BAMOS Vol 27 No.5 October 2014

AMOS

AustralianMeteorological & OceanographicSociety

2014 Eureka Prize winner Joelle Gergis is Member of the Month Bondi Vet Dr. Chris Brown on the other side of the camera What is the October Blood Moon?

AMOS now on Instagram

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Vol 27, No. 5, OCTOBER 2014 ISSN 1035-6576

Contents Editorial...........................................................................................................................................................................77 President’s Column.........................................................................................................................................................78 News...............................................................................................................................................................................78 Comment: An independent inquiry into the Bureau of Meteorology? Bring it on ......................................................86 News from the Centres...................................................................................................................................................88 On the front cover: Behind the camera with Dr. Chris Brown........................................................................................90 Newsworthy Event: October Blood Moon.....................................................................................................................91 Workshop Report: Australian Climate Change Science Program (ACCSP) Third Aus2k workshop ..............................92 Article: Tom Beer at the General Assembly of the International Council for Science....................................................96 Obituary: Professor Anthony J. McMichael....................................................................................................................97 Meet a Member: 2014 Eureka Prize winner Joelle Gergis.............................................................................................98 Snapshot.........................................................................................................................................................................99 Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin: 26 August 1998............................................................................................ 100 The Research Corner with Damien Irving: Speeding up your code............................................................................ 101

ISSN 1035-6576 Cover picture: “One tree hill”.

This image was taken in the Hunter Valley, NSW one late afternoon during summer, 2014. The photographer says “it was one of those scorchers where you just know a storm can’t be far away.”

He watched the clouds arrive and felt the wind rushing over the hill with this one solitary tree “bravely holding court on top.”

“I positioned myself at the base of the hill and set the exposure time to 20 seconds so you could see the dark clouds rushing over the tree.”

Image: Chris Brown.

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

Spring Greetings Hello everyone and thank you for welcoming me to your society as the Communication and Publications Officer.

It is a great honour to be a part of your society in such a significant role, as many AMOS members have been influential across my career in science communication.

I must admit upfront that I am not formally qualified in the meteorological and oceanographic sciences.

(Unfortunately, my first degree was in geology). It was my second degree in journalism that provided me an introduction to science communication. Upon completing my undergraduate studies, I won a scholarship for a Graduate Diploma in Scientific Communication with the Australian National University, which then immersed me in the field, and I haven’t looked back since.

I’ve freelanced for most of my professional career, but one of the times I did have a “desk job” was when I was the Education and Public Affairs Officer for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne. Last time I had Bureau security clearance though, it was 2007, and things have certainly changed since then. Social media burst onto the scene around the time of me leaving, and the phenomenon has since changed the way we both gather and share information. Coupled with the rise of smartphone technology, information can now be captured, downloaded, uploaded and shared quickly and easily at, and to, almost any place on Earth.

For those who are connected to AMOS on social media, you may have noticed that we are not far from reaching 500 likes on Facebook, and 400 followers on Twitter. I have also just started an AMOS Instagram account: @ AMOSpix. Instagram is a photo and video-sharing service that allows you to upload and share your own images and short (15 second) video footage. You can do this privately, or publicly, and at the same time, tap into and follow communities with similar interests and content. @AMOSpix is updated daily with content pulled from some of the country’s most amazing weather and ocean photographers. If you have access to the internet and/or a smartphone, I encourage you to connect to AMOS via any of our platforms.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 77

Our front cover this month is courtesy of Dr. Chis Brown, known all around the world as the “Bondi Vet”. Chris is also an avid and popular Instagram user. With a passion for weather photography—he once he considered a career as a meteorologist—his feed is full of stunning weather and seaside photos taken across the country in his travels.

(Please see page 90 for the interview).

Whilst on the topic of photography, I find perhaps the saddest aspect of BAMOS publishing only six times a year is that two seasons (Spring and Autumn) only get one allocated edition. As Stewart Allen very kindly alluded to in his August editorial, I do like the odd weather snap, so to indulge this, on page 91 you’ll find an extra photographic feature to make up for this one Spring edition of BAMOS. You may notice a few more additions and alterations to BAMOS in the coming months. I’m keen to read and hear any feedback you may have on the publication—what you like, what you don’t like, what could be expanded and what could be added.

And, as always, BAMOS needs your contributions.

News items, conference reports and science articles are especially welcome. Each edition depends largely on the content contributed, so please do feel free to send me any of your thoughts—my contact details can be found at the back of this edition.

And finally, I’d like to thank the executive and editorial teams in making my transition into this new role as easy and as smooth as possible. The time, talents and support particularly of Duncan Ackerley, Jeanette Dargaville, Damien Irving, science editor Willow, the assistant editors and the regional editors, have been especially valuable.

As your new editor, it is a pleasure to write my first editorial for you. I hope to continue the legacy of Duncan and those before him in evolving a dynamic and interesting bi-monthly read for you with BAMOS.

Melissa Lyne Editor

President’s Column

Awards and Events

It’s awards season! In my September column we celebrated the achievements of the Eureka Award winners. This month we have some international honours to celebrate.

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) recently announced: Andy Hogg (ANU) was awarded the Nicholas P. Fofonoff award for physical oceanography; and AMOS Fellow John Church (CSIRO) and AMOS Priestley Medallist Professor Amanda Lynch (now at Brown University) were also elected as AMS Fellows.

Their awards will be presented at the upcoming AMS annual meeting in January. Also, former AMOS President Professor Neville Nicholls has been elected as an American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellow, which will be awarded at the upcoming AGU Fall Meeting in December.

Congratulations to all for these significant achievements.

The deadline for the prestigious AMOS Awards has now passed and the selection committees are currently sorting through the nomination packages. Thank you to those who nominated their deserving colleagues. There’s still time to nominate people for the position of AMOS fellow—this is one of the highest honours that the Society bestows and is for “substantial contribution to the work of the Society and/or the disciplines”. Nominations received by 1 November will be considered in the current round.

Instructions can be found here:

http://www.amos.org.au/aboutus/cid/13/parent/0/ pid/13/t/aboutus/title/nomination-for-membershipcategory-of-fellow.

In terms of local activities, we’ve seen another AMOS weather tipping season come and go. Congratulations to Harvey Stern for his 2014 season win! The weather tipping competition is a fantastic AMOS outreach activity open to professionals and amateur enthusiasts—tell your friends to brush-up their skills over summer for next year’s competition.

Finally, this month the Melbourne Regional Centre hosted a fire weather workshop, incorporating presentations relevant to both the operational and research communities.

Amongst other things, this is part of AMOS’s commitment to better serve the operational community. The workshop was timely as we’ll soon be in the thick of fire season.

How bad will the fire season be? There are significant 3-month rainfall deficits over southeast Australia and there’s still uncertainty about the state of ENSO (with the latest Bureau of Meteorology statement saying that a “late season El Niño remains possible”). The next few months will be critical.

Todd Lane

News

International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS) News: call for nominations Tom Beer

National IAMAS Correspondent The following IAMAS Executive Committee (EC) 2015– 2019 positions will be open for election at the upcoming General Assembly in 2015:

(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 (jennylin@mail.iap.ac.cn).

President (2015–2019), Secretary General (2015–2023), two Vice-Presidents (2015–2019), and three Members-atLarge (2015–2023)

The Committee will then consider all of the nominations and prepare a slate of candidates for the IAMAS Plenary to vote on at the Prague meeting. The slate will be completed by 1 May 2015 and will be presented at the first plenary session of the EC meeting in Prague.

The IAMAS Nominating Committee invites the national representatives of IUGG Adhering Countries and members of the IAMAS Executive Committee (which includes the Presidents of the IAMAS Commissions as well as the elected officers), to nominate individuals for any or all of the above-noted positions.

In line with the IAMAS Statutes (downloadable from the IAMAS Web site), your nominations should be received by 15 Jan, 2015. Please send the nominations to the Chair of the Nominating Committee, Prof. Guoxiong Wu

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 78

The details of nomination procedures can be found in the letter circulated to all the EC members and National Committees on 11 August 2014.

If any Australian research scientist is interested in any of these positions then they should contact Tom Beer at Tom.Beer@csiro.au or Neil Holbrook at neil.holbrook@ utas.edu.au.

AMOS Art Competition 2014

Stormy Weather - on land or at sea What do you think of when you hear a storm is coming?

Torrential rain? thunderstorms? tornadoes? hailstorms? violent winds? snow storms? tropical cyclones? tumultuous seas? ships in trouble?

The 2014 AMOS Art Competition judges would like to see what your impressions are!

The 2014 AMOS Art Competition is open to primary and secondary students to year 10, and welcomes entries of visual art works, including photographs. Please refer to our web site for details and an application form.

AMOS Art Competition: http://www.amos.org.au/education and follow the link to the art competition.

Storm at Sea by Hannah Green, Flinders High School, Winner of the 2011 Secondary Section

Closing date: Friday 7 November 2014

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News

Japan launches new weather satellite Bureau of Meteorology

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) launched a new satellite on 7 October 2014 that will provide valuable weather data for Australia and the Pacific when it comes online in mid-2015.

Congratulating Japan on the launch, Bureau of Meteorology Assistant Director Observations, Dr Anthony Rea, said the new satellite, called Himawari-8, represents the first in a new generation of satellites.

“Himawari-8 will provide an upgrade in service that could be compared with switching a television from black and white to colour, and from analogue to digital, at the same time,” Dr Rea said.

The satellite will be positioned more than 35,000 km above the equator at a longitude of approximately 140°E. “Following calibration and testing of the various systems and observing equipment, Himawari-8 will begin sending data back to Japan. From there, data will be sent to the Bureau of Meteorology via a high speed internet link.”

“Himawari-8 will enable unprecedented precision in monitoring tropical cyclones, the detection of rapidly developing thunderstorms, and detailed sea surface temperature data.”

Dr Rea expressed his gratitude to Japan for making data from the new satellite available to Australia, as it has done with previous satellites over recent decades.

“Meteorological satellites enable forecasters to monitor the atmosphere over oceans, deserts and mountains where surface-based observations are difficult to obtain. Without the cooperation of Japan, the Australian community would not have access to this valuable information which assists the Bureau in the delivery of accurate forecasts.

Launch of Himawari-8 on 7 October 2014 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan. Image courtesy of the Japan Meteorological Agency.

“We wish the JMA every success as they bring Himawari-8 to its full meteorological observing potential.” Dr Rea said.

Mapping Antarctic creatures great and small Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

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The Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean had its Australian launch at the University of Tasmania on 10 September 2014.

The Atlas is the culmination of four years work by an international team of marine biologists and oceanographers from 22 countries, including scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, and the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem Cooperative Research Centre.

News Although the Atlas was launched internationally at the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research meeting in New Zealand just two weeks beforehand, the Australian launch featured eight reviews from Hobart-based contributors to the Atlas: Drs Victoria Wadley, Ben Raymond, Andrew Constable, Klaus Meiners, Alexandra Post, Graham Hosie and Kerrie Swadling, as well as Prof. Mark Hindell.

Other Hobart contributors to the Atlas included Michael Stoddart, Nerissa Bax, Louise Newman, Nathan Bindoff, So Kawaguchi, Andrew Meijers, Alex Fraser, Jennifer Ayers, Donna Roberts and Tony Press.

Details of the Atlas can be found here: http://atlas.biodiversity.aq/.

Coral field of Errina spp. at >450 m in the East Antarctica Sea discovered during the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census (CEAMARC) research cruise in 2007/2008. Image: Australian Antarctic Division.

NT gets 7-day forecasts Bureau of Meteorology

Base of Uluru. Image: Amy Murray, @leemamy on Instagram As of October 2014, the Bureau of Meteorology upgraded its forecasts and warnings services in the Northern Territory (NT), with many locations now receiving 7-day weather forecasts for the first time.

Wind speed and wind variations will be described in more detail in km/h, as will temperatures for planning activities such as crop spraying, crop dusting and controlled burning.

Improved coastal waters forecasts will provide information on winds, seas and swells out to 4 days including forecasts of thunderstorms, fog and heavy rain. The forecast will have an improved layout for easier reading, particularly for VHF broadcasts.

In addition, the current day forecast will include fire danger and UV information.

Marine Wind Warnings for the current day and the next day will now be incorporated in the coastal waters forecast.

No separate warning will be issued.

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For more information please see: http://www.bom.gov.au/NexGenFWS/

News

Global CO2 emissions reached 36 billion tonnes in 2013 CSIRO

Industrial pollution. Credit: ©Martin Muránsky, http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-124639p1.html Global emissions of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels reached a new record of 36 billion tonnes last year.

At the same time, the pace of emissions from burning fossil fuels continues to grow at a high rate.

Executive-Director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP) and co-author of the 2014 report CSIRO’s Dr Pep Canadell said the carbon dioxide level was “unprecedented in human history”.

Dr Canadell said fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are projected to increase 2.5 per cent this year, bringing the total carbon dioxide emissions from all sources above 40 billion tonnes.

“Fossil fuel emissions in the past 10 years on average grew at 2.5 per cent per year, lower than the growth rate in the 2000s (which was 3.3 per cent per year) but higher than the growth rate in the 1990s (1 per cent),” Dr Canadell said.

“The declining growth rate in recent years is associated with lower GDP growth compared to the 2000s, particularly in China.”

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The report shows that Australian emissions continued to decline in 2013, adding to a downward trend that began in 2009, largely due to the decline in electricity generation from coal power plants.

The largest emitters in 2013 were China, USA, the European Union, and India, together accounting for 58 per cent of global emissions.

Fossil fuel emissions are tracking the high end of emissions scenarios used by climate scientists to project climate change using global circulation models.

The GCP provides an annual report of carbon dioxide emissions, land and ocean sinks and accumulation in the atmosphere, incorporating data from multiple research institutes from around the world.

The full data and methods were published last month in the journal Earth System Science Data Discussions, with associated papers in the journals Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change.

For more information, including data: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/

News

99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming: new study Philip Kokic, Mark Howden, Steven Crimp CSIRO

There is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, our new research shows.

has the advantage that it provides independent validation of the results.

Published in the journal Climate Risk Management, our research is the first to quantify the probability of historical changes in global temperatures and examines the links to greenhouse gas emissions using rigorous statistical techniques.

Our research team also explored the chance of relatively short periods of declining global temperature. We found that rather than being an indicator that global warming is not occurring, the observed number of cooling periods in the past 60 years strongly reinforces the case for human influence.

Our new CSIRO work provides an objective assessment linking global temperature increases to human activity, which points to a close to certain probability exceeding 99.999%.

Our work extends existing approaches undertaken internationally to detect climate change and attribute it to human or natural causes. The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report provided an expert consensus that: “It is extremely likely [defined as 95–100% certainty] that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic [human-caused] increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.”

Decades of extraordinary temperatures July 2014 was the 353rd consecutive month in which global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th-century monthly average. The last time the global average surface temperature fell below that 20th-century monthly average was in February 1985, as reported by the US-based National Climate Data Center.

This means that anyone born after February 1985 has not lived a single month where the global temperature was below the long-term average for that month.

We developed a statistical model that related global temperature to various well-known drivers of temperature variation, including El Niño, solar radiation, volcanic aerosols and greenhouse gas concentrations. We tested it to make sure it worked on the historical record and then reran it with and without the human influence of greenhouse gas emissions.

Our analysis showed that the probability of getting the same run of warmer-than-average months without the human influence was less than 1 chance in 100,000.

We do not use physical models of Earth’s climate, but observational data and rigorous statistical analysis, which Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 83

Detecting and measuring human influence

We identified periods of declining temperature by using a moving 10-year window (1950 to 1959, 1951 to 1960, 1952 to 1961, etc.) through the entire 60-year record.

We identified 11 such short time periods where global temperatures declined.

Our analysis showed that in the absence of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, there would have been more than twice as many periods of short-term cooling than are found in the observed data.

There was less than 1 chance in 100,000 of observing 11 or fewer such events without the effects of human greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem and the solution Why is this research important? For a start, it might help put to rest some common misunderstandings about there being no link between human activity and the observed, long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.

Our analysis—as well as the work of many others—shows beyond reasonable doubt that humans are contributing to significant changes in our climate.

Good risk management is all about identifying the most likely causes of a problem, and then acting to reduce those risks. Some of the projected impacts of climate change can be avoided, reduced or delayed by effective reduction in global net greenhouse gas emissions and by effective adaptation to the changing climate.

Ignoring the problem is no longer an option. If we are thinking about action to respond to climate change or doing nothing, with a probability exceeding 99.999% that the warming we are seeing is human-induced, we certainly shouldn’t be taking the chance of doing nothing.

This article first appeared in The Conversation, 4 September 2014. Full link: http://theconversation.com/99999-certainty-humans-are-driving-global-warming-newstudy-29911

News

Antarctic scientists create “future ocean” Australian Antarctic Division

“We will be able to detect any changes in the seafloor community over the four month study, see what happens to the animals and plants and how the chemistry of the seawater and seabed sediments change.”

The experimental chambers will be fitted with underwater flow meters, thrusters, pH and temperature sensors and time-lapse cameras, which will record all the changes in the environment.

A complex system of pipes and pumps will work 24 hours a day to draw the seawater to the surface, where it will be enriched with carbon dioxide, before being pumped back down under the sea ice and into the chambers.

Divers and support crew prepare for a dive in Antarctica © Glenn Johnstone/Australian Antarctic Division For the first time Australian scientists will create a “future ocean” under the Antarctic sea ice this summer to measure the impact of ocean acidification on seafloor communities.

The team of scientists, engineers and specialist divers will deploy four acrylic chambers 10–20 metres beneath the sea ice near Casey station between November and March 2015.

Australian Antarctic Division Marine Ecologist and Project Leader, Dr. Jonny Stark, said the researchers will increase the level of acidity in the two metre long chambers to mimic the ocean conditions predicted within this century.

“When carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, the seawater becomes more acidic, affecting the ability of marine organisms, such as single-celled algae, corals and bivalves, to function and develop normally,” Dr Stark said.

Currently the Southern Ocean absorbs 40% of the global ocean uptake of carbon dioxide and polar waters are acidifying at twice the rate of tropical waters.

Under the current “business as usual” emissions scenario, the ocean is predicted to become two and half times more acidic by 2100.

“This research will give us a window into the future,” Dr. Stark said.

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The chambers will be deployed through the metre thick sea ice in O’Brien Bay and divers will anchor the chambers to the seafloor.

“While the divers will be wearing dry suits, one of the biggest challenges will be the frigid –1.8°C water temperature,” Dr. Stark said.

“The human body can only handle those sorts of temperatures for about an hour, so we will be constantly monitoring and swapping out the divers.”

Some of the team members flew to Antarctica late last week, ahead of the official start to the 2014–15 season today, with Australia’s research and resupply ship, Aurora Australis, departing Hobart for Davis station.

Australian Antarctic Division Operations Manager, Robb Clifton, said the current sea ice conditions in East Antarctica are challenging.

“We are monitoring the situation closely as recent satellite imagery shows extensive sea ice around Davis station, but we won’t know how thick it is until we get there,” Mr Clifton said.

“Like all our voyage plans we have contingencies in place for refuelling and resupplying the station if we are delayed in reaching it.”

80 expeditioners are heading south on this voyage, which is expected to return at the end of November.

For more information, please see: http://www.antarctica. gov.au/science/terrestrial-and-nearshore-ecosystemsenvironmental-change-and-conservation/humanimpacts-prevention,-mitigation-and-remediation/foceexperiment

News

Welcome to port celebrations for RV Investigator Toni Moate

Executive Director, Future Research Vessel Project

RV Investigator. Image: CSIRO

We are pleased to advise that a date has been set for the official Welcome to Port Celebrations on Friday 12 December 2014 for the new Marine National Facility research vessel, Investigator.

The event will be held at the CSIRO Marine Laboratories in Hobart, where a formal function will be held, followed by an open day for the general public. Further details for these events will be sent in the coming weeks.

The day will be a celebration of the collaboration, foresight and hard work invested by Australia’s marine science community over the past decade, and in particular CSIRO’s management of the Future Research Vessel Project, which culminated in the delivery of the world class research vessel to its home port of Hobart just a few weeks ago.

We welcome everyone to be part of this celebration, but if you can’t make it in person you can join via social media and online through the Investigator@CSIRO blog, all of which will be updated with photos and videos across the day.

At the event the ship will formally be handed over from the CSIRO’s Future Research Vessel Project to the Marine National Facility, for use as Australia’s ocean going national research vessel.

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We look forward to seeing you at the celebrations.

For more information: http://csirofrvblog.com/

Comment

An independent inquiry into the Bureau of Meteorology?

Bring it on Neville Nicholls

Professor, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash Universityy Maurice Newman, chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, has called for an independent review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s climate data, following a stream of recent articles in The Australian newspaper attacking the Bureau’s methods.

I support his call for an open and public inquiry into the Bureau’s climate data and the techniques that the Bureau’s scientists have used to reduce the influence of changes in instrumentation, exposure, and weather station location on its climate records.

I support it because I don’t think the Bureau gets enough opportunities to demonstrate to the public its scientific integrity, hard work, and valuable results.

Free and open information A public inquiry would provide the Bureau with the opportunity to point out that all of its archived climate data are accessible (for free!) by anyone in the world with an internet connection.

It would also allow the Bureau to demonstrate the scientific methods it uses to reduce the influence of problems that complicate the evaluation of historical climate data.

Figure 1: The Bureau’s temperature record closely matches satellite temperature estimates compiled by US researchers.

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All of the original data remain available to anyone who thinks they can do a better job (and some groups, such as Berkeley Earth, have done exactly this).

The attacks on the Bureau data appear to have been triggered by Australia’s record warmth in 2013. This record warm year doesn’t sit well with the meme of “global warming has stopped”. Despite the attacks, there is a mountain of evidence that the Bureau is completely correct in its assessment of 2013.

Figure 1 illustrates just one piece of this evidence. The red line shows the Bureau’s average annual Australian temperature, illustrating the fact that 2013 was the warmest year on record. In blue, I have plotted Australia’s average annual lower-atmospheric temperature, estimated from satellites (rather than with surface thermometers as used to produce the Bureau’s graph).

The blue line comes from freely available data compiled

by US climatologists Roy Spencer and John Christy. This temperature record used to be enthusiastically promoted by some people, when the data first appeared in the 1990s and appeared to show no warming. Yet after Christy fixed a few problems in the processing of the satellite data, the data for Australia now show even stronger warming than the Bureau’s thermometer data since 1979.

Comment

The Spencer-Christy data confirm that 2013 was the warmest year on record over Australia. And the close correspondence between their temperature estimates and the Bureau’s own temperature record should convince anyone with an open mind that the Bureau does an excellent job of handling climate data, and that its temperature record is accurate and reliable.

So I’m sure many other climate scientists would also support an open, public inquiry that would allow the Bureau to showcase the reliability of its climate records.

Skiing downhill Further evidence of Australia’s continued warming is shown in Figure 2, which plots snow depths at Spencers Creek, near Thredbo. The red line shows the maximum snow depth each year; the dotted red line shows the gradual downward trend in maximum snow depth over the past 60 years; the blue line shows the snow depth at the start of October each year; and the dotted blue line shows the strong decline in these spring snow depths.

This clearly shows that the Australian snow season is shortening in response to warming. But does this matter?

Who cares if Australia is warming and the ski season is getting shorter?

Those of us in Mr Newman’s generation should definitely care, because it is not just average temperatures that are increasing. Heatwaves are also becoming more frequent and intense. Record heatwaves across southeastern Australia in 2009 and 2014 led to large increases in the

number of deaths, particularly among those of us of advancing years.

Luckily, the heatwave forecasts that have been trialled by the Bureau of Meteorology mean that we should be able to minimise the number of deaths caused by future heatwaves.

Nowadays, the Bureau’s five-day weather forecasts are more accurate than the one-day forecasts available when Mr Newman and I were young. Governments around the world, with climate scientists and health specialists, are developing improved heatwave alerts in response to the threat posed by global warming. They couldn’t do this without the help of the improved weather forecasts now provided by national weather bureaux.

One obstacle that stops these heatwave alerts from saving more lives is complacency about the increased threat, as well as lack of knowledge about what to do when a heatwave alert is issued.

Not only would Mr Newman’s inquiry help to warn the public about the increasing threat of heatwaves, but it would also provide the Bureau of Meteorology with a rare opportunity to demonstrate how its improved weather forecasts can literally save lives. If that comes to pass, Mr Newman would truly have done the nation a valuable service.

This article first appeared in The Conversation, 9 October 2014. Full link: http://theconversation.com/anindependent-inquiry-into-the-bureau-of-meteorologybring-it-on-32692

Figure 2: The Snowy Mountains ski season is getting decidedly less epic.

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News from the Centres

NSW Centre News Fiona Johnson Chair, NSW Centre

The NSW regional centre recently held two very interesting seminars which were both well attended. In the first seminar, Dr. Joanna Burston spoke about QSurge, which is a real time storm tide risk assessment for the Queensland coast to assist emergency management. This product has been developed as part of the Coastal Emergency Management Decision Support System Project at Griffith University. Joanna discussed the challenges of providing a product and the benefits over the existing storm tide warning system.

The University of Newcastle hosted the annual AMOS NSW Hunter Valley Seminar on 8th October 2014. Two presentations featured in the seminar series. Firstly, Prof.

Dr. Joanna Burston presents QSurge at the AMOS seminar.

Image: Melissa Lyne

Prof. Dave Mattey speaking at the AMOS seminar.

Image: Andrew Magee

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Dave Mattey from Royal Holloway, University of London gave a talk entitled “Caves as climate archives”, giving an insight into how speleothems can be used to reconstruct past climates. Secondly, Dr Hannah Power from the University of Newcastle gave a talk entitled “A coral reef through time: the evolution of One Tree Reef ”. This duo proved a definite hit, with the audience asking many questions and discussions leading well into the evening.

This particular seminar attracted more than 30 attendees, and was an excellent showcase of some of the work being done in the Hunter Valley and at the University of Newcastle.

News from the Centres

ACT Centre News Bob Cechet

Chair, ACT Centre In August, the AMOS ACT Branch ran a public half-day workshop on the topic of “Impact of climate & weather on human health and society” as part of National Science Week.

The speakers were Dr. Helen Cleugh (Deputy and Science Director, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship) who spoke on “Climate change and the urban environment”; Steve Crimp (CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Canberra) who spoke on “Food security in a changing world”; Dr. Liz Hanna (National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, ANU) who spoke on “Human health impacts of climate change and extremes”; and John Nairn (Acting Regional Director, Bureau of Meteorology, Adelaide) who presented the Bureau of Meteorology’s new heatwave

forecasting system.

This was followed by a workshop session involving the public and speakers chaired by Mark Stafford Smith— Chair of the Science Committee for the international programme Future Earth.

In September, the AMOS ACT regular seminar series addressed the issues of “Landcover and agricultural meteorology”. The speakers were: Dr. Leo Lymburner (National Earth & Marine Observation Group, Geoscience Australia), who presented “The value of a nationallyconsistent fractional landcover product”; and Dr. Philip Kokic (CSIRO Computational Informatics) who addressed “Climate risk management for crop producing farms in Australia”.

Queensland Centre News Michael Hewson Secretary, QLD Centre

Some members of AMOS in Brisbane are now flat out like lizards drinking, because we are organising the AMOS 2015 conference—plan your papers now! A call for “special events” is on the streets so consider that. The conference

is a great chance for atmospheric, meteorological, climate and oceanographic people to connect with colleagues from others parts of Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Western Australia Centre News Jenny Hopwood Secretary, WA Centre

The Annual General Meeting of the AMOS WA branch took place at the new Bureau of Meteorology Regional Office in West Perth.

Observatory—a site that was occupied by the Bureau for quite a long time and where we both began our meteorological lives!

The Bureau move to these offices is very recent, so before the meeting several of us enjoyed a tour, guided by Brad Santos and Joe Courtney who are both AMOS members and meteorologists working at the Bureau.

After the meeting, Regional Director Mike Bergin along with several other Bureau staff members gave a seminar on the Bureau’s public information services in the digital age, including METEYE (see: http://www.bom.gov.au/ australia/meteye/ —Ed.) This was particularly interesting and informative for those members who are not directly involved with the Bureau’s operations.

Two of us (treasurer Len van Burgel and myself) are old enough to have recognised that after a number of relocations throughout the city over the years, the Bureau is now back very close to the site of the old Government

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On the front cover

Behind the camera with Dr. Chris Brown Melissa Lyne The spectacular cover image of this edition of BAMOS comes courtesy of one of Australia’s most beloved vets.

Shutterbug: it was the animals that captured Dr. Chris Brown’s heart, but his eyes are always on the weather.

One look at Dr. Chris Brown’s Instagram feed and you can tell he’s a weather nut. Sunsets, sunrises, clouds, waves and ocean horizons regularly feature in his posts (along with the occasional animal).

“I actually considered being a meteorologist when I was a kid,” Chris explains. “I’ve always been fascinated by the weather.”

It all began at school.“I remember being put in charge of taking the weather readings in about fourth class and the love of it really came from there. Not that I ever truly worked out the wet/dry thermometer!”

Now he juggles a variety of roles: working close to home as a vet, dealing with some of the most challenging animal cases around Australia for TV show “Bondi Vet” and travelling around the world for Channel Ten’s “The Living Room”.

But, Chris says, weather photography is a passion of his, and one of the best ways he’s found of documenting his experiences. “I end up in some really bizarre situations and locations,” he admits. “Photography really helps me to appreciate the good fortune I have to do what I do.”

He says his favourite Australian destination is Lord Howe Island. “It’s just a tiny island in the middle of the ocean so becomes this little landing point for all sorts of wildlife and weather,” Chris adds. “It’s raw and full of rare creatures— one of the most spectacular places on earth.”

He visited the island last year to do a story on the Ocean Petrels that breed there.

“These birds spend about 11 months out at sea, so many have never seen humans before. If you make a strange sound, they’ll literally fall from the sky in the hope of getting close to whatever it was that created that noise.

Within 30 seconds you can be covered with birds!”

This shot was taken from Bronte Beach, NSW, looking north towards Tamarama and Bondi Cliffs. Chris says, “it was early June, just as those winter mornings are really starting to bite. Even though there wasn’t much cloud around for the sunrise, there was a really strong offshore (westerly) wind blowing which I knew would produce some great spray off the back of the waves, with the hope being that the morning light would catch those droplets. Thankfully it did! I was trying for a very fast shutter speed for that (about 1/1200 of a second) and it seemed to work.”

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Evident in his shot to the left, Chris says he finds both the weather and the ocean very humbling. “They’re always in charge, and always changing. You have to respect them or pay the price.”

When asked if there were any particular weather phenomena he hopes to capture in future, Chris said he finds cloud formations to be one of the most beautiful natural phenomena around.

“I’ve heard about the ‘Morning Glory’ roll cloud in the Gulf of Carpentaria,” he said. “That’s the big one I’m after next!”

Newsworthy Event

October Blood Moon Melissa Lyne

The Blood Moon reveals itself from behind the clouds in Perth, WA. Image: Raoul Bridgford.

The “Blood Moon” took place in Australia on 8 October 2014. It was the product of a lunar eclipse and reached its brightest and reddest point sometime just before 10 p.m. AEST. During the total eclipse—with the Earth between the Moon and the Sun—all direct sunlight to the Moon was blocked, which then made it appear red because of the light refracting through the Earth’s atmosphere. All up, the spectacle of a total lunar eclipse lasted for about an hour.

Photographers were seen setting up their telescopes and photographic gear as early as 4 p.m. in Sydney’s east. Though the cloud cover unfortunately dominated most of the viewing for this particular area, many other parts of Australia were luckier, as evidenced from the flooding of social media with the hashtag #bloodmoon shortly after 8 p.m. AEST.

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Senior Mine Geologist Raoul Bridgford usually works out in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

However, he stood on the South Perth foreshore at around 7 p.m. on the night of the blood moon to capture the above image. With a fine eye for detail and great enthusiasm for nature photography, Raoul had been waiting patiently for the night sky to reveal the moon.

“The initial wait for the eclipse was a bit of a nonevent as the moon was concealed behind cloud until about 6:50 p.m. Once it was visible it was already displaying strong orange hues. This also meant the clouds were equally impressive with a luminous orange colour.”

Raoul says that the October Blood Moon was one of the most impressive displays he has ever seen.

Workshop Report

Australasia’s past climate variability—strengths drawn from palaeoclimate and model data over the last 2,000 years Australian Climate Change Science Program (ACCSP) Third Aus2k workshop 26–27 June 2014, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia.

Pandora Hope1, Joelle Gergis2, Nerilie Abram3, Josephine Brown1, Steven J. Phipps4,5, Russell Drysdale2, Benjamin J. Henley2, Andrew M. Lorrey6, Heidi Roop7, Jonathan Tyler8 1 Australian Bureau of Meteorology; 2 School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia; 3 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University; 4 ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia; 5 Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia; 6 National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand; 7 GNS Science and Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; 8 School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Adelaide, Australia.

As part of the Australian Climate Change Science Program (ACCSP) project Variability of Australian climate over the last 1,000 years in coupled model simulations and proxy data, a two-day multi-disciplinary workshop was held, incorporating the third Aus2k workshop.

This workshop appealed to scientists from many fields and drew widespread interest, with more than 40 palaeoclimatologists, meteorologists, hydrologists and oceanographers attending the workshop. This resulted in a very constructive and stimulating cross-disciplinary meeting.

Aus2k is the Australasian component of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Past Global changes (PAGES) 2k Network—a global network of working groups interested in reconstructing the climate of the past 2,000 years. The intention of the workshop was to engage with the wider meteorological community, with expertise in climate data–model comparison and diagnostic analyses, towards the ultimate goal of understanding the mechanisms driving Australasian climate variability in the past 2,000 years.

The research of the ACCSP aims to better understand climate processes in order to estimate the full range of natural climate variability. However, the observed record is too short to provide robust statistics on the low frequency variability of the climate system features such as the episodic El Niño–Southern Oscillation phenomenon. This is where reconstructions of the last millennium can greatly help inform our understanding. Past climate variability can be reconstructed using natural archives such as corals, tree-rings and ice cores, and can also be simulated using global climate models driven by estimates of past forcings of solar, volcanic and greenhouse gas variability.

The specific goals of the ACCSP 3rd Aus2k workshop are listed below. Sub-projects around each aim were agreed upon with co-ordinators and are listed under each point in italics.

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1.

Expand the Aus2k database to incorporate lowresolution material for the development of a common dataset for Australasian climate reconstructions; Database to be frozen on 31 December 2014. Contacts: Bronwyn Dixon, Jonathan Tyler and Ben Henley.

2.

Develop guidelines for the future collection of climate proxy records based on spatial and temporal gaps in the Australasian palaeoclimate record; Nerilie Abram and Russell Drysdale will lead the testing of the number and location of records required to reconstruct specific features of Australian climate and to deal with potential biases caused by non-stationarities.

3.

Discuss existing multivariate data synthesis techniques being used by Aus2k and the global community, with a post-meeting goal of running a comparison exercise using different reconstruction methods; An inter-comparison project with Australian and New Zealand data will be coordinated by Ben Henley, Mandy Freund and Andrew Lorrey.

4.

Assess the feasibility of developing Australasian climate field reconstructions (temperature, precipitation, and geopotential height) to contribute towards the global PAGES 2k Network; To be led by Joelle Gergis, Andrew Lorrey and Steven Phipps, and; 5.

Foster linkages between the palaeoclimate and climate modeling communities, with the aim of closing the loop between proxy development, data synthesis and climate modelling.

Modelling contacts: Steven Phipps and Duncan Ackerley; Modern climate: Pandora Hope The 5th aim was the most relevant for the ACCSP, while all five were of relevance to the Aus2k working group.

The outcome of Aus2k’s efforts will, however, be highly informative in helping to understand the range of longterm natural climate variability in the Australian region.

Workshop Report Day One The day showcased recent research developments in regional data synthesis; opportunities for the future collection of new palaeoclimate records from the region; the reconstruction of climate drivers such as El Niño– Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM); and climate modelling being undertaken by the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR) and university groups.

Co-manager of the ACCSP, Robert Colman, opened the workshop by highlighting the importance of palaeoclimate data in understanding natural climate variability. He noted the untapped potential of using long-term palaeoclimate data, which extends centuries before instrumental weather observations become available around 1900, to evaluate regional climate model simulations and constrain the latest generation of Australian climate change projections.

During session 1, Joelle Gergis provided an overview of results achieved using the consolidated high-resolution dataset during Phase 1 of the Regional 2k program and outlined the global goals of Phase 2 (e.g. Neukom and Gergis, 2012). Jonathan Tyler presented progress and challenges of consolidating of Australian multidecadal sedimentary records and their importance for understanding past hydroclimate variability in the region.

Helen McGregor shared insights from consolidating the Oceans2k group’s high- and low-resolution records. She emphasised the need to establish sensible selection criteria for the inclusion of records used in regional synthesis efforts, the need to consider spatial biases present in the dataset and the value of withholding independent (in their case terrestrial) data for verification of the sea surface temperature reconstruction results.

In session 2, Karl Braganza reviewed the main climate drivers influencing Australian climate: the El Niño– Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), calling for caution when representing coupled dynamical circulation features using simple climate indices. Pandora Hope then presented results of the ACCSP project Variability of Australian climate over the last 1,000 years in coupled model simulations and proxy data, focusing on ENSO and its interactions with Australian climate. She showed that the ENSO–Eastern Australian teleconnection pattern is reasonably well captured by the model simulations, and noted fluctuations in the dominance of biennial and decadal variability of ENSO over the past millennium (Hope et al. 2014).

Nerilie Abram presented a recently published SAM reconstruction–climate model comparison study (Abram et al. 2014) using data consolidated by the Long-Term Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 93

Climate Reconstruction and Dynamics of South America: South American 2k (LOTRED) and Antartica2k working groups, as well as a new ice core record from the Antarctic Peninsula. She noted that the mean state of the SAM is now in its most positive phase for at least the last 1,000 years.

Ailie Gallant’s presentation on the issue of non-stationarity of climate teleconnection patterns (Gallant et al. 2013) generated much discussion, highlighting the need for critical thinking around estimating uncertainty associated with palaeoclimate reconstructions. She emphasised the need to develop spatially explicit climate reconstructions to allow for the evaluation of mean state changes and their expression in regional teleconnection patterns during the pre-instrumental period.

Session 3 was dedicated to discussing the role of climate modelling of the last 2,000 years. Sandy Harrison highlighted recent progress with model evaluation of mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum data, noting that the magnitude of future rainfall projections may be underestimated by up to 50% (Harrison et al. 2013). She noted that no single model is good for all variables, but some are better/worse across a suite of evaluation metrics, and that multi-model ensembles incorporating different forcings are needed to account for forcing uncertainty over the last millennium.

Steven Phipps covered some of the key roles that climate models can play in studying the climate of the last 2,000 years, including studying the roles of forced and unforced climate variability and testing dynamical hypotheses (Phipps et al. 2013). He also highlighted some of the current limitations, particularly uncertainties in our knowledge of past climate forcings. Sophie Lewis then spoke on the potential of using long-term palaeoclimate records for climate change and attribution studies. Tony Hirst gave the final talk of the session, highlighting the capabilities of the Australian global climate model ACCESS and its potential use for palaeoclimate studies.

He noted that version ACCESS1.4 can run at 10 years/ day on 384 cores, suggesting that a last millennium run is feasible in less than four months.

Paul Holper, the ACCSP manager, then led the discussion on the potential opportunities for collaboration between the Australasian palaeoclimate, climate modelling and meteorology communities. A range of projects including testing the assumption of teleconnection stationarity, palaeoclimate runs with the ACCESS global climate model and pseudo-proxy model exercises to test the fidelity of palaeoclimate reconstructions were discussed and collaborative contacts made.

Workshop Report Day Two

an inter-comparison project with Australian and New Zealand data was proposed and will be led by Ben Henley and Andrew Lorrey.

The second day of the workshop focused on the themes of i) Developing a database of Australasian low-resolution records: data consolidation and directions for future data collection; ii) Multi-archive data synthesis techniques being used by Aus2k and the global Regional 2k program and iii) Climate field reconstructions and climate modelling.

Session 3 was dedicated to the discussion of climate field reconstructions and climate modelling. Joelle Gergis discussed proxy selection considerations and recent progress in developing a temperature climate field reconstruction for Australia within the phase 2 timeframe.

Steven Phipps then considered how climate modelling can contribute towards efforts to develop climate field reconstructions. He presented results of a proof-ofconcept data assimilation analysis using proxies from the Aus2k, LOTRED and Antartica2k working group temperature reconstructions, highlighting the utility of climate model simulation ensembles in assessing climate field reconstructions developed using palaeoclimate data.

He also allowed a few participants to experience the issues that modellers can face as result of natural variability and biases in their climate model (in this case, a cup of ten dice).

In session 1, Jonathan Tyler outlined recent progress in systematically screening records using PAGES guidelines and recalibrating age models for a range of “high quality” sedimentary records from Australia and Indonesia. A plan to incorporate material from New Zealand was discussed with Andrew Lorrey to consolidate the Australasian region’s “low resolution” database for Phase 2 activities.

It was agreed that the dataset would be frozen on 31 December 2014 to allow for consistency in subsequent climate analyses undertaken by the group.

Plans to develop guidelines for future data collection in Australasia were also discussed, including ideas around testing the number and location of records required to reconstruct specific features of the Australasian climate and to deal with potential biases caused by nonstationarites. The white papers produced by the PAGES Trieste meeting were also discussed (http://www.ncdc. noaa.gov/paleo/reports/trieste2008/trieste2008final.pdf).

Nerilie Abram and Russell Drysdale agreed to take the lead on developing this initiative.

Finally, Tas van Ommen shared his experience of working in the Antarctica 2k working group and International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) initiatives, highlighting the utility of using spectral analysis to classify records for high or low frequency climate analysis.

Session 2 focused on multi-archive data synthesis techniques being used by Aus2k and the global Regional 2k program. Andrew Lorrey demonstrated a synoptic type and geopotential height reconstruction technique based on modern analogs using the Past Interpretation of Climate Tool (PICT) (http://content.niwa.co.nz/node/30 e.g. Lorrey et al. 2013). Ben Henley then provided a summary of the material presented at the recent PAGES 2k Advances in Climate Field Reconstruction workshop held in Woods Hole in April 2014 and an Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) reconstruction that is currently under development.

The issue of incorporating records with higher time uncertainty into Climate Field Reconstructions was discussed, and it was agreed that reconstructions based on this material will form an independent means of verifying low frequency trends and variability identified from the high-resolution material. The group agreed to perform a comparison of all methods being used by the group on the regional Australasian dataset. A plan to undertake Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 94

A number of posters were also presented. Two described ENSO reconstructions from eastern and western Australia. From the east, Cameron Barr presented a 7500year sediment record from North Stradbroke Island. The record displays a late Holocene transition from La Niñalike conditions with lower variability, towards a more El Niño-dominated system with higher variability. From the west, Jens Zinke found that corals off western Australia provide a 215-year record of sea surface temperature. The strongest warming is associated with La Niña events and a negative zonal Western Pacific SST gradient. Shayne McGregor found that to capture ENSO variability, matching the variance from a number of sites leads to a more robust signal. The variance in all 30-year periods between 1590 and 1880 is lower than that observed between 1979 and 2009.

A number of authors described improved ways to interpret the climate signal from natural archives. Two posters

by Monika Markowska, Pauline Treble and colleagues highlighted the importance of considering the drip rate when using speleothems to capture the climate signal.

Guangqi Li and colleagues found that tree growth is governed by multiple factors, which need to be modelled appropriately before a true climate signal can be gleaned from tree rings. David Etheridge and his team provided an update on understanding the carbon signal in ice cores from Law Dome and Dronning Maud Land—with new factors revealing that changes in the ocean and biosphere carbon uptake have a different signature in the ice.

Finally, two posters described ways to use climate models to better understand past climates. Duncan Ackerley used a synoptic typing method and a fine resolution regional climate model over New Zealand to better interpret the broad-scale signal from global climate models at the local scale. He found that the regional model provided greater

Workshop Report local detail, but both methods have their place. Pandora Hope and her colleagues assessed the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) models for their midto high-latitude temperature signal across the Southern Hemisphere. Five of the six models show a steady cooling trend through the period 850 to 1850, with a consistent cool response across the globe in 1650 and a consistent warm anomaly in 1050.

Teleconnections and Implications for Paleoclimate Reconstructions. Journal of Climate 26: 8827–8849.

The workshop wrapped up with the development of sub working groups based around the five objects of the workshop, and a clear direction forward to deliver Australasia’s best available science for Phase 2 of the global 2k Network. Contacts were made across the meteorological, climate modelling and palaeoclimate communities.

Hope et al. (2014). Time-frequency variability of ENSO over the last 1000 years from proxies and climate models.

Submitted to Climate of the Past

The ACCSP palaeoclimate project has now ended, but interest in this field remains high.

The next Aus2k workshop will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in the austral spring 2015.

Harrison, S. P., Bartlein, P. J., Brewer, S., Prentice, I. C., Boyd, M., Hessler, I., Holmgren, K., Izumi, K. and Willis, K. (2013). Climate model benchmarking with glacial and mid-Holocene climates. Climate Dynamics: 1-18.

Lorrey, A., Fauchereau, N., Stanton, C., Chappell, P., Phipps, S., Mackintosh, A., Renwick, J., Goodwin, I. and Fowler, A. (2013). The Little Ice Age climate of New Zealand reconstructed from Southern Alps cirque glaciers: a synoptic type approach. Climate Dynamics 42 (11–12): 3039–3060 Neukom, R. and Gergis, J. (2012). Southern Hemisphere high-resolution palaeoclimate records of the last 2000 years. The Holocene 5: 501–524.

References Abram, N. J., Mulvaney, R., Vimeux, F., Phipps, S. J., Turner, J. and England, M. H. (2014). Evolution of the Southern Annular Mode during the past millennium.

Nature Climate Change: doi:10.1038/nclimate2235.

Gallant, A. J. E., Phipps, S. J., Karoly, D. J., Mullan, A. B. and Lorrey, A. M. (2013). Non-stationary Australasian

Phipps, S., McGregor, H., Gergis, J., Gallant, A. J. E., Neukom, R., Stevenson, S., van Ommen, T., Brown, J., Fischer, M. and Ackerley, D. (2013). Paleoclimate data–model comparison: concepts, uncertainties and application to the climate of the past 1500 years. Journal of Climate 26: 6915–6936.

Locations of annually resolved and lower resolution palaeoclimate archives in the Australasian region.

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Article

The General Assembly of the International Council for Science 30 August–3 September 2014, Auckland, New Zealand Tom Beer CSIRO

Dr. Beer presents at the 31st General Assembly of the International Council for Science. Image: Tom Beer

The nine areas of food security. Image: Planet Under Pressure 2012 http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/policy_foodsecurity.pdf

The work of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) Commission on Climatic and Environmental Change (CCEC) was presented on 2 September 2014 to the General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU) held in Auckland, New Zealand.

relevance to food security (please see accompanying graphic).

Dr. Tom Beer, CCEC Chair, highlighted that CCEC had taken the first steps in examining possible pluridisciplinary research for the new Future Earth program by examining Weather, Climate and Food Security. This was done in a consortium with the IUGG, the International Union of Food Science and Technology ( IUFoST), and with the International Union of Nutrition Sciences (IUNS).

Dr. Beer said that food security is more than just agriculture or food production and that there are nine areas of

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This was illustrated by one of the revelations that emerged from this pluri-disciplinary grouping of international scientific unions: the fact that the risks associated with geophysical hazards (tsunamis, floods, landslides, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes) impinge not just on food production and agriculture, but on food distribution. In this respect the quality and quantity of the food that is available after a disaster needs to be considered.

In addition, any food that is provided by emergency relief agencies also needs to be sensitive to cultural sensitivities in relation to food.

The term pluri-disciplinary had previously been used at the General Assembly to describe projects that transcend inter-disciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity.

Obituary

Professor Anthony J. McMichael 3 October 1942–26 September 2014 Neville Nicholls

Vale Tony McMichael. Image: National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health

Emeritus Professor Anthony J. McMichael AO passed away on 26 September 2014 at the age of 71.

Tony worked with many of us in the climate science field, and was recognised as the leading world authority on the impact of climate change on human health.

He advised governments and the World Health Organisation, and published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, 160 book chapters, two sole-author books, and several co-authored or edited books.

Tony was Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 1994 to 2001, and then Director of the Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, before

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being awarded a prestigious NHMRC Australia Fellowship in 2007.

He was an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and of the US National Academy of Sciences, and an ex-President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.

In 2011 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

Above all, Tony was a warm and charming friend and colleague. He energetically fostered collaboration across disciplines, as well as pursuing and encouraging disciplinary excellence in his students and colleagues. He will be sorely missed, by all of us involved in epidemiology and climate science.

Meet a Member

Joelle Gergis days!) at UNSW in the area of palaeoclimatology, which had been my favourite subject as an undergraduate. I was keen to try and better understand pre-instrumental climate variability and extremes and how they influenced human society. I ended up getting the scholarship, so started my Ph.D. in 2002 reconstructing a 500 year history of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability using natural climate archives.

What is the best thing about what you do?

Having the opportunity to contribute to advancing science that might eventually help us adapt to future climate change. Attending conferences i.e. exploring the world with “a purpose”, and working with some of the brightest (young and senior) scientists of our time is also pretty amazing.

What did you want to be when you were 10?

Be an author.

How do you relax?

AMOS member Joelle Gergis on the Overland Track, Cradle Mountain, Tasmania.

Where does this find you?

Working from home in Melbourne’s northern suburbs after being knocked off my bike by a car on the way home from work yesterday.

What do you do?

I am an Australian Research Council DECRA fellow at the University of Melbourne, where I’ve been based since 2008. I reconstruct climate variability in Australasia over the past 200–1000 years using palaeoclimate (i.e. tree ring, coral, ice core, cave and lake records), early instrumental and documentary data to better quantify the role of natural variability in recent anthropogenic climate change.

Why did you get into it?

To try and help make a difference. In 2001 after finishing my honours degree, I spent a year travelling, visiting the Himalayas, central and South America, north Africa and a few mega-cities like New York, London, Cairo, and Hong Kong. All of the environmental issues I’d been learning about at university really hit home. As the months passed, I was finding it hard to simply move through different cultures and landscapes unaffected by what I’d experienced.

I realised that I was in a privileged position as an Australian to have an opportunity to contribute to better understanding the natural processes that shape our world.

So I decided to apply for a Ph.D. scholarship (putting the application together while travelling in India pre-wifi Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 98

I practice yoga every day, always have a book to read, go for bike rides, hang out with friends, or soak in a hot bath.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Depends on whether I’m after relaxation or adventure, but generally anywhere with large areas of uninterrupted natural landscape. Some of my favourites have been Nepal, Peru, Switzerland, Cook Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand and the north coast of NSW. In September this year, Dr. Gergis and the South-East Australia Recent Climate History (SEARCH) team won the 2014 University of New South Wales Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research.

Previously, detailed knowledge of Australian climate history was limited to official records, which only began in 1908. Dr. Gergis’s study managed to map a thousand years of Australian climate history, and partly through using citizen scientists.

As well as teams of historians and librarians, more than 100 volunteers scoured newspaper and gazette articles to contribute data to the historic record.

The study also drew upon many fields of science, incorporating coral records, tree rings, cave deposits and ice cores.

For more on the project and the award: http:// australianmuseum.net.au/media/2014-EurekaInterdisciplinary#sthash.gmf7UPOU.dpuf

Snapshot

Double full-circle rainbow over Melbourne 7 July 2013 Simon Torok

I was fortunate to be at the top of the Eureka Tower as a storm passed over Melbourne close to sunset on 7 July 2013.

The sun was low in the western sky and I was looking to the east from a vantage point 285 m above the ground. Hence the sun was below me, the rain had passed over me, and in front of me appeared a full circle rainbow.

By the time I had my camera out a double rainbow had formed—it was not possible to capture the entire circle, but the left part and second arc of the rainbow are visible in this photo.

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You didn’t need a meteorological background to appreciate the spectacle and rarity of this event resulting from having a perspective at the right place at the right time: as an astonished man standing next to me said to my daughter, “I’m 65 years old and I’ve never seen anything like this; you’re five and you’re lucky enough to have seen one.”

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

Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin

26 August 1998 August 1998 had been a very active month for flooding rains in eastern Australia. Heavy rains had caused major flooding in inland New South Wales early in the month, with the Namoi and Macquarie catchments especially affected, while a separate event brought destructive flash flooding to the Wollongong area on the 17th of August.

The month’s final major rain event was restricted mostly to Queensland, and was the result of an intense upperlevel low pressure system, originally forming near a front which crossed South Australia on the 25th. This was only briefly visible at the surface, as a small surface low near Cunnamulla on the 26th, before being absorbed into a weak trough. However, the upper low remained intact for several days, gradually tracking north from northern New South Wales on the 26th, and was centred near Winton on the 29th and Charters Towers on the 31st of August. To the south, an intense, slow-moving high-pressure system near Tasmania directed an easterly airstream into most of Queensland and New South Wales.

Rain initially developed in central New South Wales on the 26th, before spreading into a more extensive band on the 27th and 28th, along the western side of the Great Dividing Range from near Dubbo to the Central Highlands of Queensland. The heaviest falls during this period were on the Darling Downs, with widespread falls in excess of 50 mm on both days. These peaked at 117 mm at Western Creek, near Millmerran, on the 27th, and 112 mm at the Brigalow Research Station, west of Theodore, on the 28th of August.

Over the next three days, the rain became progressively more focused on the coast between Rockhampton and Cairns, and adjacent inland areas. This was the most

intense phase of the event. Orkabie, south of Mackay, had 268 mm on the 30th and 453 mm in two days on the 29th– 30th. The heaviest falls of all were recorded the next day at Mourilyan Harbour, near Innisfail, which received 464 mm on the 31st, breaking the Australian daily record for August, which had been set only two weeks earlier during the Wollongong floods. (The record was subsequently broken in 2007).

A number of other locations experienced rainfall which exceeded 300 mm, including Innisfail, where 310 mm set an August record, while Townsville also set an August record with 134 mm on the 30th (and also received another 98 mm the next day). Whilst this coastline is no stranger to extreme daily rainfalls in summer and autumn, these totals were unprecedented for the time of year. The rain gradually eased over the next three days, although not before Mourilyan Harbour had received another 198 mm on the 1st September for a three-day total of 719 mm. This rainfall resulted in major flooding in the Fitzroy, Connors and Houghton catchments in eastern Queensland, as well as in a number of rivers in inland southern Queensland.

On the other side of the continent, the 26th of August was very warm in southern Western Australia, due to a northeast flow ahead of an approaching front. Temperatures reached the mid- to high 20s through much of the southwest. Recorded temperatures at Perth Airport equalled the August record with 28.3°C, and numerous other sites only narrowly missed record-breaking temperatures. In the south-east, it was a dry period under the influence of the large blocking high, with above average daytime temperatures and frosty nights away from the coast.

Synoptic chart for 0000 UTC, 26 August 1998

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The Research Corner with Damien Irving

Speeding up your code In today’s world of big data and high resolution numerical models, it’s pretty easy to write a data analysis script that would take days/weeks (or even longer) to run on your personal or departmental computer. With buzz words like high performance computing, cloud computing, vectorisation, supercomputing and parallel programming floating around, what’s not so easy is figuring out the best course of action for speeding up that code. Here’s my attempt at making sense of all the options…

Step 1: Vectorisation The first thing to do with any slow script is to use a profiling tool to locate exactly which part/s of the code are taking so long to run. All programming languages have profilers, and they’re normally pretty simple to use. If your code is written in a high-level language like Python, R or MATLAB, then the bottleneck is most likely a loop of some sort (e.g. a “for” or “while” loop). These languages are designed such that the associated code is relatively concise and easy for humans to read (which speeds up the code development process), but the trade-off is that they’re relatively slow for computers to run, especially when it comes to looping.

If a slow loop is at fault, then your first course of action should be to see if that loop can be vectorised. For instance, let’s say you’ve got some temperature data on a time/latitude/longitude grid, and you want to convert all the values from Kelvin to Celsius. You could loop through the three dimensional grid and subtract 273.15 at each point, however if your data came from a high resolution global climate model then this could take a while. Instead, you should take advantage of the fact that your highlevel programming language almost certainly supports vectorised operations (aka. array programming). This means there will be a way to apply the same operation to an entire array of data at once, without looping through each element one by one. In Python, the NumPy extension supports array operations. Under the hood NumPy is actually written in a low-level language called C, but as a user you never see or interact with that C code (which is lucky because low-level code is not so concise and human friendly). You simply benefit from the speed of C (and the years of science that has gone into optimising array operations), with the convenience of coding in Python.

If you get creative—and there are lots of useful NumPy routines (and their equivalents in other languages) to help with this—almost any loop can be vectorised. If for some reason your loop isn’t amenable to vectorisation (e.g. you might be making quite complicated decisions at each grid

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point using lots of “if ” statements), then another option would be to re-write that section of code in a low-level language like C or Fortran. Most high-level languages allow you to interact with functions written in C or Fortran, so you can then incorporate that function into your code.

Step 2: Exploit the full capabilities of your hardware OK, so let’s say you’ve vectorised all the loops that you can, you’ve written any other slow loops in a low-level language, and your code is still too slow (or perhaps you can’t be bothered learning a low-level language and have skipped that option, which is totally understandable). The next thing to try is parallel programming.

One of the motivations for parallel programming has been the diminishing marginal increases in single Central Processing Unit (CPU) performance with each new generation of CPU. In response, computer makers have introduced multi-core processors that contain more than one processing core. Most desktop computers, laptops, and even tablets and smart phones have two or more CPU cores these days (e.g. devices are usually advertised as “duo-core” or “quad-core”). In addition to multi-core CPUs, Graphics Processing Units (GPU) have become more powerful recently. GPUs are increasingly being used not just for drawing graphics to the screen, but also for general purpose computation.

By default, your Python, R or MATLAB code will run on a single CPU. The level of complexity involved in farming that task out to multiple processors (i.e. multiple CPUs and perhaps even a GPU) depends on the nature of the code itself. If the code is “embarrassingly parallel” (yep, that’s the term they use) then the process is usually no more complicated than renaming your loop. In MATLAB, for instance, you simply click a little icon to launch some “workers” (i.e. multiple CPUs) and then change the word “for” in your code to “parfor.” Simple as that.

A problem is embarrassingly parallel so long as there exists no dependency (or need for communication) between the parallel tasks. For instance, let’s say you’ve got a loop that calculates a particular statistical quantity for an array of temperature data from a European climate model, then an American model, a Japanese model and finally an Australian model. You could easily farm that task out to the four CPUs on your quad-core laptop, because there’s no dependency between each task—the calculation of the statistic for one model doesn’t require any information from the same calculation performed for the other models.

The Research Corner with Damien Irving

Step 3: Consider more and/or better hardware OK, so you’ve vectorised your code, re-written other slow loops in a low-level language (or not), and farmed off any embarrassingly parallel parts of the code to multiple processors on your machine. If your code is still too slow, then you’ve essentially reached the limit of your hardware (whether that be your personal laptop/desktop or the server in your local department/organisation) and you’ll need to consider running your code elsewhere. As an Australian researcher your choices for elsewhere are either a supercomputer like Raijin at the National Computational Infrastructure or a cloud computing service like the NeCTAR Research Cloud. For both there will probably be some process (and perhaps a fee) involved in applying for time/space.

In the case of cloud computing, you’re basically given access to lots of remote computers (in fact, you’ll probably have no idea where those computers are physically located) that are connected via a network (i.e. the Internet). In many cases these computers are no better or more advanced than your personal laptop, however instead of being limited to one quad-core machine (for instance) you can now have lots of them. It’s not hard to imagine that this can be very useful for embarrassingly parallel problems like the one described earlier. There are about 50 climate models in the CMIP5 archive (i.e. many more than just a single European, American, Japanese and Australian model), but these could all be analysed at once with access to a dozen quad-core machines. There are tools like the MATLAB Distributed Compute Service to help deal with the complexities associated with running code across multiple machines at once (i.e. a cluster), so it’s really not much more difficult than using multiple cores on your own laptop.

The one thing that hasn’t been considered so far is parallel computing for non-embarrassing problems like running a complex global climate model (i.e. as opposed to analysing the output from such a model). The calculation of the surface temperature at each latitude/longitude point as time progresses, for instance, depends on the temperature, humidity and sunshine (among other factors) on the days prior and also the temperature, humidity and sunshine at the surrounding grid-points. These are known as distributed computing problems, because each process happening in parallel needs to communicate and share information with other processes happening at the same time. Cloud computing isn’t great in this case, because the processors involved aren’t typically very close to

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one another and communication across the network is relatively slow. In a supercomputer on the other hand, all the processors are very close to one another and communication is very fast. There’s a real science behind distributed computing, and it typically requires a total rethink of the way your code and problem is structured/ framed (i.e. you can’t just replace “for” with “parfor”). To cut a long story short, if your problem isn’t embarrassingly parallel and distributed computing is the answer to your problem, there won’t be a simple tool to help you out.

You’re going to need professional assistance.

(Note: This isn’t to say that supercomputers aren’t good for embarrassingly parallel problems too. A supercomputer has thousands and thousands of cores—more than enough to solve most problems fast. It’s just that in theory you have access to more cores in cloud computing, because you can just keep adding more machines. If you’re dealing with the volumes of data that Amazon or Google do, then this is an important distinction between cloud and supercomputing.)

Concluding remarks If you’re a typical AMOS scientist, then well vectorised code written in a high-level language will run fast enough for pretty much any research problem you’d ever want to tackle. In other words, for most use cases, speed depends most critically on how the code is written, not what language it’s written in or how/where it’s run. However, if you do find yourself tackling more complex problems, it’s important to be aware of the options available for speeding up your code and the level of complexity involved. Farming out an embarrassingly parallel problem to the four CPUs on your local machine is probably worth the small amount of time and effort involved in setting it up, whereas applying for access to cloud computing before you’ve exhausted the options of vectorisation and local parallel computing would probably not be a wise investment of your time, particularly if the speed increases aren’t going to be significant.

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

2014 November

May

3–7 27th Conference on Severe Local Storms, Madison, WI, USA.

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

12–14 3rd International Conference on ENSO, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

June

13–14 6th Leonardo Conference on the Hydrological Cycle: HYPER Droughts, Prague, Czech Republic.

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

December 15–19 The 47th annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA.

2015 January 4–8 95th AMS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA.

March 23–27 IAMAS workshop, Rosendal, Norway.

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

Canada.

22–2 July 26th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Prague, Czech Republic.

July 15–17 AMOS National Conference, Brisbane.

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

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

2016 February 21–26 AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA.

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal

Articles — Vol. 63 No. 4, December 2013 Pepler and Coutts-Smith. A new, objective database of East Coast Lows.

Grace. A stochastic model for runs of extremes in a daily meteorological variable.

Mackerras. Lightning flash density 1995–2010, Brisbane, Australia.

Le Marshall et al. The considerable impact of Earth observations from space on numerical weather prediction.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 27 page 103

Regular features: Evans. Seasonal climate summary Southern Hemisphere (autumn 2013): significant heat across Australia.

Wu. Quarterly numerical weather prediction model performance summary—July to September 2013.

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:

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•

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 Louise WIlson Fiona Johnson Merv Lynch

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Representatives

AMOJ Science & Technology Australia

David Karoly

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Steven Phipps

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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

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

Willow Hallgren Email: whallgren@tpg.com.au

Contributors

Editor-in-chief

Advertising Manager

Duncan Ackerley Email: duncan.ackerley@monash.edu

Assistant Editors Diana Greenslade, Blair Trewin and Linden Ashcroft

Blair Trewin Damien Irving

Please contact the Executive Officer.

Publisher

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Contributed articles, news, announcements and correspondence for the Bulletin should be sent to the editor no later than 24 November 2014. 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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