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1627

Science Article

Future projections of Australian heat wave number and intensity based on CMIP5 models Tim Cowan1, Ariaan Purich1, Ghyslaine Boschat2, Sarah Perkins3, 4

CSIRO Ocean and Atmosphere Flagship, 2 School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, 3 Climate Change Research Centre, 4 Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales Address for correspondence: Tim.Cowan@csiro.au 1

Abstract Australia is a continent of climatic extremes, experiencing devastating floods, decadal-long droughts and crippling heat waves. Since the late twentieth century, summer heat waves across Australia have been getting progressively longer, hotter and more frequent, with human-induced climate change a major player in the increase. This study utilises global climate models to project how the total number of summer heat waves will change and how hot, on average, they may become (their magnitude) by the end of the twenty-first century. While the models perform well at capturing the heat wave magnitude across Australia, they struggle to simulate the regional variations in the total number of events. The models project a doubling of heat wave events by 2100 across southern Australia, and an almost tripling in the northern-central regions, under a high greenhouse-gas emissions scenario. In the regions where the heat waves are hottest, such as Victoria, South Australia, and south-west Western Australia, the models project an increase of almost 2°C in magnitude by the end of the century. Furthermore, the intensity of these southern Australian heat waves is projected to rise faster than the long-term increase in the background temperature, implying the magnitude of these events may become more extreme in the future.

1. Introduction Australia experienced another “Angry Summer” in 2013–2014, with extreme heat waves bearing down on the central and southern regions from late December through to mid-January (Bureau of Meteorology, 2014a; Bureau of Meteorology, 2014b). The number of deaths related to the January 2014 heat wave is believed to have exceeded 200 (Steffen et al., 2014), surpassing the devastating impacts on human life that were directly caused by the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria in 2009 (Engel et al., 2013). Recent progress in climate extreme research has improved our understanding of the dynamics and underlying background conditions in the atmosphere and surrounding oceans that accompany summer heat waves (e.g., Parker et al., 2013; Boschat et al., 2014). Furthermore, multi-decadal homogeneous daily temperature records enable researchers to form a long-term picture of how heat waves have, and are changing across Australia. For example, since the 1950s, the number of summer heat waves has increased over much of southern and eastern

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Australia (Perkins and Alexander, 2013), with regional increases in the duration of the longest events, along with hotter maximum temperatures for the hottest heat waves (Perkins et al. 2012; Perkins and Alexander 2013; Steffen et al., 2014). In fact, anthropogenic climate change may already have increased the probability of intense heat waves occurring, contributing to the record hot Australian summer of 2012–2013 (Perkins et al. 2014).

In the coming decades, the frequency and intensity of heat waves across the globe is expected to increase as a result of climate change (Coumou and Robinson, 2013).

For Australia, global climate models project a substantial increase in the frequency, duration and peak temperature of heat waves by the end of this century, with more severe trends under the highest greenhouse gas emission scenario (Cowan et al., 2014). The aforementioned study defined heat waves using the 90th percentiles of monthly maximum and minimum temperatures (as outlined in Section 2 below), and found in particular, the temperature of the hottest summer heat waves across southern Australia is projected to increase by around 3°C, while central and eastern Australia can expect more heat wave days in summer (>25 days) and significantly longer events exceeding 15 days by the end of this century based on the highest emission scenario (Cowan et al., 2014).

The same study also found that future changes in the frequency, duration and intensity of winter (JuneAugust) warm spells across Australia are projected to be substantially greater than summer heat waves. For example, Sydney and Perth could experience more than 50 warm spell days per winter by 2100, based on the highest emission scenario, however they may only reach 20-30 days under a moderate emissions scenario (historically they experience only 2 days per winter).

In Cowan et al., (2014), the total number of heat wave events and the average daily intensity of heat waves (heat wave magnitude), were not examined. In this short study, we analyse the ensemble set of coupled climate model realisations to: (i) first assess how well global climate models simulate historical heat wave number and magnitude across Australia, and (ii) investigate the projected changes in these two heat wave metrics by the end of this twenty-first century. This study is designed to complement the work detailed in Cowan et al., (2014), however it will only focus on summer heat waves.

Science Article 2. Data and heat wave metrics We define summer heat waves based on when daily maximum temperatures from December–February exceed the monthly 90th percentile threshold for three or more consecutive days, and minimum temperatures exceed the monthly 90th percentile threshold for the second and third day (as in Pezza et al., 2012; Cowan et al., 2014). In this definition, a summer heat wave can be distinguished from other summer heat extremes through the lack of nighttime temperature relief. As in Perkins and Alexander (2013), the heat wave number describes the total number of individual heat wave events per summer, while the magnitude is a measure of the average daily maximum temperature anomaly for all heat wave events per summer.

As we are interested in Australia-wide results, observations over 1950–2005 from the Bureau of Meteorology highresolution gridded temperature dataset are utilised, and interpolated to a 2°×2° grid. This interpolation allows a direct comparison with the fifteen global climate model simulations used for this analysis from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5), which feature a median resolution close to 2°×2°. The fifteen CMIP5 models were previously selected by Cowan et al., (2014) for their suitability in heat wave frequency, duration and amplitude projections (models are listed in their Table 1). The heat wave metrics are calculated for the model historical experiments over 1950-2005, and for the 20812100 period, based on the high-emission Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario (a detailed description of which can be found in van Vuuren et al.

2011). A 56-year baseline allows each model to simulate an adequate heat wave sample size, while a 20-year future period is used to represent the long-term changes in heat wave metrics over the twenty-first century.

After constructing historical and future composites (i.e., averages of all heat wave events) we test the significance of the difference between the RCP8.5 and historical composites using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney U test (Mann and Whitney, 1947). This test is non-parametric and determines whether the future RCP8.5 composite is significantly different from the historical composite at the 95% confidence level. Each composite is based on a multimodel mean of the fifteen CMIP5 models.

3. Heat wave number and magnitude patterns across Australia The results show that central and southeastern Australia experience the highest number of summer heat waves, with an average of ~0.7 events per summer1 (Figure 1a).

This spatial pattern of the heat wave number is broadly consistent with the previous findings of Perkins and 1 Nearly all regions experience less than one heat wave on average, as heat waves do not necessarily occur every summer.

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Figure 1: Summer heat wave metric climatologies over 1950–2005 for: (left) observations, and (right) CMIP5 multi-model mean. (top) Heat wave number (events per summer), and (bottom) heat wave magnitude (°C).

Summer is defined as December-February.

Alexander (2013), but the frequencies are smaller, likely because this previous study evaluated events over five months (November–March) and used an alternative heat wave definition. Both definitions show a heat wave number minimum of >0.3 events per summer across the southwest coastal region, the northwest region stretching from the Pilbara to the Kimberley, Cape York, and east of the Great Dividing Range.

The observed heat wave number spatial pattern closely resembles the heat wave frequency (total number of days) pattern (see Figure 1b of Cowan et al., 2014). However, as with heat wave frequency, the CMIP5 multi-model mean seems to poorly represent the heat wave number pattern across much of Australia, barring the south-west coast (Figure 1c; compare with Figure 1d of Cowan et al., 2014). The models fail to capture the coastal heat wave number minima, particularly over the north-west and far northeastern tropical regions, and place the heat wave number maximum (>0.6 events per summer) too far north stretching beyond central Queensland. The multi-model mean is able to somewhat capture the heat wave number maximum in the Northern Territory, however the models simulate fewer events across southern Victoria than in observations. The model pattern is more representative of the maximum-temperature only definition of heat wave number shown in Perkins and Alexander, (2013).

The heat wave magnitude pattern is better represented by the CMIP5 models, comparing well with observations (c.f. Figures 1d and 1b). Unlike heat wave number, the observed magnitude exhibits a maximum along the southern Australian regions, exceeding 10°C above average from south-west Western Australia, through to eastern Gippsland in Victoria (Figure 1b). The heat wave

Science Article magnitude pattern has a strong north-south gradient, decreasing to less than 2째C above average in the tropics.

This is very similar to the climatology of the hottest day of the hottest summer heat waves (heat wave amplitude; Figure 1c of Cowan et al., 2014). While the CMIP5 multimodel mean performs better at simulating the broad heat wave magnitude pattern, including the strong north-south gradient, the models typically underestimate the southern maximum and northern minimum by around 2째C (Figure 1d). The models also fail to capture the intense heat along the southern coastal fringe, particularly across south-west Western Australia and southern Victoria.

As shown in Cowan et al., (2014), the models better simulate the temperature anomaly-based metrics of heat waves, such as amplitude, and (as shown here) magnitude, yet struggle to differentiate the regional-scale patterns related to frequency, number of events and duration of heat waves. As such, our confidence in the reliability of future projections of heat wave magnitude is greater than that of the heat wave number. Given the models capture the spatial pattern better than the strength of heat wave magnitude across Australia (underestimated for the south and overestimated for the north), this suggests that regional variations in any future change may be more realistic than the actual size of the change. Biases may be introduced through the multi-model averaging process whereby orographic gradients are effectively filtered out, or may be related to model-induced biases in atmospheric phenomena such as blocking (Grose et al., 2012). These biases generally stem from the misrepresentation of the mean circulation state, as shown to be important for atmosphere-ocean feedbacks in the tropical Indian Ocean (Cai and Cowan, 2013), and are not just a case of model resolution (Grose et al., 2012).

4. CMIP5 projections Bearing in mind the model biases in terms of capturing the historical heat wave climatology, we next investigate projected changes in the heat wave number and magnitude in the late twenty-first century. To highlight the effects of a long-term change in the mean climate, results are assessed in two ways. Firstly, we calculate the change in heat wave number and magnitude over 2081-2100 compared to the fixed 1950-2005 climatology. This describes the absolute change in both heat wave metrics relative to the historical climate. Secondly, we calculate the future change relative to an evolving climatology (i.e., using a non-stationary threshold). This is achieved using a centred 31-year sliding window, the length of which is chosen to represent a typical climatology period. As such, the 31-year sliding window filters out interannual variations and removes the long-term trend in mean temperature. The future change over the period 2066-2085 compared to the 196519902 historical period is presented, as this (i) removes 2 Shorthand for 31-year periods centred on 1965 and 1990 respectively

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any contamination of the projection data in the historical period3, and (ii) presents future results calculated against a true sliding window climatology4. Further details of this method are provided in Cowan et al., (2014). It should be noted also, that the composites showing CMIP5 projections are a good representation of the changes projected by individual models and are not overburdened by one or two extreme model results (see Figures A1-A4, Appendix).

An examination of the future simulated changes using a fixed climatology shows large and significant increases in heat wave number (Figure 2a) and magnitude (Figure 2b) across most of Australia. While the increase in heat wave number in southern Australia (~2-3 events per summer) is lower than in northern Australia, the increase in heat wave magnitude is large (~1.5 째C).This combination will likely have a dramatic impact on communities living in southern Australia, particularly in cities such as Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth (Steffen et al., 2014). One must remember, however, in interpreting these projections, the models overestimate the historical heat wave number across throughout the tropical north, and underestimate the number of events for southeast Australia and that these biases may well be carried through in to the projections.

Along the eastern coastline, the models suggest a doubling (and in some cases a tripling) in the total number of summer heat waves, in line with results for Sydney (Steffen et al., 2014), however the heat wave magnitude changes are clearly weaker (and insignificant) than for the southern coastline (Figure 2b, stippling). This could be related to projections of increased summer-time rainfall along the eastern coast in the mid twenty-first century, associated with a Tasman Sea warming (Shi et al. 2008).

Overall, the model results imply an enhancement of the regional trends identified in the observations (e.g. Perkins and Alexander, 2013), in line with a doubling of the total number of summer heat waves by 2100. Confidence in this result is somewhat limited by the knowledge that global climate models contain biases in their historical climatologies compared to observations.

The change in the heat wave number relative to a nonstationary climatology illustrates changes to heat waves independent of the mean temperature rise. On these maps (e.g., Figures 2c and 2d), changes greater than that expected through a change in the mean temperature alone appear in red and less than expected in blue. As shown in Figure 2c there is little or no change to the heat wave number above mean-state increases for most regions, 3 Any year after 1990 will contain projection data from the RCP scenario given the nature of the 31-year sliding window. For example, a 31-year sliding window centred on 1991 covers the period 1976-2006, with one year of projection data (2006). A 31-year sliding window encompassing 2005 covers the period 1990-2020, with 15 years of projection data (2006-2020). Excluding years from 1991 onwards removes this contamination.

4 Results after 2085 are based on a fixed window climatology (e.g., 2070-2100).

Science Article number, given the model’s ability to capture the historical mean state better. It should be noted that the results shown here are for the RCP8.5 scenario. Future changes from the medium-low emission scenario, RCP4.5, still show increases in heat wave metrics as for RCP8.5, but to a lesser extent (not shown), making projections from mitigation scenarios less certain, particularly for the total change in heat wave number. Overall, mitigation can thus greatly reduce the likelihood of more frequent heat waves in the twenty-first century, in addition to limiting the temperature increase of such events.

5. Conclusions

Figure 2: RCP8.5 summer heat wave metric changes in: (top) heat wave number (events per summer), and (bottom) heat wave magnitude (°C). (left) Increases over 2081-2100 compared to the 1950-2005 climatology, based on a stationary threshold climatology, with stippling indicating where the future increases are not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. (right) Changes over 2066-2085 compared to the 1965-1990 climatology, based on a 31-year sliding threshold climatology, with stippling indicating where the future changes are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. As the non-stationary thresholds represent true sliding window periods for the historical and future periods, they encompass slightly different periods to the stationary thresholds (see Cowan et al. 2014). For individual model results, please refer to Figures A1-A4 in Appendix. except for southern Victoria, displaying a very small (and insignificant) decrease in the number of events.

This suggests that there is no significant change to the heat wave number aside from what is expected from a long-term change due to a background mean warming.

However, changes exceeding the mean state increase are seen for heat wave magnitude (Figure 2d) over the centralsouthern regions, with magnitude anomalies surpassing 0.8°C. This implies that rate of change in the average daily intensity of heat waves is projected to increase faster than the background intensity. A significant change is also seen in the tropical north-east, however in this region the heat wave magnitude is projected to increase at a slower rate than the mean-state magnitude is warming. Even across regions where the projected increase in the magnitude of heat waves is not statistically significant (such as southern Victoria and southeast South Australia), the models suggest an increase in magnitude of ~0.2-0.6°C above the background mean change, which would likely enhance the risk of mortality in the greater populated areas (e.g., Tong et al., 2014). The projected regional increases in the number and magnitude of heat waves out to 2100 reflect the continuation of observed historical trends over the late twentieth century, particularly over southerncentral Australia (Perkins and Alexander, 2013). There is also greater reliability in the projected spatial pattern of the heat wave magnitude changes than for the total

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Based on the business-as-usual (RCP8.5) scenario in the twenty-first century, Australia will very likely face a future with more heat waves of greater intensity, consistent with observed changes and model projections for other regions (Perkins et al., 2012; IPCC, 2013). As shown in this study, the latest generation of climate models that form part of CMIP5 suggest that heat waves across Australia will most likely double in number across southern regions, and potentially triple in number in central-northern areas by the end of this century. Southern heat waves will also be ~2°C warmer by 2100, implying that populated centres such as Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne face the combined threat of more frequent and hotter events.

The northern tropical regions face more heat waves in the future, although the increase in the daily intensity is projected to be insignificant. Caution should be noted for these tropical projections, however, given the small distribution in seasonal and diurnal temperatures in these regions (Nairn and Fawcett, 2013).

We have found that the modelled increases in heat wave numbers across Australia are mainly due to the background warming in the climate. When this background warming is removed through the utilisation of a non-stationary threshold climatology, significant changes in the number of heat waves are removed. This is also true for the magnitude of heat waves across most regions, although for central-southwest Australia, the models simulate an increase in the magnitude above the mean-state increase, exceeding 0.8°C. This implies that the intensity of heat waves in these regions will outpace the long-term background intensity increase, in effect, making these extreme events even more extreme.

In highlighting these future projections of Australian heat waves it should be noted that the fifteen CMIP5 models used in this study contain various historical mean-state biases (i.e., Figure 1). While observations seem to suggest that sea-surface temperatures in the Indian and Pacific Oceans play a role in heat wave development and mobility (Boschat et al., 2014), CMIP5 models seemingly struggle to simulate the correct oceanic patterns associated with heat waves (Purich et al., 2014). Investigating the dynamical link between ocean temperatures, synoptic patterns and

Science Article heat waves, particularly for southern Australia, is the next logical and important step to take to better understand heat waves and the validity of climate model projections.

References IPCC, 2013, Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T. F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S. K., Boschung, J., Nauels, A., Xia, Y., Bex, V. and Midgley, P. M. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, USA, 3–29. [Available online at http://www. climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_ FINAL.pdf] Boschat, G., Pezza, A., Simmonds, I., Perkins, S., Cowan, T. and Purich, A., 2014, Large scale and sub-regional connections in the lead up to summer heat wave and extreme rainfall events in eastern Australia, Climate Dynamics, doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2214-5 (in press).

Bureau of Meteorology, 2014a, An intense heatwave in central and eastern Australia. Bureau of Meteorology Special Climate Statement 47, 10 pp. Available online at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/ scs47.pdf Bureau of Meteorology, 2014b, One of southeast Australia’s most significant heatwaves. Bureau of Meteorology Special Climate Statement 48, 17 pp. Available online at http:// www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs48.pdf.

Cai, W. and Cowan, T., 2013, Why is the amplitude of the Indian Ocean Dipole overly large in CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate models? Geophysical Research Letters, 40, 1200– 1205, doi:10.1002/grl.50208.

Coumou, D. and Robinson, A., 2013, Historic and future increase in the global land area affected by monthly heat extremes. Environmental Research Letters, 8, 034018, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034018.

Cowan, T., Purich, A., Perkins, S., Pezza, A., Boschat, G. and Sadler, K., 2014, More frequent, longer and hotter heat waves for Australia in the 21st century. Journal of Climate, 27, 5851–5871, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00092.1.

Engel, C. B., Lane, T. P., Reeder, M. J. and Rezny, M., 2013, The meteorology of Black Saturday. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 139, 585–599, doi: 10.1002/qj.1986.

Grose, M. R., Pook, M., McIntosh, P., Risbey, J. and Bindoff, N., 2012, The simulation of cutoff lows in a regional climate model: Reliability and future trends. Climate Dynamics, 39, 445–459, doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1368-2.

Mann, H. B. and Whitney, D. R., 1947, On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 138

the other. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 18, 50– 60, doi:10.1214/aoms/1177730491.

Nairn, J. and Fawcett, R., 2013, Defining heatwaves: Heatwave defined as a heat-impact event servicing all community and business sectors in Australia. CAWCR Technical Report, 60, 96 pp. [Available online at: http:// www.cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/ CTR_060.pdf] Parker, T. J., Berry, G. J. and Reeder, M. J., 2013, The influence of tropical cyclones on heat waves in southeastern Australia. Geophysical Research Letters, 40, 6264–6270, doi:10.1002/2013GL058257.

Perkins, S. E. and Alexander, L. V., 2013, On the measurement of heat waves. Journal of Climate, 26, 4500– 4517.

Perkins, S. E., Lewis, S. C., King, A. D. and Alexander, L. V., 2014, Increased simulated risk of the hot Australian summer of 2012/13 due to anthropogenic activity as measured by heat wave frequency and intensity [in “Explaining Extremes of 2013 from a Climate Perspective”]. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95 (9), S34-S37.

Pezza, A., van Rensch, P. and Cai, W., 2012, Severe heat waves in southern Australia: Synoptic climatology and large scale connections. Climate Dynamics, 38, 209–224, doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1016-2.

Purich, A., Cowan, T., Cai, W., van Rensch, P., Uotila, P., Pezza, A., Boschat, G. and Perkins, S., 2014, Atmospheric and oceanic conditions associated with southern Australian waves: a CMIP5 analysis. Journal of Climate, 27, 7807-7829, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00098.1.

Shi, G., Ribbe, J., Cai, W. and Cowan, T., 2008, An interpretation of Australian rainfall projections.

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Steffen, W., Hughes, L. and Perkins. S., 2014, Heatwaves: Hotter, Longer, More Often. Special Report by the Climate Council of Australia, 62 pp. Available online at http:// www.climatecouncil.org.au/heatwaves-report.

Tong, S., Wang, X. Y., Yu, W., Chen, D. and Wang, X, 2014, The impact of heatwaves on mortality in Australia: a multicity study, BMJ Open, 4(2):e003579, doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2013-003579. van Vuuren, D. P., Edmonds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomson, A., Hibbard, K., Hurtt, G. C., Kram, T., Krey, V., Lamarque, J. -F., Matsui, T., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S. J. and Rose, S. K., 2011, The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Climatic Change, 109, 5-31, doi: 10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z.

Science Article Appendix Supplementary Figures

Figure A1: Individual CMIP5 model summer heat wave number changes (events per summer) for RCP8.5, over 2081-2100 compared to the 19502005 climatology, based on a stationary threshold climatology. Stippling indicates where the future increases are not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Figure A2: Individual CMIP5 model summer heat wave magnitude changes (째C) for RCP8.5, over 2081-2100 compared to the 1950-2005 climatology, based on a stationary threshold climatology. Stippling indicates where the future increases are not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Figure A3: Individual CMIP5 model summer heat wave number changes (events per summer) for RCP8.5, over 2066-2085 compared to the 19651990 climatology, based on a 31-year sliding threshold climatology.

Stippling indicates where the future increases are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. See main text for further details.

Figure A4: Individual CMIP5 model summer heat wave magnitude changes (째C) for RCP8.5, over 2066-2085 compared to the 1965-1990 climatology, based on a 31-year sliding threshold climatology. Stippling indicates where the future increases are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. See main text for further details.

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Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin

9 July, 1978 July 1978 was, at the time, Australia’s wettest July on record. The first significant rains came in the first three days of the month, when a low-pressure system tracked from the Great Australian Bight near Adelaide to east Gippsland, and brought widespread rain over southern and eastern Australia. However, a few days later, highly unseasonal rainfalls occurred extensively throughout large parts of northern Australia between the 6th and the 10th July, providing tropical Australia with one of the most significant dry-season rain events in its history.

This rainfall event commenced with an upper-level feature which provided a strong infeed of moisture from the Indian Ocean to the northwest, on the 6th of July During the first two days of the event, heavy rains were largely confined to northern parts of Western Australia, with 108 mm at Napier Downs in the West Kimberley on the 7th. Rain became more extensive the next day as a surface trough developed over the western interior of the continent, with heavy rainfall spreading to cover much of the southern half of the Northern Territory, an example of which was a 74 millimetre fall at Yuendumu.

The event reached its peak on the 9th and 10th of July. On the 9th, there was an area of low pressure covering much of the northern interior of Australia, which is a pattern more typical of the peak of the monsoon. Rainfall totals of 25 mm or above extended from the east Kimberley across the Northern Territory to south-west Queensland on the 9th, then covered most of Queensland on the 10th except for southern border areas and the far north. There were daily totals in excess of 100 mm at a number of sites on both days, including 116 mm at Birrimba, south of Katherine, on the 9th and 114 mm at Dagworth and Leichardt Farms, both in Queensland, on the 10th. The trough had cleared the east coast by the morning of the 11th of July, and by then rain was confined to the Queensland coast.

Total rainfall for the period from 6–11 July exceeded 50 mm over a band several hundred kilometres wide through tropical Australia, extending all the way from the Kimberley to the central coast of Queensland. This was an event with no real historical precedent at that time of year.

Over most of this region it was the wettest July on record, or close to it. Major flooding occurred in the Macintyre catchment near the Queensland–NSW border, which was already wet from rains in June, and minor to moderate flooding in various inland Queensland rivers, closing roads but not causing major property damage.

South-east Australia experienced a rather cold period with generally southwest airflow. The cold was particularly notable and persistent at high altitudes, where temperatures at Thredbo Top Station did not rise above −6.9°C on the 9th of July, which was the lowest daily maximum temperature ever recorded in Australia.

At Perisher Valley it fell to −15.5°C on the 8th. There were also some very low maximum temperatures at lower elevations, including 4.0°C at Strathbogie on the 9th and 3.6°C at Beechworth on the 10th. Snow fell regularly on higher ground in Tasmania from the 4th to the 9th of July, resulting in heavy accumulations (including 67 cm in the Cradle Mountain car park), and fell in the Hobart suburbs on the evening of the 11th. Hobart only reached 10°C three times in 18 days, and Canberra had 11 consecutive days below 10°C from the 2nd to the 12th of July. Both Wagga Wagga and Rutherglen failed to reach 10°C from the 6th to the 11th, and Sydney’s failure to reach 15°C during the same period is unmatched at any time in the last 50 years.

Mean maximum temperatures for the month were below normal almost throughout Australia, although milder conditions later in the month prevented any significant records from being set.

Synoptic chart for 0000 UTC, 9 July 1978

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The Research Corner with Damien Irving

Software Installation Explained Software installation has got to be one of the most frustrating, confusing, and intimidating things that research scientists have to deal with. In fact, I’ve waxed poetic in a number of blog posts about the need to solve the software installation problem. Not only is it a vitally important issue for the sanity of everyday research scientists, it’s also critically important to the open science movement. What’s the point of having everyone share their code and data, if nobody can successfully install the software that code depends on? This article is my attempt to summarise the current state of play regarding software installation in the atmospheric sciences. Things are far from perfect, but there are some encouraging things happening on this front.

In Theory There are four main ways in which you might go about installing a certain software package. From easiest to hardest, they are as follows: Option 1. Download an installer This is the dream scenario. Upon navigating to the website of the software package you’re after, you discover a downloads page which detects your operating system and presents you with a link to download the appropriate installer (sometimes called a “setup program”). You run the installer on your machine, clicking yes to agree to the terms and conditions and checking the box to include a shortcut on your desktop, and, hey presto! the software works as advertised. If you’re using a proprietary package like MATLAB or IDL then this has probably been your experience. It takes many developer hours to create, maintain, and support software installers, so this is where (some of) your license fees are going. Free software that is very widely used (e.g. Git) is also often available via an installer, however in most cases you get what you pay for when it comes to software installation.

Option 2. Use a package manager In the absence of an installer, your next best bet is to see whether the software you’re after is available via a package manager. All Linux operating systems have a package manager based on apt-get (e.g. the Ubuntu Software Centre), while there are a range of different managers available for Macs (e.g. Homebrew) and Windows (e.g.

OneGet will come standard with Windows 10). The great thing about these managers is that they handle all the software dependencies associated with an install. For instance, if the command line tool you’re installing allows for the manipulation of netCDF files, then chances are

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that tool depends on the relevant netCDF libraries being installed on your machine too. Package managers are smart enough to figure this out, and will install all the dependencies along the way. They will also alert you to software updates (and install them for you if you like), which means in many cases a package manager install might even be preferable to downloading an installer.

The only downside to package managers is that there is often a time lag between when a new version of a software package is released, and when it gets updated on the manager. If you want the “bleeding edge” version of a particular software package, or if that package isn’t available via a package manager (only fairly widely used packages make it to that stage), then you slide further down the list to option 3…

Option 3. Install from binaries We are now beyond the point of just clicking a button and having the install happen before our eyes, so we need to learn a little more about software installation to figure out what’s going on. At the core of any software is the source code, which is usually a bunch of text files (e.g. like .c, .cpp, .h in the case of software written in C/C++). In order to run that source code, you must first feed it through a compiler. Compiling then generates a binary, which is usually an .exe or a .dll file. To relieve users of the burden of having to compile the source code themselves, software developers will often collect up all the relevant binaries in a zip file (or tarball) and make them available on the web (e.g. on a website like SourceForge). You then just have to unzip those binaries in an appropriate location on your machine. This sounds easy enough in theory, but in order to get the software working correctly there’s often an extra step—you essentially have to do the work of a package manager and install the software dependencies as well.

This is almost always difficult and occasionally impossible.

(Note that an installer is basically just a zip file full of binaries that can unzip itself and copy the binaries to the right places on your computer.)

4. Install from the source code If you’re feeling particularly brave and/or need the very latest version of a software package (e.g. perhaps a betaversion that hasn’t even been formally released yet), you can often download the source code from a site like GitHub. You now have to do the compilation step yourself, so there’s an added degree of difficulty. It turns out that even super experienced programmers avoid source code installs unless they absolutely have to.

The Research Corner with Damien Irving In Practice Ok, so that’s a nice high level summary of the software installation hierarchy, but how does it actually play out in reality? To demonstrate, consider my personal software requirements: • NCO for simple manipulation of netCDF files • CDO for simple data analysis tasks on netCDF files • Python for more complex data analysis tasks • UV-CDAT for quickly viewing the contents of netCDF files This is how the installation of each of these packages plays out on a modern Ubuntu, Mac, and Windows machine: NCO & CDO NCO and CDO are available via both the Ubuntu Software Centre and Homebrew, so installation on Ubuntu and on Macs is a breeze (well, there are a few bugs with the Homebrew install for CDO, but it all works out in the end). Things are a little more difficult for Windows. There are binaries available for both, however it doesn’t appear that the CDO binaries are particularly well supported.

Python Getting the Python standard library (i.e. the core libraries that come with any Python installation) working on your machine is a pretty trivial task these days. In fact, it comes pre-installed on Ubuntu and on Macs. Until recently, what wasn’t so easy was getting all the extra libraries relevant to the weather and climate sciences playing along nicely with the standard library. The problem stems from the fact that while the default Python package installer (called pip) is great at installing libraries that are written purely in Python, many scientific / number crunching libraries are written (at least partly) in faster languages like C (because speed is important when data arrays get really large). Since pip doesn’t install dependencies like the core C or netCDF libraries, getting all your favourite Python libraries working together was problematic (to say the least). To help people through this installation nightmare, Continuum Analytics have released (for free) Anaconda, which bundles together around 200 of the most popular Python libraries for science, maths, engineering and data analysis. What’s more, if you need a library that isn’t part of the core 200 and can’t be installed easily with pip, they have developed their own package manager called Conda.

People can write Conda packages for their favourite Python libraries (which is apparently a fairly simple task for experienced developers) and post them on a website called Binstar, and those Conda packages can be used to install the libraries (and all their dependencies) on your own machine.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 142

In terms of my personal Python install, the main extra libraries I care about are iris and cartopy (for plotting), cdat-lite (for climate data analysis), eofs (for EOF analysis) and windspharm (for wind related quantities like the streamfunction and velocity potential). There are Linux flavoured Conda packages for all four on Binstar, so installing on Ubuntu is as simple as entering something like this at the command line: conda install -c https://conda.binstar. org/scitools iris

For the other operating systems, things don’t look so rosy.

There aren’t any Windows flavoured Conda packages for iris/cartopy, cdat-lite, windspharm or eofs on Binstar (yet), while for Mac there’s only iris/cartopy. Binstar definitely has the potential to be a game changer when it comes to solving the software installation problem, so this is a call out to all software developers to keep those Binstar installation packages coming!

UV-CDAT UV-CDAT has binaries available for Ubuntu and Mac, in addition to binaries for the dependencies (which is very nice of them). There are no binaries for Windows at this stage.

In Conclusion If you’re struggling when it comes to software installation, rest assured you definitely aren’t alone. The software installation problem is a source of frustration for all of us and is a key roadblock on the path to open science, so it’s great that solutions like Binstar are starting to pop up. In the meantime (i.e. while you’re waiting for a silver bullet solution), probably the best thing you can do is have a serious think about your operating system. I don’t like to take sides when it comes to programming languages, tools, or operating systems, but the reality (as borne out in the example above) is that developers work on Linux machines, which means they first and foremost make their software installable on Linux machines. Macs are an afterthought that they do often eventually get around to (because Mac OS X is based on Linux so it’s not too hard), while Windows is an after-afterthought that often never gets addressed (because Windows is not Linux-based and is therefore often too hard) unless you’re dealing with a proprietary package that can afford the time and effort. If you want to make your life easy when it comes to scientific computing in the weather and climate sciences, you should therefore seriously consider working on a Linux machine, or at least on a Mac as a compromise.

A version of this article is available on my blog, which provides hyperlinks to more information on many of the topics covered: http://drclimate.wordpress.com/

Calendar

2015

August

January

2-7 12th Annual Meeting - Asia Oceania Geosciences AOGS - Singapore

4–8 95th AMS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA.

October

March

5–9 11th International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography, Santiago, Chile

23–27 IAMAS workshop, Rosendal, Norway.

April 12-17 European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2015, Vienna, Austria.

May 3–7 Joint Assembly (AGU-GAC-MAC-CGU), Montreal, Canada.

June 17-19 10th Antarctic Meteorological Observing, Modeling, and Forecasting Workshop (AMOMFW), Cambridge, United Kingdom 22 June–2 July 26th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Prague, Czech Republic.

12-14 (tentative) 8th ACRE Workshop

November 19–21 Meteorological Society of New Zealand – Annual Conference. Forecasts: From minutes to decades, Wellington, NZ.

2016 February TBC AMOS National Conference 2016 21–26 AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA.

July 15–17 AMOS National Conference, Brisbane.

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal

Articles — Vol. 64 No. 2, June 2014 Sophie C. Lewis and David J. Karoly. Assessment of forced responses of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) 1.3 in CMIP5 historical detection and attribution experiments.

Andrew J. Dowdy and Yuriy Kuleshov. Climatology of lightning activity in Australia: spatial and seasonal variability.

Petter Nyman, Christopher B.Sherwin, Christoph Langhans, Patrick N.J. Lane and Gary J. Sheridan.

Downscaling regional climate data to calculate the radiative index of dryness in complex terrain.

Matthias Reif, Michael J. Reeder and Mai C. N. Hankinson. Vacillation cycles in WRF Simulations of hurricane Katrina.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 143

John D. Wilson. Downscaling a reanalysis of extremely cold weather in southern New Zealand.

Regular features: Tamika Tihema. Seasonal climate summary southern hemisphere (spring 2013): Warmest Australian spring on record.

Xiaoxi Wu. Quarterly numerical weather prediction model performance summary—October 2013 to March 2014.

BAMOS Author Guidelines

For all submissions: The Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (BAMOS) accepts short (<2500 words) contributions of original research work for peerreview and consideration in the “Science Articles” section.

Longer articles will be considered at the discretion of the Editor and Editor-in-Chief. Articles submitted to BAMOS should also be appropriate for the whole AMOS community (from weather enthusiasts to professional members) and should aim to be concise without using excessive scientific jargon.

Raymond, D.J., 1993. Chapter 2: Observational constraints on cumulus parameterizations. In: The representation of cumulus convection in numerical models, Meteorological Monographs, 24 (46), 17–28, American Meteorological Society, Boston, USA.

For the peer-reviewed “Science Articles” section, authors should follow these guidelines:

•

1. Articles should be submitted as a PDF or Word document (or similar) for peer-review and include all figures and tables either within the main text or consecutively at the end of the article.

2. Articles should have a line spacing of 1.5 or more using a font size of 12. Articles should preferably be written using Times New Roman or Arial.

3. Articles should be split into sections, with the heading for each section numbered consecutively and using a font size of 14. For example (these are title examples, headings are made at the authors’ discretion):

1. Introduction

2. Method

3. Results

4. Conclusions

4. An abstract is required and should not be more than 150 words in length.

5. Acknowledgements to be included after the final work section and before the references.

6. References should follow these example formats: •

Journal Articles:

Jung, T., Ferranti, L. and Tompkins, A.M., 2006, Response to the summer of 2003 Mediterranean SST anomalies over Europe and Africa, Journal of Climate, 19, 5439–5454.

•

Books:

Holton, J.R., 2004, An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology. Academic Press, New York. 535 pp.

•

Book chapter:

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 144

•

Theses:

Trewin, B., 2001, Extreme temperature events in Australia.

PhD Thesis, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Web sites:

Department of Sustainability and Environment, 2012, Bushfire history - Major bushfires in Victoria, www.dse. vic.gov.au/fire-and-other-emergencies/major-bushfires-invictoria/ 7. We recommend that the author(s) make five suggestions for referees to undertake the peer-review.

Also, we ask for a list of five potential referees whom the author does not want as reviewers, due to conflicts of interest, or past close association..

8. Once peer-review has been completed, a final version of the document should be sent to the editor either in Word format or as plain text. The document should also include figure and table captions and the references but no figures. Figure files should be sent separately (they may be in any format and the editor will confer with the author(s) on the resolution and formatting).

9. Galley-proofs will be sent to the author(s) for final checking before publication.

BAMOS also accepts a wide range of non-peer-reviewed work, for example news items, charts from the past, conference reports, book reviews, biographical articles and meet a member. AMOS members are therefore encouraged to submit articles that would be of general interest to the AMOS community without necessarily requiring peer review. File formats should follow those given above; a word or plain text document should be submitted (which includes any figure captions and tables) along with any figure files given separately.

All articles should be either posted or emailed to the editor with any questions on the formatting also directed to the editor (see the inside back cover of this issue for contact details).

2014 AMOS Council Executive

President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Past President

Todd Lane Mary Voice Damien Irving Angela Maharaj Blair Trewin

Ordinary Members Ailie Gallant Andrew Klekociuk Adam Morgan Neville Nicholls Andy Pitman Ian Watterson

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AMOS Executive Officer Jeanette Dargaville GPO Box 1289, Melbourne VIC 3001 (attn: AMOS admin officer) Phone 0404 471 143 E-mail: admin@amos.org.au

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Sub-Committee Convenors Public Relations Awards 2015 Conference Education

Centre Chairs ACT Adelaide Brisbane Darwin Hobart Melbourne NSW Perth

Vacant Mark Williams Andrew Weibe Melissa Lyne Angela Maharaj

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Bob Cechet Darren Ray Andrew Wiebe Ian Shepherd Andrew Marshall Andrew King Fiona Johnson Merv Lynch

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Representatives

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David Karoly

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AMOS is represented on the relevant Australian Academy of Science committees.

2014 Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society ISSN 1035-6576

Editor

Melissa Lyne PO Box 3179 Tamarama NSW 2026 Phone: 0415 514 328 Email: melissa@amos.org.au

Science Editor

Willow Hallgren Email: whallgren@tpg.com.au

Editor-in-chief

Duncan Ackerley Email: duncan.ackerley@monash.edu

Assistant Editors Diana Greenslade, Blair Trewin and Linden Ashcroft

Regional Sub-editors Michael Hewson (Brisbane) Darren Ray (Adelaide) Shannon Mason (Melbourne) Fiona Johnson (NSW) Bob Cechet (ACT) Craig Macaulay (TAS) Jenny Hopwood (WA)

Contributors Blair Trewin Damien Irving

Advertising Manager

Please contact the Executive Officer.

Publisher

AMOS, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia

Contributed articles, news, announcements and correspondence for the Bulletin should be sent to the editor no later than 19 January 2015. They will be reviewed and the galley proofs returned to the author if requested. An ASCII version of the text is required via e-mail or digital media to minimise typographic errors.

The Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society is produced and distributed with the assistance of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Bureau of Meteorology.

AMOS Website: www.amos.org.au

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