ARC Centre of Excellence For Climate System Science by The Imagination Agency Pty Ltd

Annual Report 2017

©Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science 2017 Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Annual Report 2017 The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is financially supported via a grant from the Australian Research Council (CE110001028). The Centre is financed and hosted by the University of New South Wales. Collaborating partners are Monash University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University. They provide significant financial support. The Centre is also financially supported by the Federal Department of Environment, by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, and by the NSW Government’s State Leveraging Fund.

Images Photography: Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science: Stephen Gray, Claire Vincent, Andy Pitman, Todd Lane, Steven Sherwood, Karla Fallon, Will Hobbs and Alvin Stone

Document Report: Stephen Gray, Alvin Stone, Jenny Rislund, Melissa Hart, Vilia Co, Claire Carouge and Chief Investigators Subeditor: Kathy Murfitt Design: Helena Brusic, The Imagination Agency Pty Ltd

Paper and Printing Print: FAASTPRINT Paper: Spicers’ Revive Pure 100% Recycled Revive Pure Silk 100% Recycled is certified carbon neutral and FSC® Recycled. It is manufactured process chlorine free (PCF) by an ISO 14001 certified mil. Sales of Revive Pure support Landcare Australia and the restoration and replanting of landfill sites throughout Australia

CONTENTS DIRECTOR’S REPORT............................................................................................. 8 VALE BENJAMIN MÖEBIS..................................................................................... 10 ARCCSS STRATEGY................................................................................................ 11 CENTRE STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT............................... 12 HOMEWARD BOUND............................................................................................. 14 ORGANISATIONAL CHART.................................................................................... 15 CHIEF INVESTIGATORS......................................................................................... 16 PERSONNEL........................................................................................................... 24 RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS AND INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT................... 27 EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS COMMITTEE...................................................... 30 RESEARCH OVERVIEW......................................................................................... 31 The Impacts of Tropical Convection on Australia’s Climate........................... 33 Mechanisms Explaining Changes in Australian Climate Extremes............... 39 The Role of Land Surface Forcing and Feedbacks for Regional Climate......... 44 Drivers of Spatial and Temporal Climate Variability in Extra-tropical Australia............................................................................................................... 48 Mechanisms and Attribution of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change................................................................................................................... 54 COMPUTATIONAL MODELLING SUPPORT............................................................. 60 CMS STAFF PROFILES........................................................................................... 63 THE GRADUATE PROGRAM................................................................................... 65 SELECTED STUDENT PROFILES............................................................................ 68 MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS.......................................................................... 74 PUBLICATIONS LIST............................................................................................... 77 PRIZES, OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT............................................................ 82 KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS........................................................................ 85 FINANCIAL REPORT.............................................................................................. 89

VISION: We will revolutionize our understanding of the Australian climate system by transforming the scale and quality of climate system science in Australian universities, linked with national and international partners.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is taking on the challenge to resolve the key uncertainties undermining our understanding of the Australian climate system. Focusing on observed changes over the last 10002000 years and the last 100 years provides us the laboratory for understanding the processes and mechanisms that affect our climate. This understanding provides the foundation to address limits to the reliable projection of Australian climate at regional scales over the next 50-100 years. Climate change has been described as the most fundamental security challenge for our long-term future. Yet there remains an unacceptable level of uncertainty in many areas of climate system science, including how climate will change at regional scales and how specific phenomena, including extremes of climate, will change. To address these weaknesses in climate system science, the ARC Centre of Excellence is engaging in fundamental research with national and international Partner Organisations. The resolution of these problems through this research will benefit Australia and will have a profound effect on the way climate is modelled and understood around the world.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

The aims of the Centre are QQ to undertake world-class research specifically targeted to the fundamental weaknesses in the physical, chemical and biological components of the climate system; QQ to integrate the Centre’s research with national and international Partner Organisations through the development of a national framework of computational tools and human resources; QQ to develop a world-leading program of graduate training and mentoring to expand the pool of climate researchers and develop future leaders in the field; and QQ to bring together graduate students and postdoctoral fellows into one organisation — the Centre of Excellence – irrespective of institution. The ultimate goal of the ARC Centre of Excellence is to reset the foundations of the science behind climate modelling, to create the next generation of world-leading climate scientists, and to create international links that will serve Australia’s climate science community now and long into the future.

OVERVIEW The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). The Centre is a consortium of five Australian universities and a suite of outstanding national and international Partner Organisations. We are building on and improving our understanding of the modelling of global and regional climates to enable enhanced adaptation to, and management of, climate change, particularly in the Australian region. The ARC Centre of Excellence was established in July 2011 with extensive investment from the ARC, the University of New South Wales, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, New South Wales Government, Monash University, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Tasmania. We have strong links with CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), and through them with the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) initiative. The Centre works in partnership with the National Computational Infrastructure Facility (NCI) and the Australian National Data Service. The Centre’s focus, climate system science, is the quantitative study of the climate system designed to enable modelling of the future of the climate system. It is built on a core of the sciences of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surface. It includes the physics, dynamics and biology of these systems and the flow of energy, water and chemicals between them. Climate system science builds mathematical models of these systems based on observations. It describes these observations, and the underlying physics of the system, in computer codes. These computer codes, the “climate model”, utilise very large supercomputers. Most of our work is therefore linked with the ACCESS model, which is co-built by BoM and CSIRO, and uses the high-performance computers provided by NCI. The scale of research enabled by the Centre provides for the enhancement of climate modelling and future climate projections, particularly at regional scales, minimising Australia’s economic, social and environmental vulnerability to climate change. Our goal, to resolve key uncertainties for Australia’s future regional climate, touches on a broad suite of the Federal Government’s 2015 Science and Research Priorities. Our fundamental objective is to improve the understanding and simulation of climate at global and regional scales. Achieving this will directly inform communities that need regionally specific knowledge of future climate. In each of our research programs we directly contribute to both the Environmental Change and the Soil and Water priorities in the aforementioned suite. Gaining a better understanding of our climate, particularly climate extremes, has clear relevance via translational research into the Health priority. Our Land research program is producing results that are particularly applicable to the Food priority. The ARC Centre of Excellence is also an enabling research initiative. By improving the capacity to simulate Australian climate, we provide the foundation for a range of climate impacts and adaptation research undertaken by the research community. 6

FROM THE CHAIR OF THE ADVISORY BOARD On behalf of the Advisory Board it is with great pleasure that I endorse this final annual report of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). The ARC Centre of Excellence was established with the vision to revolutionize understanding of the Australian Climate System by transforming the scale and quality of climate system science in Australian universities, linked with national and international partners. Having chaired the Advisory Board for the full seven years of the Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life I can confidently confirm that this vision has been realised. ARCCSS delivered a vast scientific output that has been highly cited and widely publicised. The Centre enabled unprecedented collaboration among the leading climate research laboratories in Australian universities and acted as a lynchpin to enhance partnerships between the university sector, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology to tackle some of the most important research questions of our generation. This was further made possible by the critical underpinning resources of the federally funded National Computational Infrastructure and strategic links to international Partner Organisations, which contributed to the two-way flow of expertise and human talent between Australia and the world. Preeminent among the Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legacies is the large number of highly talented and superbly mentored doctoral graduates and early career researchers who have benefited from working in a truly exceptional environment. Dr Melissa Hart deserves significant recognition for the graduate program that she envisioned and implemented. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the superb leadership of Professor Andy Pitman. He set a clear agenda for the Centre and has been successful in leading a large and disparate team of scientists, technical and professional staff in delivering such impressive outcomes. I wish him well in his new endeavour and the next chapter of Australian climate research with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.

Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC FAA FRS Chair, Advisory Board

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

DIRECTOR’S REPORT This is the seventh and final annual report of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). 2017 was our final full year of operations, and what a year it has been! Despite the delightful distraction of starting the new ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx) and, as a result, switching directors, we can once again point to remarkable achievements in all areas of our work.

Highlights QQ ARCCSS Prizes awarded to Ariaan Purich, Claire Vincent and our CMS team QQ Nicola Maher received the Uwe Radok Award for the best PhD thesis QQ Matt England won the Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy QQ Over 180 papers published or in press at the end of 2017 bringing the Centre total to over 1000 QQ Continued excellence in our graduate program led by Melissa Hart, with 12 postgraduate completions QQ Lisa Alexander won the WMO Commission for Climatology Outstanding Service Award QQ Continued engagement with our global partners, policy makers and the business community QQ Associate Investigators Andrea Taschetto, Scott Sisson and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick won ARC Future Fellowships QQ We hosted our biggest-ever annual workshop with over 160 participants.

This year saw the publication 156 scientific articles (plus over 30 in press or pre-published online) by ARCCSS researchers, bringing our total tally of publications to over 1000 across the life of the Centre. Many of the year’s studies once again appeared in the top journals in our field and have attracted national and international interest. At last count, we published 16 papers in Journal of Climate, 10 in Climate Dynamics, 11 in Geophysical Research Letters, 10 in Nature journals, and 7 in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Importantly, we also saw a number of publications in journals beyond our immediate community, such as six in Environmental Research Letters and three in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, showing our broad reach. I am particularly pleased to see our model-development activities acknowledged and documented in specialist journals, as evidenced by a total of 13 articles in Geoscientific Model Development and the Journal for Advances in Modelling the Earth System. It is easy to forget what an achievement it is to publish an article. They are the lifeblood of science, and I would like to thank all Centre members who have contributed either directly or indirectly to this great success. Our graduate program continued its march from strength to strength under the leadership of its director, Melissa Hart. Some 75 students participated in this year’s winter school on The Science of Climate Change, which was held in Sydney. Many more took the opportunity to participate in training courses to increase their skills in programming, running models, and science writing. Ten of our PhD scholars and two masters students completed their degrees this year. This makes the Centre the proud parent of a combined 62 masters and PhD graduates, who are applying their skills in exciting new ventures here and abroad. The vast majority of our students and postdoctoral fellows, as well as many of our national and international collaborators, joined the Chief Investigators at our annual workshop in Canberra in November. Not surprisingly, the workshop was another record-breaking event with more than 160 participants. Through its location it allowed us to showcase our work to the Australian Research Council as well as government departments. At the workshop I had the pleasure to award our annual prizes. Aarian Purich won the prize for Best Paper by a Student for her work linking modelled trends in Antarctic sea ice with errors in westerly wind changes, published in Nature Communications. Claire Vincent took out the prize for Best Paper by an Early Career Researcher for her study on the diurnal cycle of rainfall over the Maritime Continent with the passage of the MaddenJulian Oscillation, published in Monthly Weather Review.

And of course, I enjoyed awarding the Director’s Prize to the Computational Modelling Systems team, whose great work over the years enabled many of the studies we are so proud to report here.

we didn’t stop there: we translated our understanding into new tools for modelling the system, such as new land model components and a high-resolution ocean model, the application of which, in turn, further increased our understanding.

Our work is not only recognised by ourselves of course, and I am pleased to report the award of several major honours to Centre staff, students and affiliates. Lisa Alexander won the 2017/18 World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology Outstanding Service Award for her many contributions not only to the study of climate extremes but also for enabling others to do so, through the development of data sets and methodologies. Matt England was awarded the Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica as well as the 2017 Sydney Institute of Marine Science Emerald Award for “contributions to our knowledge of the ocean’s role in climate”. The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)/Global Climate Observing System International Data Prize 2017 went to Markus Donat. Nicola Maher’s thesis won the 2017 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) Uwe Radok Award for the best PhD thesis in the fields of meteorology, oceanography, glaciology or climatology. Our international Partner Investigators Steve Griffies and Sandrine Bony won major awards, becoming a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and being awarded the Gérard Mégie Prize by the French Academy of Sciences, respectively. We congratulate Associate Investigators Andrea Taschetto, Scott Sisson and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, who all won ARC Future Fellowships. Finally, I myself was humbled and of course very pleased to have been made a Fellow of AMOS, which makes me officially FAMOS! Congratulations to all award winners and a big thank you to all who were involved in their nominations.

Our commitment to the national approach to climate modelling makes these tools available to all researchers for a long time to come. Through our involvement in international scientific bodies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the WCRP, we have not only shaped national but also international climate science. Our one-ofa-kind graduate program, superbly led by Melissa Hart, has trained more than 100 students and early career researchers, many of whom will make major contributions to our science in the years to come. Our people, science and tools all contribute to improving our ability to predict weather and climate, thereby affecting policy and decision makers throughout society and, ultimately, every Australian. Being part of the ARCCSS has been an incredible journey, and having the opportunity to lead it in its final year is a great privilege. I hope that many of the readers of this report will be able to join us when we communicate and celebrate our achievements with the wider community at a showcase event in late June 2018 in Canberra.

Professor Christian Jakob Director

In reflecting on the great achievements of this year, I personally — and I am sure all Centre members — are particularly grateful to one individual. None of what we report in this document would have been possible without the vision and passion of Andy Pitman, the founding director of ARCCSS and now Director of CLEx. Andy’s outstanding leadership has provided all of us with the opportunity to contribute to the incredible experience that is ARCCSS. His tireless work to build a world-class climate science effort has lifted all of us and has influenced the community well beyond the Centre boundaries. Thank you, Andy! The question I am asked most these days is what the Centre of Excellence has achieved and what its legacy will be. I see several major achievements, all the result of a tremendous collective effort by so many. First, there is our science, some of which is already recognised as breakthrough, and more will come in due course. We investigated all spheres of the climate system, enabling us to make contributions within them, such as providing new insights into the workings of tropical clouds or ocean eddies and clarifying their role in the climate system. Importantly, we were able to integrate across the spheres too, making major contributions to an increased understanding of past and present climate variability, such as the processes involved in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the recent effects of decadal variability. And ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

VALE BENJAMIN MÖEBIS The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science mourns the tragic loss of gifted and passionate scientist Benjamin Möbis, who died while scuba diving in early January 2018. Benjamin’s work was to feature in this year’s annual report because of its profound impact on how convection is represented in climate models. Benjamin had just completed the development of an entirely new convection scheme and had implemented it in the Max Planck Institute’s climate Icosahedral nonHydrostatic General Circulation Model. Most climate models only allow one form of convection at a time to be present in a grid box. This leads to unrealistic, abrupt shifts between shallow and deep clouds, even from one model time-step to the next. Not surprisingly then, General Circulation Models struggle to represent such transitions well, leading to a poor representation of, for instance, the daily cycle of rainfall, particularly as found across Northern Australia and in the Maritime Continent. Benjamin’s convection scheme changed that approach, allowing multiple types of clouds of different strengths and depths to occur simultaneously. It also included an intermediate mode of convection, so-called congestus clouds, allowing convection to grow from shallow to deep clouds gradually, as occurs in the real world. Benjamin was passionate about his fundamental climate modelling work, which is carried out by only a few climate scientists around the world. Once in place, the new convection scheme could open doors to a better simulation of rainfall events across the globe and to using climate models to better understand climate and weather variability in the tropics and over Australia. These have been ongoing challenges for climate science here and around the world. Developing the scheme is a substantial achievement, or as Benjamin put it last year, “One thing is certain, it is not a plug-and-play job.” Benjamin will be sorely missed by his colleagues at the Centre and around the globe, but undoubtedly his contribution to climate modelling will have ongoing influence in this field for years to come.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE STRATEGY Our Research Goals

Our Research Strategy

QQ Improve our understanding of tropical convection and its role in climate variability and change and build this understanding into models QQ Determine the risks posed from climate variability and change and enhance our capacity to predict how extremes will change in the future QQ Improve our understanding of regional-scale land surface forcing and feedbacks and build this understanding into models QQ Improve our understanding of the links between Australian climate variability and large-scale climate modes in the extra-tropics QQ Improve our understanding of the physical mechanisms governing the ocean circulation, its variability, response to change and impact on biogeochemical cycling.

QQ We undertake transformative blue-sky research with a critical mass of worldclass climate system scientists based on a seven-year strategy QQ We develop and respond to ground-breaking ideas with vigour and commitment QQ We are building a national climate modelling infrastructure using our dedicated Computational Modelling Support team QQ We educate the next generation of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate scientists by transforming the graduate student experience at the national scale QQ We will openly collaborate nationally and internationally QQ We will define overarching research questions that integrate Centre activities and strengths QQ We will communicate our science to the public and to policy makers with honesty, accuracy and integrity.

Our Vision: We will revolutionize our understanding of the Australian climate system by transforming the scale and quality of climate system science in Australian universities, linked with national and international partners

Our Values

We are successful when:

QQ Internationally outstanding science, published in elite journals QQ A world-class education for our students and postdoctoral researchers QQ Unrestricted access to our tools, data and knowledge QQ Honest and clear communication of our science QQ A desire to deliver more than we promise

QQ Our graduate students are outstanding and in demand QQ We collaborate without impact from institutional barriers QQ Our papers have impact on international science QQ Our science is included in Australian and overseas models QQ Researchers want to join our team QQ Technology is no barrier to our science QQ We communicate our science accurately

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES:

Transform the quality and scale of University research

Transform graduate education at the national scale

Transform national Transform climate science tools collaboration at all scales

Transform universitybased advice to stakeholders

SUCCESS PILLARS

Our research program

Our graduate program

Our Computational Modeling program

Our outreach program

STRATEGIC ACTIONS. WE WILL:

1.1

National climate science fabric

2.1 Develop a national 3.1 Build modelling 4.1 Establish structures 5.1 Focus on crossinstitutional research graduate program and analysis that encourage published in high led by a Graduate tools to support cross-institutional quality journals (A Director Australian climate research and A*) research 1.2 Ensure the Centre has 2.2 Co-supervise PhDs 3.2 Serve the ACCESS 4.2 Conduct national 5.2 a major national and across institutions model and its workshops and international impact components in training programs a user-friendly framework 1.3 Engage nationally 2.3 Enable students to 3.3 Serve data for 4.3 Conduct regular 5.3 and internationally via collaborate across models and from cross-institutional a targeted exchange institutions models in a userresearch team program friendly framework meetings 1.4

Increase the number 2.4 Conduct annual of organizations winter schools to collaborating with the educate, train and Centre build relationships

1.5

Identify gaps in our research and attract additional funding to resolve them

2.5

Grow the PhD cohort via scholarships and support

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Interact with our Board and Advisory group on key strategic issues 3.5 Develop and share 4.5 Contribute all tools using strongly to world-standard National Research software practices Priorities 3.4

Build a virtual climate laboratory in collaboration with key partners

4.4

5.4

5.5

Develop a media and communications strategy led by a media officer Develop a website that is relevant, informative and up to date Communicate Centre research to schools, to encourage and inform Brief business, industry and government on our science Develop educational resources for the community

CENTRE STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT Governance and Management Centre Board The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) is overseen by a Board, which is chaired by Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty, AC. The Board provides strategic oversight and advice to the Centre as well as monitoring the Centre’s performance against its stated Key Performance Indicators. The Board met on 21 November 2017. The membership of the Board had one change, namely Chris Johnston joined from the Department of the Environment and Energy. Chris replaces Dave Johnson who moved on to another role. The Centre is grateful to Dave for his contributions to the Board in previous years and welcomes Chris.

Board Members: Professor Peter Doherty, AC, (Chair), University of Melbourne and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital Dr Peter May, Head of Research, Bureau of Meteorology Mr Ian Dunlop, Former Chair Australian Coal Association and former CEO Australian Institute of Company Directors Professor Laura Poole-Warren, PVC Research Training, UNSW Dr Helen Cleugh, Director, CSIRO Climate Centre Professor Jean Palutikof, Director, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Griffith University Mr Chris Johnston, Assistant Secretary, Climate Change Policy Branch Dr Jon Petch, Head, Science Partnerships, UK Meteorological Office

The Centre Advisory Group The Centre Advisory Group (CAG) meets monthly to discuss strategic and tactical advice at the level of individual programs and projects. The CAG’s monthly meetings will ensure the Centre meets the agreed performance indicators, coordinated across the Partner Organisations and their hosts.

Centre Executive Professor Andrew Pitman resigned his position as ARCCSS Director on 30th June, as he has taken on the role of Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx), which commenced on 4th August. The former ARCCSS Deputy Director, Professor Christian Jakob, took over as Centre Director, with Professor Matthew England accepting the role of Deputy Director. 12

As Centre Director, Prof Jakob carries overall responsibility for day-to-day leadership of the Centre and its research. He is supported by the Centre Executive Group (CEG). The CEG is comprised of the Director, Deputy Director, Chief Operations Officer, Graduate Director, Computational Modelling Systems (CMS) Team Leader, the Media and Communications Manager, and the five research program leaders. The CEG meets regularly via video conference to discuss centre management, operations and policy. An extended Centre Executive, which includes the leaders of each research program, meets by video conference on a monthly basis to discuss both operational and scientific matters. Every second month, the group is joined by all Chief Investigators.

Centre Business Team The transformative research that the Centre of Excellence continues to deliver is supported by a dedicated team of professional staff. The Centre was extremely fortunate in being able to recruit Stephen Gray back to the role of Centre Manager from May 2017, after losing him for a period of time to a different position outside of UNSW. From 4 August Stephen assumed the Chief Operations Officer role with the new ARC Centre of Excellence for CLEx, and Vilia Co (former Finance and Resources Manager) assumed the role of ARCCSS Centre Manager. Stephen and Vilia have been working closely together during the period that the two centres overlap. Media and Communications Manager Alvin Stone (UNSW) continued his superb work of profiling the Centre’s research and generously sharing his time and expertise with other communicators in the national Centres of Excellence community. The establishment of CLEx enabled the recruitment of additional professional staff who provide support to both centres in a split-cost, shared services model. Events Co-ordinator Elaine Fernandes and Executive Assistants Jenny Rislund (UNSW), Sook Chor (Monash), Christine Fury (UTAS) and Alina Bryleva (ANU) each play an important role in supporting the Centre’s core functions of research, graduate training, outreach and communications. In 2017 we bid farewell to Swa Rath who secured a new role within UNSW. We thank Swa for her contributions to the Centre and wish her every success in her new position.

Leadership Development We remain committed to providing leadership training, guidance and opportunities for all Centre researchers, including our students and early career researchers (ECRs) and our professional and technical staff. Our students and ECRs are represented via our Early Career Researchers Committee (ECRC), with an ECR representative attending Centre executive meetings. Our ECRC also organises ECR professional development and training events, including dedicated ECR events at Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society annual meetings, and helps facilitate dedicated ECR funding applications that enable our ECRs to lead small projects that expand beyond the scope of their research

programs. An overview of ECRC activities for 2017 can be found within. Many of our ECRs also played key roles in coordinating workshops focused on our research programs this year. Again, reports on these workshops can be found within. In addition to offering well-attended leadership and training opportunities within the Centre, such as writing workshops, the annual winter school, and technical training, we also identify existing courses for people and project management at our nodes and elsewhere. Our staff and students are actively encouraged to take these opportunities. Examples in 2017 included Claire Carouge attending an ANU supervisors’ workshop. Vilia Co attended the ATEM-sponsored 2017 University Finance conference in May. PhD student Mathew Lipson attended the GlobalTech Global Fellows Programme: Cities of the Future Workshop in Munich where he also presented a poster of his work. As part of a holistic approach to professional development the Centre committed itself to raising awareness of a diverse range of equity issues. In 2017 Stephen Gray prepared a training primer on unconscious bias, which all Chief Investigators were asked to complete and is now mandatory for all Centre staff sitting on interview panels.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Gender and Diversity Our annual workshop was an example of ARCCSS gender and diversity policies being put into action. For the second year in a row child care was provided on site, which enabled three recent parents - who otherwise would have been unable to attend – to participate in the workshop. When developing the program and logistics for our annual workshop, the organising committee was very mindful of ensuring a diverse range of speakers in terms of gender and ethnicity. We were also extremely fortunate to have Professor Sharon Bell from ANU give a keynote talk on the topic of “The science career marathon” in which she presented sobering statistics of the continuing challenges faced by women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine (STEMM) disciplines. The gender balance among Centre students is close to parity (currently 48% female). However, representation of women follows the common pattern experienced in the physical sciences and other STEMM subjects; namely, it drops off at the more senior levels. We will continue to address these issues going forward in the new ARC Centre of Excellence, CLEx, which will build upon the small steps and lessons learned from the ARCCSS

HOMEWARD BOUND Graduate Director Dr Melissa Hart was selected to participate in the illustrious Homeward Bound program. Homeward Bound is a global leadership initiative for women in STEMM. The overarching goal of the program is to build and support, over the next 10 years, a global network of 1000 women in science, focusing on the leadership and strategy required to contribute towards a more sustainable future. Participants are chosen via a globally competitive application process. Melissa was one of 70 women, from 13 countries, chosen to take part in Year 2 of the program, which will see her set sail for Antarctica in 2018. Homeward Bound consists of a 12-month remotely delivered program to develop leadership, strategy, and communication abilities and culminates in a three-week voyage to Antarctica (Feb-Mar 2018). The voyage includes intensive leadership training and a science program looking at the role of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in the climate system and global climate change. The projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s objectives are to elevate each participantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership skills, to refine participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; skills in strategy design and execution, to have a global focus, and to contribute to the broader societal conversation about the role of women in leading the world towards a more sustainable future. We wish Melissa well on her voyage to Antarctica in early 2018.

ORGANISATIONAL CHART Centre Board

Centre Advisory Group

Prof Peter Doherty, Dr Peter May, Dr Helen Cleugh, Chris Johnston, Ian Dunlop, Prof Jean Palutikof, Prof Laura Poole-Warren, Dr Jon Petch

Prof Lindsay Botten, Dr Rachel Law, Dr Peter May, Prof Andy Pitman, Prof Christian Jakob, Dr Claire Carouge

Director Prof Christian Jakob

Deputy Director

Centre Executive Team

Team Leader Computational Modelling Support

Prof Matthew England

Media and Communications Manager

Centre Managers Stephen Gray ViliaCo

Graduate Director Dr Melissa Hart

Alvin Stone

Dr Claire Carouge

Eleven Chief Investigators Across Five Research Programs A/Prof Lisa Alexander, Prof Nathan Bindoff, Dr Dietmar Dommenget, A/ Prof Andy Hogg, Prof David Karoly, A/Prof Todd Lane, Prof Michael Reeder, Prof Michael Roderick, Prof Steven Sherwood, Prof Will Steffen, A/Prof Peter Strutton

Computational Modelling Support Team Heerdegen, Petrelli, Wales, Wolff

Administration Team Chor, Fernandes, Rislund

Research Associates

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Partner and Associate Investigators

Research Students Phd, Masters, Honours

CHIEF INVESTIGATORS Chief Investigators Prof Christian Jakob Director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Research program: The Effects of Tropical Convection on Australia’s Climate Professor Christian Jakob was awarded his PhD in Meteorology from the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, in 2001. As a research and senior research scientist for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts from 1993 to 2001, he worked on the development and evaluation of the model representation of clouds, convection and precipitation. From 2002 to 2007 he was Senior and Principal Research Scientist of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and since 2007 he has been a professor at Monash University. He currently is the Chair of Climate Modelling at Monash’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. Prof Jakob’s experience and current interests are in the development and evaluation of the processes crucial to the energy and water cycles in global atmospheric models. Internationally, he is engaged in many scientific and collaborative activities. He is the current Co-chair of the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Modelling Advisory Council. He led the prestigious Working Group on Numerical Experimentation from 2008 to 2012 and was the first university-based researcher to be appointed in that position. He was Chair of the WCRP’s Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Modelling and Prediction Panel from 2007 to 2010. Before that, Prof Jakob successfully led the GEWEX Cloud System Study, in which a group of about 150 scientists collaborated on the development and evaluation of cloud and convection representation in models. He co-led the Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment in 2006. As recognition of his prominent position in the climate science field, Prof Jakob was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report, Working Group 1. In 2016, his research was recognised by the Ascent Award of the American Geophysical Union’s Atmospheric Sciences Section.

Prof Matthew England Deputy Director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Research program: Mechanisms and Attribution of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change Professor Matthew England obtained his PhD in 1992 from the University of Sydney. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, from 1992-1994. He was a research scientist in CSIRO’s Climate Change Research Program from 1994-1995 and was a CSIRO Flagship Fellow in 2005. He has been with the University of New South Wales since 1995, where he held an ARC Federation Fellowship from 2006-2010. He commenced an ARC Laureate Fellowship in 2011 and is presently Deputy Director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre. In 2014 Prof England was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and in 2016 a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Prof England’s research explores global-scale ocean circulation and the influence it has on regional climate, large-scale physical oceanography, ocean modelling, and climate processes, with a particular focus on the Southern Hemisphere. Using ocean and coupled climate models in combination with observations, he studies how ocean currents affect climate and climate variability on time scales of seasons to centuries. His work has had significant effect on the treatment of water-mass physics in models, on the methodologies of assessment of ocean and climate models, on our understanding of large-scale Southern Hemisphere climate modes, and on the mechanisms for regional climate variability over Australia. Prof England has served on two Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Expert Working Groups (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Science, and Energy-CarbonWater); the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) International Working Group for Ocean Model Development; and the ARC Earth System Science Network board. He was Co-chair of the CLIVAR Southern Ocean Region Implementation Panel 2008-2014 and is currently a member of the World Climate Research Programme/CLIVAR/Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Drought Interest Group. Prof England was awarded the Land & Water Australia Eureka Prize for Water Research and the Banksia Foundation Mercedes-Benz Australian Research Award in 2008. In 2007 he received the Royal Society of Victoria Research Medal. Other awards include the Sherman Eureka Prize for Environmental Research (2006); the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Priestley Medal (2005); the Australian Academy of Science Frederick White Prize (2004); a Fulbright Scholarship (1991-1992); and the University Medal, University of Sydney (1987).

Prof England has authored over 180 peer-reviewed journal papers. He has been a Contributing Author for two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports and was the convening lead author of the 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis. He has supervised more than 20 PhD students through to successful completion and taught more than 3000 undergraduate students. He was an associate editor for Reviews of Geophysics 20052009 and an associate editor for the Journal of Climate 2008-2015.

Prof Andy Pitman Research program: The Role of Land Surface Forcing and Feedbacks for Regional Climate (Former Director January – July) Professor Andy Pitman was born in Bristol and was awarded a bachelor’s degree with honours in physical geography and a PhD in Atmospheric Science by the University of Liverpool, UK. He also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Leadership from Macquarie University. Prof Pitman was Head of the Department of Physical Geography at Macquarie University from 1999 to 2003 and Deputy Dean of Division from 2000 to 2003. He initiated the Climate Risk Centre of Research Excellence there before moving to the University of New South Wales in 2007 to co-direct the newly established Climate Change Research Centre. Prof Pitman’s research focus is on terrestrial processes in global and regional climate modelling, model evaluation, and earth systems approaches to understanding climate change. His leadership, collaboration and research experience is extensive both nationally and internationally. Between 2004 and 2010 he convened the Australian Research Council Research Network for Earth System Science, which facilitated interaction between individuals and groups involved in climate system science. He is a member of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator initiative, the Academy of Science’s National Committee for Earth System Science, the NSW Minister for Climate Change’s Science Advisory Committee and the former Department of Climate Change Advisory Committee. In 2007 he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council on Regional Climate Change. Internationally, Prof Pitman is closely affiliated with the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). He was Chair of the WCRP’s Land Committee for the Global Land Atmosphere System Study from 2006 to 2008 and is now on its Science Steering Committee. As Co-chair, he jointly led one of the first major international intercomparison exercises, the Project for the Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterization Schemes, which is supported by WCRP and the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme. He also ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

sat on the Science Steering Committee of the Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study and is currently co-coordinator for the project Land Use Change: Identification of Robust Impacts. Prof Pitman is a regular invitee for keynote presentations and is a passionate communicator about science, contributing regularly to the media on the science of climate change. He was a Lead Author for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports 3 and 4, contributing to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC in 2007. He has also contributed to the Copenhagen Diagnosis, an Australia-led update of the science of climate change. He has held editorial positions with the Journal of Climate and the Annals of the Association of American Geographers’ Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres and is currently an editor for the International Journal of Climatology. Awards and accolades received by Prof Pitman include the NSW Scientist of the Year Award (2010), the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographical Medal (2009), the Dean’s Award for Science Leadership at Macquarie University (2005), the Priestly Medal for Excellence in Atmospheric Science Research (2004) and the Geoff Conolly Memorial Award (2004). He jointly won the International Justice Prize for the Copenhagen Diagnosis (2010) and was among Sydney Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people (2010). Prof Pitman has a long track record of nurturing early career researchers and has supervised 10 PhD students through to successful completion, plus five masters students and a significant number of honours students. He has published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has authored 20 book chapters.

Dr Lisa Alexander Research program: Mechanisms Explaining Changes in Australian Climate Extremes Associate Professor Lisa Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics and a PhD from Monash University. Between 1998 and 2006 she worked as a research scientist at the UK Meteorological Office — Hadley Centre, with a year on secondment at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. A/Prof Alexander’s primary research focuses on understanding the variability and driving mechanisms of climate extremes. Of particular significance is her ongoing work assessing global changes in temperature and rainfall extremes, which has contributed significantly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. She was awarded the 2011 Priestley Medal by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the 2013 Australian Academy of Science Dorothy Hill Award for her contribution to this field of research. She contributed to the 17

IPCC assessments in 2001 and 2007 and to the 2012 Special Report on Extremes and was a Lead Author of the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report. A/Prof Alexander also chairs a World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Climatology Expert Team and is Co-chair of the World Climate Research Programme Grand Challenge on Extremes.

Prof Nathanial Bindoff Research program: Mechanisms and Attribution of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change Professor Nathan Bindoff is Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Tasmania and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science. Prof Bindoff is a physical oceanographer, specialising in ocean climate and the Earth’s climate system, with a focus on understanding the causes of change in the oceans. He was the Coordinating Lead Author for the Oceans chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th and 5th Assessment Reports (AR4 & AR5). Prof Bindoff and colleagues documented some of the first evidence for changes in the Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific and Southern oceans and the first evidence of changes in the Earth’s hydrological cycle from ocean salinity. His most recent work is on documenting the decline in oxygen content of the oceans. He has also worked in the Antarctic, to determine the total production of Adelie Land Bottom Water formation and its contribution to Antarctic Bottom Water Formation and its circulation. His group has contributed to the development of some of the largest and highest-resolution model simulations of the oceans for the scientific study of mixing in the oceans. He contributed to the IPCC’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, shared with Al Gore, and was a Coordinating Lead Author of the Detection and Attribution chapter in the IPCC’s AR5. Prof Bindoff’s current interests are primarily in understanding how the changing ocean can be used to infer changes in atmosphere and whether these changes can be attributed to rising greenhouse gases and for projecting future changes. He is also interested in the effects of changes on regional climates. Prof Bindoff led the Climate Futures project for the study of impacts of climate change on Tasmania. He has served on 14 international committees, been the invited speaker at 22 conferences and workshops and co-chaired two workshops. He was guest editor on two special volumes of Deep Sea Research, and convened the Oceans session of the Climate Change Congress, Copenhagen, March 2009. He has published more than 100 scientific papers, seven book chapters, eight conference papers and 43 reports. He has a H index of 39 and more than 10000 citations (Google Scholar). 18

Dr Dietmar Dommenget Research program: Drivers of Spatial and Temporal Climate Variability in Extra-tropical Australia Dr Dietmar Dommenget completed his Diploma in Physics at the University of Hamburg. He started studying climate dynamics and climate model development at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in 1996 and finished his PhD in 2000. He joined the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) project in a postdoctoral position at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, to study the predictability of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in a joint observational data assimilation scheme. After three years in California he returned to Germany in 2003 for a fixed-term faculty position as a junior professor in the Meteorology department at the IFM-GEOMAR (also known as the Liebniz Institute of Marine Sciences) in Kiel. Since 2010 Dr Dommenget has been Senior Lecturer at Monash University in the Weather and Climate group of the School of Mathematical Sciences. Dr Dommenget’s research focuses on large-scale climate dynamics. He works with climate models at all levels of complexity. Most of his work centres on the development, conducting and analysis of coupled general-circulation models, but he has also developed simple conceptual models of natural climate variability. Most of his work focuses on sea surface temperature variability in the tropical and extra-tropical oceans. He is most widely known for his work on the interpretation of statistical patterns in climate variability. His most recent projects focus on climate change. He developed a new type of climate model for the conceptual understanding of the climate response to external forcing, which is a fast and simple tool for researchers, students and the public to understand the interactions in the climate system.

A/Prof Andy Hogg Research program: Mechanisms and Attribution of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change Associate Professor Andy Hogg completed his undergraduate degree in physics at the Australian National University in 1996 and was awarded his PhD in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from the University of Western Australia in 2002. He then spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, where he developed a new, high-resolution coupled ocean-atmosphere model. In 2004 he returned to ANU to take up a position as ARC Postdoctoral Fellow. He is currently based at

ANU’s Research School of Earth Sciences and holds an ARC Future Fellowship. A/Prof Hogg’s research interests centre on physical processes governing the ocean and climate. His work within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is focused on the role of the ocean in altering the variance of modes of climate variability and the ocean’s response to changes in the major climate modes. He will investigate the physical changes in Southern Ocean water-mass formation and the role of eddies and mixing in the climate system. Due to A/Prof Hogg’s unique contributions to understanding of the Southern Ocean, he was awarded the Frederick White Prize from the Australian Academy of Science in 2012, the Nicholas P. Fofonoff Award from the American Meteorological Society and the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society’s Priestly Award in 2015. A/Prof Hogg’s publication record includes 68 scientific research papers and exhibits a flair for new and innovative research.

Prof David J Karoly Research program: Mechanisms Explaining Changes in Australian Climate Extremes Professor David Karoly gained his Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Applied Mathematics in 1976 from Monash University and was awarded his PhD in Meteorology from the University of Reading in England in 1980. From 1995 to 2000 he was the Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Southern Hemisphere Meteorology at Monash University and during 2001-2002 he was Professor of Meteorology and Head of the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University. From 2003-2007 he was the Williams Chair Professor of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. He returned to Australia in 2007 as an ARC Federation Fellow and Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne – a position he held until May 2012. His current position is Professor of Atmospheric Science at Melbourne University’s School of Earth Sciences. Prof Karoly’s research focuses on climate variability and climate change, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation. He is recognised as one of the leading global experts on the dynamics of large-scale atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere and its variability. He is also recognised as a world leader in the detection and attribution of climate change, particularly at regional scales. Recently, he has been studying the effects of climate change on weather extremes and their impacts on human and natural systems. Prof Karoly is a member of the Climate Change Authority, established in 2012 as an independent body that provides expert advice on the operation of Australia’s carbon ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

price, emissions reduction targets and other Australian Government climate change mitigation initiatives. In 2013, he became a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2014. During 2011-2012, he was a member of the Joint Scientific Committee that provides scientific oversight to the World Climate Research Programme. From 2008-2009 he was Chair of the Premier of Victoria’s Climate Change Reference Group. He is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. Prof Karoly was involved, through several different roles, in the preparation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report and was a Review Editor for a chapter in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Recent awards received include the 2014 Morton Medal of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society for “leadership in meteorology, oceanography, climate and related fields, particularly through education and the development of young scientists”; and the 2015 Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Scientific Excellence for “excellence and leadership in scientific research in the Earth sciences”.

A/Prof Todd P Lane Research program: The Effects of Tropical Convection on Australia’s Climate Associate Professor Todd Lane was awarded his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Monash University in 2000, having completed his bachelor’s degree in 1997. He was a postdoctoral fellow with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA) from 2000-2002 and a staff scientist from 2003-2005. He joined the University of Melbourne in 2005, where he is now Associate Professor and Reader in the School of Earth Sciences. Between 2010-2014 he was an ARC Future Fellow. A/Prof Lane’s primary research focus is on atmospheric processes. He is internationally recognised as an expert on tropical thunderstorms, atmospheric waves, and turbulence. He has made important contributions to many aspects of mesoscale meteorology, convective cloud dynamics, and high-resolution atmospheric modelling. His research within the Centre is focused on tropical convection, and he is using high-resolution cloud- and weather-prediction models to determine the processes controlling the formation and evolution of tropical cloud systems. Of particular emphasis is convective processes in the maritime continent and the diurnal cycle of rainfall. A/Prof Lane was the 2014-2015 President of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) and was Chair of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Committee on Mesoscale Processes from 2012-2015. He is currently an editor of Monthly Weather Review and sits on 19

the Advisory Board of the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science. A/Prof Lane has received awards from AMS, the Australian Academy of Science, AMOS and NASA.

Prof Michael Reeder Research program: Drivers of Spatial and Temporal Climate Variability in Extra-tropical Australia Professor Michael Reeder completed a PhD in Applied Mathematics at Monash University, before holding postdoctoral positions at the University of Munich (Germany) and the NASA- Goddard Space Flight Center (USA). He subsequently returned to Monash University as a member of staff, rising through the ranks to professor. Prof. Reeder has also held long-term visiting positions at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA), the State University of New York at Albany (USA), the University of Reading (UK) and the University of Leeds (UK). Prof. Reeder’s research is focused principally on weather producing systems. However, he has published on a wide variety of topics, including fronts, tropopause folding, extra-tropical cyclones, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, Rossby waves, tropical cyclones, gravity waves, solitary waves, convection, boundary layers and bushfires. He has been the principal supervisor for more than 34 graduate students. Prof Reeder is a past President of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and a winner of the Distinguished Research Award (Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) and the Loewe Prize (Royal Meteorological Society, Australia branch).

Prof Michael L Roderick

Professor Roderick’s principle research interests are in environmental physics, climate science, ecohydrology (including plant-water relations), remote sensing and ecological dynamics. He has made major international contributions to understanding the water-energy-carbon linkage. An advocate of national and international scientific collaboration, Prof Roderick co-instigated and co-organised the first international scientific meeting to address the observed decline in evaporative demand and the implications for the terrestrial water balance, hosted in 2004 by the Australian Academy of Science. He has also acted as an advisor to the US National Science Foundation’s program on ecohydrology. He led the Theoretical Developments in Carbon Cycle Science program of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting from 2001-2006. In 1999, Prof Roderick received the J.B.S. Haldane Prize of the British Ecological Society for research linking water-energy-carbon-nutrients at a leaf scale, and in 2004 he received a Top100 award for his research on evaporation. He was awarded the Australasian Science Prize in 2009 for his research on evaporation and changing water availability. In 2013 he was awarded the John Dalton Medal by the European Geosciences Union for his groundbreaking research on trends in the water cycle. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for his contributions to the science of evaporation and transpiration, including interpretation of changes in evapotranspiration under global environmental change. Prof Roderick is also an active supervisor and mentor to emerging scientists. He is currently supervising three PhD students and has seen eight of his PhD scholars graduate since 2001.

Prof Steven Sherwood

Research program: The Role of Land Surface Forcing and Feedbacks for Regional Climate

Research program: The Effects of Tropical Convection on Australia’s Climate

Professor Michael Roderick graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Surveying from the Queensland University of Technology in 1984 and subsequently worked as a surveyor across northern Australia until 1990. He completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Geographic Information Systems at the University of Queensland in 1990. After working with the Department of Agriculture in Perth (1991-1993) he joined Curtin University. He was a lecturer at the School of Spatial Sciences, Curtin University of Technology, from 1993-1996 and completed a PhD in satellite remote sensing and environmental modelling at Curtin University in 1994. He joined the Australian National University as a research fellow in 1996 and currently holds a joint appointment as Professor between the Research School of Earth Sciences and the Research School of Biology.

Professor Steven Sherwood received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. He was awarded a Master of Science in Engineering Physics from the University of California in 1991 and a PhD in Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, in 1995. He carried out postdoctoral research at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) from 1996-1997 and was a research scientist at the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center from 1998-2000. In 2001 he joined the faculty of Yale University, reaching the rank of professor in 2007. At the beginning of 2009 he moved to Australia, where he is currently Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales.

Prof Sherwood is an established leader in atmospheric science. In particular, he has made significant contributions to the understanding of moisture-related processes in the atmosphere. His areas of study include atmospheric humidity; convective systems; interactions between clouds, air circulation and climate; remote sensing of storms; and observed warming trends. Within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Prof Sherwood formerly led and still contributes to the research program The Effects of Tropical Convection on Australia’s Climate. This work will ultimately contribute towards the goal of an innovative convective parameterization for climate models through local process modelling, larger-domain models of multi-scale interactions, field observations, global satellite observations of convection, and studies involving global climate models. Prof Sherwood was a Lead Author of the chapter on Clouds and Aerosols in the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report, Working Group I, and a Contributing Author to the IPCC’s previous report in 2007. He also co-authored the first US Climate Change Science Program report, Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere; contributed to The Copenhagen Diagnosis update on the science in 2009 and 2011; and contributed to the National Academy of Science’s Climate Science Questions and Answers, published in 2010. He currently serves on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters and on the Steering Committee of the World Climate Research Programme’s Grand Challenge on Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity. In addition to those international activities, Prof Sherwood has co-authored over 90 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Some of these papers have been covered extensively by the international media; for example, his 2005 paper in Science on atmospheric warming, which was named as one of the top 100 scientific discoveries of the year by Discover magazine, and his 2014 study on climate sensitivity, published in Nature. Awards received by Prof Sherwood include the 2002 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the 2005 American Meteorological Association’s Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award. He was a Eureka Prize finalist in 2014. Since 2001, Prof Sherwood has given at least 60 invited presentations at scientific meetings or colloquia worldwide. His many public presentations include a briefing in the US House of Representatives, numerous television and radio appearances, and public lectures at many venues.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Prof Will Steffen Research program: The Role of Land Surface Forcing and Feedbacks for Regional Climate Professor Will Steffen completed his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Missouri. He was awarded his master’s degree and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Florida. He went on to serve as the Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme based in Stockholm. In 2005 Prof Steffen became the first Director of the Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society, and from 2008 to 2012 he was the Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute. His research interests range from sustainability to Earth system science, with an emphasis on the science of climate change, including approaches to climate change adaptation in land systems. He is known for his research on the incorporation of human processes into Earth system modelling and the past and future relationship between humans and nature. Prof Steffen has collaborated with and consulted for scientific organisations globally. He has been a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council working group on Australia’s Science & Technology Priorities for Global Engagement; the Advisory Board of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; and the Advisory Panel of the Earth and Sun System Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. Prof Steffen was also a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation Climate Centre, Korea, and is currently Honorary Professor with Copenhagen University’s Department of Geography and Geology and a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Prof Steffen has held a number of advisory roles to the Australian Government at various times between 2004 and 2013. He was expert advisor to the multi-party Climate Change Committee, member of the Climate Commission, scientific advisor to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (and its forerunners), and Chair of the Federal Government’s Antarctic Science Advisory Committee. From October 2013 he has been a councillor with the crowd-funded Climate Council of Australia.

MELISSA HART GUIDES FUTURE LEADERS Graduate Director Dr Melissa Hart is one of the unsung heroes at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). As Graduate Director she has established a unique structure consisting of focused learning opportunities, quality support networks and individually tailored career development paths. These programs have propelled every single Centre of Excellence student into jobs at some of the world’s leading climate research institutions, including Australia’s CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, and overseas institutions like NASA, Oxford University, the UK Meteorological Office, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max Planck Institute and many more. The graduate program Melissa developed was the first of its kind for an ARC Centre of Excellence and her dedicated position within a Centre across five universities remains unique in Australia. She instituted the scientific paper writing workshops that bring together peers and mentors within the ARCCSS to focus on the process of writing research papers. These workshops have produced rapid improvements in the quality of submissions to journals, leading some of our PhD students to be published as first authors in the world’s major journals, including multiple papers in Nature. Training courses and regular seminars developed with the Computational Modelling Systems team to increase expertise in key software tools have made our students much sought-after by national and international research bodies because of their expert skill set. The annual winter school founded by Melissa is regarded as one of the must-attend events for PhD students here and overseas, allowing them to work with world-leading researchers and tackle some of toughest problems in climate science. Perhaps one of the most important roles Melissa has taken on is as an advocate for the students. Through her tireless efforts she helped establish and focus student committees that have played an important role in the direction of the Centre of Excellence and allowed them to produce their own special events. It is no coincidence that many of our PhD students and graduates and early career researchers (ECRs) have run sessions at international conferences and have been marked out through a succession of awards as future leaders. The annual ECR Day she instituted, which follows Australia’s largest climate conference, that of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, is another event marked in many of the calendars of young researchers. Through her work, Melissa has assured that for decades to come Australian researchers will continue to play key roles in climate research here and overseas.

A/Prof Peter Strutton Research program: Mechanisms and Attributions of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change Associate Professor Peter Strutton received his bachelor’s degree (with first class honours) in marine science from Flinders University of South Australia in 1993. He went on to complete his PhD in Marine Science in 1998. He then left Australia to take up the positions of postdoctoral scientist and research associate with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California — posts he held until 2002. From 2002-2004 he was Assistant Professor with the State University of New York’s Marine Sciences Research Center, and from 2004-2010 he was Assistant, then Associate Professor at Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. In 2010 he returned to Australia on an ARC Future Fellowship, and since then has been Associate Professor at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania. A/Prof Strutton’s research focuses on biological oceanography and his standing as an Antarctic/Southern Ocean scientist is recognised internationally. He has considerable expertise on how modes of variability (such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation) and internal ocean waves affect nutrients in the ocean, biological productivity and carbon exchange. Within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science he contributes to the Oceans research program. He concentrates on the drivers of observed changes in biogeochemical cycles (oxygen, carbon and nutrients). A/Prof Strutton is an experienced supervisor and mentor of early career researchers. He currently oversees two postdoctoral researchers and several PhD and honours students. He has an extensive publication record and has co-authored two reviews of coastal Antarctic productivity. He was also an editor for the journal Geophysical Research Letters where he handled 20-25 papers per month.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Graduate Director Dr Melissa Hart Graduate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science Dr Melissa Hart has used her role as Graduate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science to lead and develop a national, cross-institutional graduate program which has reimagined the traditional Australian PhD. With a vital combination of breadth, depth, support and collaboration, the program has provided over 120 graduate students with the skills, knowledge and experience fundamental to developing world-leading climate science researchers. Dr Hart completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours) in 2001 and her PhD in Atmospheric Science in 2006, at Macquarie University. During her PhD studies she worked part-time at the well-respected air quality consultancy Holmes Air Sciences (now Pacific Environment). She then spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at Portland State University, Oregon, working on the National Science Foundation-funded FUSE (Feedback between Urban Systems and the Environment) project. This was followed by five years in a faculty position in the Department of Geography, the University of Hong Kong, China. Dr Hart’s main research focus is in the area of urban climate, in particular the effect of land use, surface characteristics and anthropogenic activities on the climate of cities, and quantification of the magnitude of the Urban Heat Island. She is also working in the area of air pollution meteorology, in particular air pollution effects from hazards-reduction burns. Dr Hart holds an honorary position in the Department of Geography, the University of Hong Kong, and is a member of the Science Advisory Panel for ClimateWatch Hong Kong and China and of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Course Advisory Committee.

PERSONNEL Director Professor Christian Jakob Monash University

Deputy Director Professor Matthew England The University of New South Wales

Graduate Director Dr Melissa Hart University of New South Wales

Centre Manager Stephen Gray University of New South Wales Vilia Co University of New South Wales

Chief Investigators Dr Lisa Alexander University of New South Wales Professor Nathan Bindoff University of Tasmania Dr Dietmar Dommenget Monash University A/Professor Andy Hogg Australian National University Professor David Karoly University of Melbourne A/Professor Todd Lane University of Melbourne Professor Andy Pitman University of New South Wales Professor Michael Reeder Monash University Professor Michael Roderick Australian National University Professor Steven Sherwood University of New South Wales Professor Will Steffen Australian National University A/Professor Peter Strutton University of Tasmania

Partner Investigators Dr Sandrine Bony LMD/CNRS (France) Dr Wojciech Grabowski NCAR (USA) Dr Stephen Griffies GFDL Prof Hoshin Gupta University of Arizona (USA) 24

Dr Harry Hendon BoM Dr Anthony Hirst BoM Dr Rachel Law CSIRO Dr Christa Peters-Lidard NASA-Goddard Space flight Centre (USA) Dr Richard Matear CSIRO Dr Scott Power BoM Dr Alain Protat BoM Dr Peter Stott Hadley Centre/Met Office (UK) Prof Rowan Sutton NCAS (UK) Dr Ying Ping Wang CSIRO Dr Ian Watterson CSIRO

Associate Investigators Dr Nerilie Abram ANU Dr Gab Abramowitz UNSW Dr Julie Arblaster Monash University Dr Jessica Benthuysen CSIRO/UTAS Dr Ghyslaine Boschat U.Melb Dr Catia Motta Domingues UTAS Dr Randall Donohue CSIRO Dr Stephanie Downes UTAS Prof Jason Evans UNSW Dr Jean-Francois Exbrayat University of Edinburgh Prof Graham Farquhar ANU A/Prof Michael Gagan ANU Dr Ailie Gallant Monash University Dr JoÃ«lle Gergis U.Melb

Dr Donna Green UNSW

U.Melb

Dr Benjamin Moebis Monash University

Prof Ross Griffiths ANU

Dr Oleg Saenko Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis

Dr Benjamin Henley U.Melb

Dr Agus Santoso UNSW

Dr Tess Parker Monash University

Dr Will Hobbs UTAS

Dr Robyn Schofield U.Melb

Dr Callum Shakespeare ANU

Prof Neil Holbrook UTAS

Dr Alexander Sen Gupta UNSW

Dr Kial Stewart ANU

Dr Yi Huang Monash University

A/Prof Steven Siems Monash University

Dr Anna Ukkola UNSW

Dr Nicolas Jourdain LGGE (France)

A/Prof Scott Sisson UNSW

Dr Claire Vincent U.Melb

Dr Jatin Kala Murdoch University

Dr Andrea Taschetto UNSW

Dr Bethan White Monash University

Dr Shane Keating UNSW

Dr Petteri Uotila CSIRO

Dr Dongqin Yin ANU

Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick UNSW

Dr Erik van Sebille Imperial College

Dr Sophie Lewis ANU

A/Prof Kevin Walsh U.Melb

Dr Yi Liu UNSW

Dr Rob Warren Monash University

Dr Ian Macadam OEH

Dr Stephanie Waterman UNSW/University of British Columbia

Dr Angela Maharaj UNSW

Dr Matt Wheeler BoM

Dr Simon Marsland CSIRO

Dr Susan Wijffels CSIRO

Prof Trevor McDougall UNSW

Guy Williams UTAS

Dr Shayne McGregor Monash University

Jan Zika UNSW

Dr Timothy McVicar CSIRO

Research Associates

A/Prof Katrin Meissner UNSW

Dr Adrian Barker UNSW

Dr Laurie Menviel Macquarie University

Dr Mark Decker UNSW

Dr Mitch Moncrieff NCAR (USA)

Dr Chermelle Engel Monash University

Prof Ben Newell UNSW

Dr Bishakdatta Gayen ANU

Prof Neville Nicholls Monash University

Dr Ryan Holmes UNSW

Dr Maxim Nikurashin UTAS

Dr Martin Jucker U.Melb

Dr Eric Oliver UTAS

Dr Andrew King U.Melb

Dr Helen Phillips UTAS

Dr Malcolm King Monash University

Prof Peter Rayner

Dr Joan Llort UTAS

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Dr Eric Oliver UTAS

Computational Modelling Systems and Technical Programmers Dr Claire Carouge UNSW Mr David Fuchs UNSW Dr Aidan Heerdegen ANU Dr Paola Petrelli UTAS Dr Scott Wales U.Melb Dr Holger Wolff Monash University

Professional Staff Sook Chor Monash University Vilia Co UNSW Elaine Fernandes UNSW Jenny Rislund UNSW Alvin Stone UNSW

PhD Students

* Indicates 2017 thesis submission Esteban Abellรกn Villardรณn* UNSW Jenny (Eunmi) Ahn Monash University Oliver Angelil UNSW 25

Natasha Ballis U.Melb

Sonya Fiddes U.Melb

Stacey Osbrough Monash University

Adrian Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Alessandro* U.Melb

Jiawei Bao UNSW

Mandy Freund U.Melb

Marissa Parry UNSW

Paul Hartlipp UNSW@ADFA

Pilar Andrea Barria* U.Melb

Angus Gibson ANU

Ramkrushnbhai Patel UTAS

Tan Mai U.Melb

Alice Barthel* UNSW

Peter Gibson* UNSW

Acacia Peppler* UNSW

Ewan Short U.Melb

Ana Berger UTAS

James Goldie UNSW

Sarah Perry UNSW

Anna Vaughan U.Melb

Vidhi Bharti Monash University

Mia Gross UNSW

Ariaan Purich UNSW

Honours Students

Bella Blanche UTAS

Ned Haughton UNSW

Sandra Richard U.Melb

* Indicates 2017 thesis submission

Pearse Buchanan UTAS

Nadja Herger UNSW

Eytan Rocheta UNSW

Laurence Garcia-Villada* UNSW

Christopher Bull* UNSW

Sanaa Hobeichi UNSW

Cassandra Rogers Monash University

Jessica Hargreaves* ANU

Arden Burrell UNSW

Chiara Holgate ANU/UNSW

Robert Ryan U.Melb

Liam Holder* ANU

Wasin Chaivaranont* UNSW

Wilma Huneke UTAS

Fimi Sarmadi Monash University

Katherine Simmonds* UNSW

Yingjun Chen U.Melb

Stephanie Jacobs Monash University

Benjamin Schroeter UTAS

Hu Hsin (Nish) Su* UNSW

Xi Chen UNSW

Francisco Lang Monash University

Serena Schroeter UTAS

Nicholas Yeung UNSW

Sushma Chen Reddy U.Melb

Yue Li UNSW

Taimoor Sohail ANU

Dipyan Choudhury* UNSW

Veronica (Yuehua) Li UNSW

Christian Stassen Monah University

Scott Clark Monash University

Mathew Lipson UNSW

Peter van Rensch Monash University

Maxime Colin UNSW

Yiling Liu UNSW

Asha Vijayeta Monash University

Steefan Contractor UNSW

Jiale Lou UTAS

Elisabeth Vogel U.Melb

Nathan Cooper UNSW

Tammas Loughran UNSW

Catherine Vreugdenhil* ANU

Luke Cravigan Queensland University of Technology

Mainak Mondal ANU

David Webb UNSW

Sugata Narsey Monash University

Jennifer Wurtzel* ANU

Anil Deo U.Melb

Kaitlin Naughten-Alexander UNSW

Luwei Yang UTAS

Raktima Dey ANU

Sonja Neske Monash University

Fabio Boeira Dias UTAS

Nidhi Nishant UNSW

Earl Duran UNSW

Alexander Norton U.Melb

Bethany Ellis ANU

Justin Oogjes U.Melb

Ajitha Cyriac UTAS

Mathia Zeller Monash University Haifeng Zhang UNSW Canberra

Masters Students

* Indicates 2017 thesis submission Ross Bunn* Monash University

RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS AND INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT Our Partners Administering Institution The University of New South Wales

Collaborating Institutions The Australian National University Monash University The University of Melbourne The University of Tasmania

Australian Partner Organisations Australian National Data Service Bureau of Meteorology CSIRO Department of the Environment and Energy National Computational Infrastructure NSW Office of Environment and Heritage

International Partner Organisations and Collaborators Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (USA) Hadley Centre – Meteorological Office (UK) LMD – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France) Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology (Germany) NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center (USA) National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA) National Centre for Atmospheric Science (UK) The University of Arizona (USA) The University of Oxford (UK)

We have strived to create as many opportunities as possible for staff and students to meaningfully interact with researchers from institutions other than their own university. This includes 276 reported person-days spent on visits by students and staff between the five nodes of the Centre and our Australian Partner Organisations. This is in addition to almost daily video conference meetings and collaborations between researchers and research programs. This year we hosted 41 overseas visitors, totalling 368 person-weeks of collaboration. Many of our external visitors spent time at more than one of the ARCCSS university nodes. These visitors came from a variety of laboratories all over the world, including formal Partner Organisations, where our researchers maintain established — and develop emerging — collaborative ties. Our university nodes also hosted many in-bound visits from scientists, business people and data specialists from Australian Partner Organisations, other universities, the business community and government departments. Here are some of the highlights of our 2017 research visits and collaborations: QQ Professor David Karoly spent the first half of 2017 on sabbatical at the University of Oxford. During that time he also visited a number of European and US labs and agencies, including the UK Meteorological Office, UNESCO in Paris, The Royal Society in London and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. QQ Dr Liang Chang spent a year-long sabbatical working with the Convection research program and Professor Steven Sherwood’s group at UNSW. QQ Another Chinese researcher, Dr Fanghua Wu, spent four months at ANU working principally with Associate Professor Andy Hogg on high-resolution ocean-sea ice models.

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for QQ Professor Michael Reeder hosted a six-month visit by Climate System Science (ARCCSS) has a large network of PhD student Clemens Spensberger from the University of Partner Organisations at both national and international levBergen, Norway. el. Our relationships with our partners continued to be strong and fruitful throughout 2017 – at both the researcher-to-researcher level and at higher, strategic and institutional levels. QQ Fraser Lott from the UK Met Office made very fruitful visits to our University of Melbourne, Monash and UNSW This has led to the Centre of Excellence being a key, influennodes and attended the Centre’s annual workshop. tial player in the Australian and international climate research communities. QQ A number of former ARCCS students and research associates, including Drs Jules Kajtar, Caroline Ummenhofer and As outlined below, we saw numerous research visits to and Penny Maher, returned to the Centre for visits from their from Partner Organisations, including a number of extendcurrent overseas positions. ed stays, both of in-bound visitors and of Centre staff and students travelling abroad. In 2017, 73% of our publications included cross-institutional authors, demonstrating an established culture of inter-institutional collaboration. More than half (59%) included one or more overseas authors, which shows the global reach and significance of the Centre of Excellence.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

These visits not only enhance the experience of those who conduct them; they illustrate the breadth, depth and interconnectedness of our science on the national and global stage and highlight that the ARC Centre of Excellence is a destination of choice for researchers at all career stages.

Significant Inbound and Outbound Travel

Inbound Outbound

Zurich, Swiss and Kiel, Germany – MPI, DKRZ, ETH AND GEOMAR (lab visits, significant international Dommenget, D.: Busan, Korea – IBS meetings) Donat, M.: Edinburgh – University of Abram, N.: Bern, Cambridge, Vienna, Edinburgh Zaragoza – Warmer Worlds workshop, BAS lab visit, EGU meeting, PAGES Open Donat, M.: Berlin – FU Berlin Science Meeting England, M.: Vienna, Boulder, UK – Abramowitz, G.: Tokyo – GEWEX GLASS NCAR workshop, EGU, NOC DecVAR panel meeting and HESSS4 workshop workshop Abramowitz, G.: Aspen, Colorado England, M.: Trieste, Italy – Earth System – Aspen Global Change Institute Physics Section, International Centre for workshop Theoretical Physics Barthel, A.: Sapporo, Japan – Institute England, M.: Bali, Indonesia – Maritime of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido Sciences and Advanced Technology University Conference Barthel, A.: Hamburg, Germany – England, M.: Cape town, South Africa TRR181 Workshop – 2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly Bergemann, M.: Exeter, UK – UK Met Office England, M.: San Diego – SCRIPPS - Scar Ant Clim 21 Bergemann, M.: Cambridge, UK – Cambridge University England, M.: New Orleans – AGU Fall Meeting, University of Hawaii visit, Bergemann, M.: Delft, NL – TU Delft SCRIPPS Visit Blanche, B.: Aussois, France – Fiddes, S.: Antarctica – Field research on MathDACC School 2017 Aurora Australis Bull, C.: Cape Town, South Africa – Freund, M.: Vienna – EGU General IAPSO Conference Assembly Colin, M.: Paris, France and Delft, The Netherlands – LMD/IPSL visit and Future Freund, M.: Zaragoza – PAGES OSM/ of Cumulus parameterization workshop YSM conference Gibson, A.: Princeton, NJ – GFDL Decker, M.: Alabama, Arizona – University of Arizona and Alabama Goldie, J.: New Orleans, US – AGU Fall Meeting 2017 Deo, A.: Maryland, USA – GSFC, NASA Gray, S.: Wellington – ARMS Conference Dittus, A.: Reading, UK – University of Reading Gross, M.: Seattle – AMS - 29th Conference on Climate Variability and Dommenget, D.: Vienna – EGU General Change Assembly Hart, M.: Seattle – AMS Annual Meeting Dommenget, D.: Hamburg, Germany,

Outbound International Travel

Hart, M.: Birmingham and Durham, UK – Biometeorology and Vitae Researcher Development conferences Henley, B.: New Orleans, LA. – AGU Fall Meeting Hogg, A.: Tokyo, Japan – University of Tokyo Hogg, A.: Boulder CO – NCAR Hogg, A.: Tallahassee, FL. and New Orleans, LA – Florida State University visit and AGU Fall Meeting Holbrook, N.: Krabi, Thailand – Marine Heatwaves Workshop #3 Holbrook, N.: Cape Town, South Africa – 2017 Joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA Assembly Holmes, R.: Vienna, Hamburg and Kiel – EGU Conference, MPI Hamburg visit, GEOMAR Kiel visit Holmes, R.: Cape Town, South Africa – IAPSO Conference Huneke, W.: Wellington – IGS Conference Jakob, C.: Wellington – NIWA Jakob, C.: Paris – WCRP JSC meeting, UNESCO Jakob, C.: New York – NASA GISS and Columbia University Jakob, C.: Delft, Netherlands – Delft University of Technology Jakob, C.: Reading UK, Exeter UK – University of Reading, ECMWF, UK Met Office Jakob, C.: Pune, India – Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology Karoly, D.: Oxford, UK – Environmental

Change Institute, Oxford University Karoly, D.: Paris, France – UNESCO Karoly, D.: Vienna, Austria – European Geosciences Union Conference Karoly, D.: London – Royal Society Karoly, D.: Oklahoma and Boulder, USA – University of Oklahoma & NCAR Karoly, D.: Exeter UK – MET Office, Exeter King, A.: Berkeley, California – LBNL King, A.: New Orleans, US – AGU, New Orleans Conference Center Klocker, A.: Portland, OR – Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics Conference Klocker, A.: Cape Town – IUGG conference Lane, T.: Kuala Lumpur – YMC Planning Meeting, National University of Malaysia Lewis, S.: San Francisco – LBNL Lewis, S.: Vienna, Austria – EGU General Assembly Lipson, M.: Seattle, Denver – UCAR, WRF training, AMS Conference Lipson, M.: Boulder, Colorado USA – NCAR Lipson, M.: Munich, Germany; Toulouse, France – GlobalTech Fellows Programme; Meteo France Llort, J.: Paris, France – LOCEAN laboratory Llort, J.: Barcelona, Spain – Ramon Margalef Summer Colloquia, ICM Lab Llort, J.: Hangzhou, China – SOED laboratory Moebis, B.: Delft, Hamburg and Offenbach – Workshop: Future of Cumulus Parameterization, MPI for Meteorology and DWD German weather service Mondal, M.: Denver, USA – 70th APS DFD Meeting, Colorado Convention Centre, Denver Naughten-Alexander, K.: Wellington, NZ – IGS workshop + VUW and NIWA lab visits Nikurashin, M.: Vienna, Austria – EGU Nikurashin, M.: Stockholm – Stockholm University Oliver, E.: Krabi, Thailand – Marine Heatwaves Workshop #3 Perry, S.: Potsdam – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Pitman, A.: Exeter – METOffice Pitman, A.: Wellington, NZ – NIWA GMED Workshop Pitman, A.: Zurich – ETH Pitman, A.: Exeter – UK Met Office Ramsay, H.: New Orleans – AGU Fall Meeting

Richard, S.: Jeju, Korea – Jeju National University Roderick, M.: Vienna, Austria and Zurich, Switzerland – EGU General Assembly and EGU conferences, ETH-Zurich Lab Visit (Dani Or) Santoso, A.: Bandung, Indonesia – Bandung Institute of Technology Santoso, A.: Bali – MSAT Conference Santoso, A.: Singapore – AOGS Conference Santoso, A.: Taipei, Busan, Jakarta – National Taiwan University, IBS Center for Climate Physics, ISBSE Schroeter, S.: Wellington, N.Z. – IGS Conference Sen Gupta, A.: Krabi, Thailand – Workshop on Marine Heatwaves Sen Gupta, A.: Toulouse, France – Visit LEGOS and CLS labs Sherwood, S.: Spain – Visit - UMO Sherwood, S.: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – IPCC Sherwood, S.: Aspen/ Seattle – AGCI Meeting Aspen/ Visit to Seattle Sherwood, S.: Hamburg, Germany – MPI Spence, P.: Boulder, Colorado – NCAR Ukkola, A.: Oxford, UK – Oxford iLeaps Conference van Rensch, P.: Boulder, CO – NCAR Vincent, C.: Chiba, Japan – JpGU-AGU Vogel, E.: Cape Town, South Africa – Good Hope for Earth Sciences conference Walsh, K.: Seattle – AMS Annual Meeting Walsh, K.: Crete – 6th International Summit on Hurricanes and Climate Change Webb, D.: Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany – WE-Heaeus Summer School, Physikzentrum Bad Honnef Webb, D.: Cambridge, UK – British Antarctic Survey Weller, E.: Vienna – EGU General Assembly Yang, L.: Portland, OR – AMS 21st Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics Yang, L.: Palaiseau, France – 2017 Summer School on the Fluid Dynamics of Sustainability and the Environment (FDSE) in École Polytechnique

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Inbound Visitors

(Visitors from Partner Organisations in bold) Ackerman, T.: University of Washington Bellon, G.: University of Auckland Chang, L.: Shanghai Ocean University Couvreux, F.: Meteo France Dewar, W.: Florida State University Forest, C.: Penn State University Grams, C.: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science Hallberg, R.: GFDL Hohenegger, C.: MPI for Meteorology Horvat, C.: Harvard University Huguenin-Virchaux, M.: ETH Zurich Jensen, J.: NCAR Jungandreas, L.: University of Leipzig Kajtar, J.: University of Exeter Kida, S.: JAMSTEC Langematz, U.: Frei Universitat Berlin Leckebusch, G.: University of Birmingham Lott, F.: UK Met Office Maher, P.: University of Exeter Martin, P.: University of Michigan Mashayek, A.: UC San Diego McFarquar, G.: CIMMS / University of Oklahoma McPhaden, M.: NOAA/PMEL Munday, D.: British Antarctic Survey Munroe, J.: Memorial University of Newfoundland Nusbaumer, J.: NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies Paduan, J.: Naval Postgraduate School Polito, P.: University of Sao Paulo Radjawane, I.: Institut Teknologi Bandung Rust, H.: FU Berlin Sato, O.: University of Sao Paulo Smith, R.: University of Munich Spensberger, C.: University of Bergen Tamsitt, V.: SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography Ummenhofer, C.: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Walz, M.: University of Birmingham Waugh, D.: Johns Hopkins University Wells, M.: University of Toronto Wilopo, M.: Bandung Institute of Technology Wu, F.: National Climate Centre, China Meteorological Administration Young, W.: SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography 29

EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS COMMITTEE

The Early Career Researchers Committee (ECRC) had another busy year, with events held at the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) conference in February and the combined workshop of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science/ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (ARCCSS/CLEx) in November. In addition, the ECRC helped fund a special early career researchers (ECR) research proposal. We kicked off the year with a very successful evening discussion with 2016 ACT Scientist of the Year, Dr Ceridwen Fraser. Ceridwen discussed her research on penguins (with lots of cool photos) and led a larger discussion around work-life balance, which generated a lot of thought-provoking discussions among the group. The evening event, which followed the AMOS conference ice-breaker at University House, ANU, was very well attended. Our ECR Day, also held at ANU after the ARCCSS/CLEx workshop, was also successful. PhD student Pearse Buchanan used the Canberra event platform to invite policy specialists, including Professor Will Steffen of the Climate Council, to take part in a panel discussion. Before that, PhD student James Goldie ran a workshop on how to build a personal website and ARCCSS Media & Communications Manager Alvin Stone gave tips on designing an academic poster. A highlight of the day for many was the tour of the National 30

Computational Infrastructure facility, where everyone got the chance to see the computing facilities many of us use on a daily basis. The ECRC also helped fund a project this year. Dr Margot Bador proposed a climate-health partnership with scientists in New Caledonia investigating changes in tropical disease resulting from climate change. As a result, Margot is co-supervising a student, Josephine Larrieu, who presented her work to the Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Extremes research program group in December. We encourage more ECRs to put in proposals for funding next year! Thanks to all the committee members for their hard work. In particular, thanks to PhD student Angus Gibson for organising the ECR event at the AMOS conference, and thanks to Pearse and fellow Phd student Mia Gross for organising the ECR Day in November. We have a lot of positions opening up in 2018 so if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re keen to join the ECRC let us know! Andrew King (on behalf of the ECR committee)

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

As would be expected for a research centre such as ours, the lifeblood of our work is the research that goes on in our five research programs. Given that the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is in its final stages, our goals are well set, and our programs are mature. Collaborations of students, postdoctoral fellows and Chief Investigators, both within each program and across program and institutional boundaries, are well established, and the many collaborative projects with our national and international Partner Organisations continue to yield impressive results. The work of our Computational Modelling Systems (CMS) team continues to underpin many of the results reported here and enables all members of the Centre to achieve their scientific goals. In a year that saw much attention given to the ice shelves and sea ice around Antarctica, our Oceans research program team discovered that remote sources play a vital role in the temperature of the waters around the West Antarctic Peninsula, where warmer water is being pushed towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline as the result of wind anomalies in East Antarctica. In collaboration with the CMS team, the Oceans program team also published a new set of ocean models for the Australian community, which have become vital tools in discoveries such as the above. Along similar lines, our Land research program team worked with the CMS team and our national Partner Organisations to develop and release a new representation of the land hydrology for the Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange model. This is a major step forward in our ability to more realistically simulate land surface processes in the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) family of models. The team also contributed to a seminal study that investigated the changes in the land surface energy balance in drought conditions, using the recent Californian drought as a testbed. Our Convection research program team continued its work on revolutionising the way convection is represented in climate models, by designing and implementing a new treatment of deep convective processes in collaboration with our partners in Germany. The publication describing this work has already attracted significant attention. So has the work of PhD student Jiawei Bao, whose study in Nature Climate Change confirmed earlier results that extreme precipitation is likely to increase in a warmer world. The team’s continued efforts to understand convection in the Maritime Continent, the engine room of our climate system, has highlighted the need for a treatment of unresolved coastal processes in climate models, and the team is close to delivering such a treatment for the ACCESS model.

The Variability research program team has further advanced our understanding of numerous important phenomena affecting the globe and Australia. It showed that atmospheric dynamical processes are crucial both for the development of heatwaves and for rainfall extremes. In both cases, the team developed conceptual models that clarify many of the intricacies involved and, as in the case of heatwaves, was able to debunk simple explanations for why these events occur. The team also undertook an evaluation of the ability of climate models to simulate the all-important El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon. While models appear to produce acceptable statistical properties of the phenomenon, the team showed that they do so for different reasons. This is an important finding as it highlights the need to continue developing our climate models and to support such development with underpinning fundamental research. The Extremes research program carried out a number of studies to investigate what climate extremes may look like if we succeeded in curbing the rise of the global mean temperature to 1.5ºC or 2ºC. They showed that there is likely to be a significant increase in extreme heat events even if the globe warms by just 1.5ºC, but the chances increase much more for the 2ºC scenario. Identifying potential changes in rainfall extremes in Australia is more difficult due to their large natural variability. The Extremes program also extended its work on heatwaves from the atmosphere to the ocean, showing that human-caused climate change contributed to the long-lasting 2015-16 marine heatwave off Tasmania’s east coast, which had significant effects on various sectors of the fisheries industry in the region. The team’s timely findings will be available for the assessment by several special reports that are currently in preparation for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The highly collaborative work of our scientists across discipline boundaries — underpinned by tools developed and maintained by the CMS team and supported by the tireless work of the graduate, outreach, and administrative teams — has made 2017 another success for our research. Our work is not only reflected in top-quality publications but is also feeding directly into climate modelling systems both at home and abroad. Read on and be amazed!

The Impacts of Tropical Convection on Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Climate Highlights QQ Paper on extreme precipitation published in Nature Climate Change by PhD student Jiawei Bao QQ Implementation of the new convection parameterization scheme in the ICON model and related paper published in Journal of Advances in Modelling Earth Systems QQ Publication of an extensive convectionpermitting model data set for the Maritime Continent QQ Organisation of international workshop on The Future of Convection Parameterization, in Delft, The Netherlands QQ Collaborative visits to NASA by Anil Deo, UKMO by Martin Jucker, IPSL by Maxime Colin.

Team Chief Investigators

A/Prof Todd Lane (Lead, U. Melb) Prof Christian Jakob (Monash University) Prof Michael Reeder (Monash University) Prof Steve Sherwood (UNSW)

Partner Investigators

Dr Harry Hendon (BoM) Dr Alain Protat (BoM) Dr Wojciech Grabowski (NCAR, USA) Dr Sandrine Bony (IPSL, France)

Associate Investigators

Prof Ross Griffiths (ANU) Dr Yi Huang (Monash University) Dr Mitch Moncrieff (NCAR, USA) Dr Hamish Ramsay (Monash University) Dr Robyn Schofield (U.Melb) A/Prof Steven Siems (Monash University) A/Prof Kevin Walsh (U.Melb) Dr Rob Warren (Monash University) Dr Matt Wheeler (BoM)

Centre Researchers

Dr Andrea Dittus (Monash University) Dr Olivier Geoffroy (UNSW) Dr Martin Jucker (U.Melb) Dr Malcolm King (Monash University) Dr Benjamin Moebis (Monash University) Dr Abhnil Prasad (UNSW) Dr Abhik Santra (Monash University) Dr Claire Vincent (U.Melb)

PhD Students

Jiawei Bao (UNSW) Vidhi Bharti (Monash University) Yingjun Chen (U.Melb) Scott Clark (Monash University) Maxime Colin (UNSW) Sonya Fiddes (U. Melb) David Kinniburgh (Monash University) Nidhi Nishant (UNSW) Sandra Richard (U.Melb) Fimi Sarmadi (Monash University)

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Figure 1: 3D rendering of simulated clouds and rainfall from the new 4-km resolution Maritime Continent dataset. (Rendering: M Jucker; Data: C Vincent)

Maritime Continent Our work on the Maritime Continent continues, with strong national and international engagement, and has emerged as a major area of focus for the Convection research program. This activity includes planning for Australian involvement in the Years of the Maritime Continent field program under the auspices of the national Maritime Continent Initiative, as well as ongoing participation in the Maritime Continent Process Evaluation Group with the Bureau of Meteorology and the UK Meteorological Office. Consistent with this emphasis, a range of research projects is focused on the convective processes in the region. A major data set of high-resolution model simulations over the Maritime Continent was completed by Dr Claire Vincent during 2016 and was published in 2017 with help from the Computational Modelling Systems team at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). This coincided with the publication of the research in Journal of Climate. The simulations were run over 10 Austral summers and are unique in covering such a large area at high resolution. The simulation domain covers the tropical area from east of Sumatra to west of New Guinea, with a horizontal grid length of four kilometres and dimensions of 1642 x 535 grid points. As a result of the resolution and spatial coverage of the simulations, they are able to capture both intraseasonal variability (such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)) and mesoscale variability (such as the diurnal cycle). Detailed analysis suggests that the simulations also reproduce many aspects of the complex interactions between these modes of variability. University of Melbourne honours student (completed 2016) and research assistant Andrew Brown has recently had his paper on satellite estimates of the sea breeze near Darwin published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. As has been demonstrated by a 34

number of prior ARCCSS studies, the tropical sea and land breezes play a critically important role in the diurnal cycle of rainfall in the Maritime Continent, especially offshore. Measurements of the Sea/Land Breeze System (SLBS) offshore are difficult to obtain, and Andrew used satellite-derived scatterometer wind measurements to examine the composite structure of the SLBS off the coast of Darwin. He also examined how the SLBS varies with phases of the monsoon and compared the observations with high-resolution simulations from Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) and the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS). He found that the model predictions of the SLBS compared well to observations, implying that the difficulties models have reproducing the diurnal cycle are likely not related to the representation of the SLBS. As a natural counterpart to the above study, Ewan Short (University of Melbourne masters student) is studying the SLBS over the entire Maritime Continent. Using a novel methodology he is combining a number of satellite-derived scatterometer wind data sets to construct temporally resolved diurnal composites of the offshore structure of the sea and land breezes near the major Maritime Continent islands. His work is documenting this structure as well as its variation with intraseasonal modes of variability. The analysis promises to provide useful insight into the behaviour of these coastal circulations and also provides an invaluable data set for model evaluations. Further studies of sea/land breezes were conducted by Claire at the margins of the Maritime Continent over the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns. This work used observations taken from the Research Vessel (RV) Investigator in 2016, along with high-resolution convection-permitting model simulations to understand the vertical structure and effect of the sea/land breeze offshore. These analyses demonstrated the substantial variability of the structure of the system with the prevailing synoptic flow, very good model representation

Figure 2: Cloud-resolving model simulations with varying degrees of convective organization. The organized convection (right) has far more internal memory than the disorganized convection (left). (From: M Colin)

of this variability, and some evidence of observed interaction between the land breeze and moist convection. There have been a number of studies that link variability in the Australian monsoon and its onset to tropical convective structures, like the MJO. Monash PhD student Sugata Narsey has examined the problem from a different angle and studied the influence of midlatitude disturbances on Australian monsoon bursts. In a paper published in Journal of Climate, he showed that the change in circulation at the start of monsoon bursts is predominantly influenced by midlatitude front-like features. It is shown that throughout the wet season vorticity fluxes from the south are by far the most important influence on monsoon-burst circulation changes, with only one-third of events more closely related to other influences, including the MJO. Focusing on Darwin, Dr Martin Jucker has been using both the UK Met Office Unified Model and the WRF model to study the diurnal cycle of convection, especially coastally forced regimes such as the monsoon build-up and break periods. By comparing these two models at a range of model grid spacings (down to hundreds of metres), he has been able to isolate a number of model deficiencies and how these depend on model physics parameterizations and dynamical configurations. A consistent problem with these convection-permitting models is the rapidity of the development of convection from shallow to deep phases as well as the intensity of rainfall, which is too strong. These results highlight further model development is needed, even at these very high resolutions.

Cloud / Convective / Mesoscale Processes Extreme precipitation is expected to increase in a warmer climate due to increased atmospheric moisture. Observational tests using regression analysis have reported strong apparent scaling rates in midlatitude locations but weak or negative rates in the tropics. In a recent paper published ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

in Nature Climate Change Jiawei Bao showed that temporary local surface cooling associated with extreme event conditions reduces these apparent scaling rates, especially in warmer climatic conditions. Moreover, a regional climate projection ensemble for Australia, which implicitly includes these effects, accurately and robustly reproduces the observed apparent scaling. Projections from the same model show future daily extremes increasing at rates faster than those inferred from observed scaling. The strongest extremes (99.9th percentile events) scale significantly faster than near-surface water vapour, between 5.7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;15% Â°C-1 depending on model details. This scaling rate is highly correlated with the change in water vapour, implying a tradeoff between a more arid future climate or one with strong increases in extreme precipitation. These results clarify and strengthen the evidence for strong increases in extreme precipitation in a warming world and show how these are linked to changes in the mean hydroclimate. Nidhi Nishant is nearing completion of her PhD at UNSW on aerosol effects on tropical convection. Her paper using a cloud-resolving model to study aerosol-cloud correlation in a maritime environment was published in Geophysical Research Letters in June 2017. It examined a highly publicised case of apparent aerosol-limited convective growth in the South Pacific. Nidhi found that cloud variations that had been ascribed to aerosol could actually be explained meteorologically, using the WRF model, and that wind variations were simultaneously increasing aerosol and cloud amounts, producing a misleading correlation. Other work of hers has discovered a new, indirect aerosol radiative forcing mechanism involving deep-convective adjustment. University of Melbourne PhD student Sonya Fiddes is also examining the influence of aerosols on clouds, in the ACCESS-UKCA (UK Chemistry and Aerosol) model. In particular, she has examined the response of clouds and rainfall to large changes in the sources of DMS (dimethyl sulfide) and the resultant changes in natural aerosol. Sonya demonstrates that the regions that are most sensitive to DMS and experience the largest effects in cloud, radiation 35

Figure 3: Himawari image of the North Australian Cloud Line (left). High resolution simulation of the event (left) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; shading is vertical velocity (and implied convergence). (From A. Prasad)

and precipitation are those of the important stratiform cloud decks in the eastern oceanic basins of the Southern Hemisphere. UNSW PhD student Maxime Colin has been using a cloud-resolving model to explore the inertia of convection associated with small-scale structures unresolved by global atmosphere models, which is important in understanding convection organisation and parameterization. He finds that there is modest inertia when convection is disorganised, associated with cold pools, but much more inertia when it is organised. This inertia is not considered in most convective schemes, which diagnose convection from the instantaneous resolved state. In related work, Leah Grant (a PhD student visitor from Colorado State University) collaborated with Associate Professor Todd Lane on the influence of cold pools on long-lived organised convection. She showed that once convection was organised, cold pools could have a detrimental influence on the intensity of convection. This effect was demonstrated in an idealised model of tropical storms when the cold pools were artificially removed. These results raise important questions about the role of cold pools in storm longevity and maintenance and the general applicability of established theories of midlatitude squall lines to tropical systems. The fundamental behaviour of organised convection was considered further by former Melbourne student Dr Rachel Badlan (now a postdoctoral researcher at the Australian Defence Force Academy/UNSW Canberra), who recently had her paper on Convective Momentum Transport (CMT) published in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. In this study Rachel used idealised simulations of organised convection to examine the fundamental processes governing CMT and the assumptions underlying its parameterization. Among other things she demonstrated that current parameterizations are unable to represent CMT by organised systems realistically, because many of 36

the underlying assumptions are only valid for disorganised systems. UNSW research associate Abhnil Prasad has focused on new analyses of convective system evolution made possible by the high spatial and temporal resolution data from the Himawari satellite. Using these data, he identified a coherent propagating gravity wave emanating from a developing mesoscale convective system. This gravity wave perturbed the environment significantly and created sufficient local cooling to modulate cirrus clouds. Mesoscale model simulations of this case are able to reproduce many aspects of the convective evolution and gravity wave dynamics but struggle to reproduce the cirrus cloud response. Abhnilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s findings arguably serve as a useful test case for ice cloud microphysics schemes, which remain a weakness for mesoscale and cloud-resolving models.

Convection Parameterization In collaboration with our partners in Germany, the Monash contingent of the Convection program is continuing to develop a completely new representation of convection for use in climate models. In a first important step our former postdoctoral researcher Karsten Peters implemented the completely new way of determining the strength of deep convection in the climate model of the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology. In a study published recently in the Journal of Advances in Modelling Earth Systems, the Convection team showed that traditional convection treatments strongly overestimate the mass circulated through convective systems. They demonstrate that alleviating this shortcoming improves the simulation of several tropical modes of variability, including the MJO. They also show that the improvement is not the result of the long-hypothesised need to improve the relationship of convection to moisture, but is instead a direct result of the reduction in the mass circulated through the parameterized convective systems. Recently, the late

Figure 4: Annual average precipitation (with purple shading = 50 mm/day) from satellite (GPCP, top) and the new convection scheme implemented in the ICON model (bottom). (From: B Möebis).

Benjamin Möebis finished coupling the Stochastic Multi Cloud Model (SMCM) to the new Icosahedral non-Hydrostatic General Circulation Model (ICON), which is jointly developed by the German Weather Service and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The new stochastic modelling approach represents multiple cloud types and updrafts per climate-model grid cell and time step. The development of this implementation is continuing; this new scheme is a major outcome of the Convection program. As a follow-on from his PhD work on coastal convection, Martin Bergemann has developed a modelling framework to parameterize the occurrence of coastal clouds and rainfall in the tropics within numerical weather prediction and global climate models. The new approach first develops a decision algorithm, or trigger function, for the existence of coastal convection. The function is then applied in the above-mentioned SMCM to increase the occurrence probability of deep convection when land-sea interactions are diagnosed to be important. Martin’s work has recently been submitted to the Journal of Advances in Modelling Earth Systems. Demonstrating our global leadership in the area of convective parameterization development, Professor Christian Jakob organised an international workshop on The Future of Convective Parameterization, in Delft, The Netherlands, in July. This workshop attracted more than 100 scientists from around the world, with a good showing of attendees from the Centre of Excellence. The workshop was focused on rethinking the foundation, assumptions and approaches to convective parameterizations, as well as strategies to improve them.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

CLAIRE VINCENT TAKES UP THE MJO CHALLENGE Dr Claire Vincent has taken on some of the most challenging research in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS), exploring precipitation over the Maritime Continent and how it is affected by the passing of the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). Claire’s work, which builds on research undertaken by research fellows in the Centre’s first few years, could only have been achieved with the seven-year funding that comes with such a centre, because of the fundamental research that needs to be undertaken to get the initial results. The MJO is a little understood but important influence on weather and climate over the Maritime Continent that can affect seasonal rainfall over a 40-90 day period, with distinct consequences for agriculture and other weather-dependent industries in northern Australia as well as for the densely populated cities of south-east Asia. This research has ramifications not just for Australia and countries of the Maritime Continent but many other parts of the world. While the climate of the Maritime Continent affects northern Australia directly, when it is coupled with the MJO it can influence the development of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the monsoon season across south-east Asia, and it is associated with teleconnections that can affect weather patterns in southern Australia and the Americas. The challenge of Claire’s research lies in the steep topography and complex coastlines of the islands in the region, coupled with exceptionally warm sea surface temperatures and unstable, tropical atmosphere. Together, these factors create a ‘perfect storm’ for heavy precipitation and large variations in rainfall. The influence of the topography and prevailing atmospheric conditions are very difficult to successfully represent in weather and climate models. In 2016, Claire took world-first measurements of the tropical sea breeze circulation over the Great Barrier Reef from aboard CSIRO’s Research Vessel, Investigator, suspending instruments measuring wind, pressure, temperature, humidity and a range of aerosols from a helium balloon 600 m above the ocean surface. These measurements, together with high-resolution simulations, have provided important evidence for the role of the sea breeze circulation and its effect on clouds and aerosols offshore. In 2017, she was awarded the ARCCSS Prize for the Best Paper by an Early Career Researcher, for her journal article, Evolution of the diurnal precipitation cycle with the passage of an MJO event through the Maritime Continent, published in Monthly Weather Review. This paper unequivocally linked precipitation up to 1000km from the coast to the tropical sea breeze and flows relating to the steep topography. This work improved understanding of key processes and created the potential for improving such processes in climate models. This work was followed by an extensive modelling and observational study of the region, where her work led to another paper that highlights how moisture availability and small-scale processes work together to control the precipitation climate of the region. Claire has also created an impressive science-communication video animation of the Maritime Continent based on her research that shows how rainfall changes as the MJO passes north of Australia, which can be viewed at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=2yxNZFz-4aE. Her 38 work in this area is invaluable and is likely to inform research into the Maritime Continent for decades to come.

Mechanisms Explaining Changes in Australian Climate Extremes Highlights QQ Acacia Pepler, Peter Gibson, Mitchell Black and Daniel Pazmino Vernaza were awarded their PhD degrees, and Adrian D’Alessandro completed his MSc with first class honours QQ Lisa Alexander received the World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology Outstanding Service Award for 2017 QQ Markus Donat was awarded the World Climate Research Programme/Global Climate Observing Systems International Data Prize for 2017 QQ The AMOS Priestley Medal for 2017 was awarded to Julie Arblaster for excellence in meteorological, oceanographic or climate research carried out in Australia QQ Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship and Andrew King received an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award QQ Several studies that investigated climate extremes under global warming of 1.5ºC and 2ºC in Australia and overseas will contribute to the current IPCC assessment of the benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC QQ Eric Oliver led a study that showed a significant contribution from human-caused climate change to the record Tasmanian ocean heatwave in 2016 QQ Sophie Lewis led a review on mechanisms explaining recent changes in Australian climate extremes and Andrew King led a review on the timing of anthropogenic emergence in global climate extremes, both published in a new book, Climate Extremes: Patterns and Mechanisms QQ Another paper by Sophie Lewis received a great deal of media attention when it showed that current extreme heat events will be the new normal within a few decades QQ In a special issue of the journal Climatic Change on the effect of historical and future climate changes on natural hazards in Australia, Centre researchers helped compile review papers on sea level and coastal extremes; heatwaves; and storm, wind and hail.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Team Chief Investigators

A/Prof Lisa Alexander (Lead - UNSW) Prof Nathan Bindoff (University of Tasmania) Prof David Karoly (U.Melb) Prof Michael Reeder (Monash University) Prof Steven Sherwood (UNSW)

Partner Investigators

Dr Pandora Hope (CAWCR-BoM) Dr Peter Stott (Hadley Centre, UK) Dr Ian Watterson (CSIRO)

Associate Investigators

A/Prof Julie Arblaster (Monash University) Dr Jessica Benthuysen (UTAS/CSIRO) Dr Ghyslaine Boschat (U.Melb) Dr Jennifer Catto (Monash University) A/Prof Jason Evans (UNSW) Dr Ailie Gallant (Monash University) Dr Donna Green (UNSW) Dr Benjamin Henley (U.Melb) A/Prof Neil Holbrook (UTAS) Dr Sophie Lewis (ANU) Prof Neville Nicholls (Monash University) Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick (UNSW) Dr Hamish Ramsay (Monash University) A/Prof Scott Sisson (UNSW) Dr Andrea Taschetto (UNSW) A/Prof Kevin Walsh (U.Melb)

Centre Researchers

Dr Nicholas Herold (UNSW) Dr Andrew King (UNSW) Dr Eric Oliver (UTAS) Dr Evan Weller (Monash University)

PhD Students

Oliver Angelil (UNSW) Natasha Ballis (U.Melb) Jiawei Bao (UNSW) Steefan Contractor (UNSW) Nathan Cooper (UNSW) Raktima Dey (ANU) Peter Gibson (UNSW) James Goldie (UNSW) Mia Gross (UNSW) Ned Haughton (UNSW) Stephanie Jacobs (Monash University) David Kinniburgh (Monash University) Yiling Liu (UNSW) Jiale Lou (UTAS) Tammas Loughran (UNSW) Marissa Parry (UNSW) Acacia Pepler (UNSW) Cassandra Rogers (Monash University) Elizabeth Vogel (U.Melb)

This year, the Extremes research program team had another productive year with the publication of many high-impact studies in top-ranking journals, including Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications and Scientific Reports. In addition, the research team has been productive in another way, with Associate Professor Lisa Alexander and Drs Ailie Gallant, Sophie Lewis and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick having babies during 2017, and Dr Markus Donat due to be a father in early 2018.

Marine Heatwaves While research on heatwaves on land has been a major part of the Extremes program since the start of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS), this has been expanded over the last few years to examine marine heatwaves, working in collaboration with oceanographers in the Centre and its Partner Organisations. A major study was published in Nature Communications on the record marine heatwave in 201516 off Tasmania’s east coast that lasted 251 days and at its greatest extent was seven times the size of Tasmania. The study showed that human-caused climate change was a significant contributor to the intensity of the heatwave.

This marine heatwave reduced the productivity of Tasmanian salmon fisheries, led to a rise in blacklip abalone mortality, sparked an outbreak of Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome and saw new fish species move into Tasmanian waters. At its peak intensity, waters off Tasmania were 2.9°C above expected summertime temperatures. The research team found the heatwave was driven by a surge of warm water in the East Australian Current, which has been growing stronger and reaching further south in recent decades. The area off the east coast of Tasmania is already known as a global warming hotspot with temperatures in this region warming at nearly four times the global average rate. Another region that has been greatly affected by marine heatwaves is the Great Barrier Reef. In early 2016, the reef suffered its worst bleaching ever recorded. Surveys published in June that year estimated that 93% of coral on the vast northern section of the reef was bleached and 22% had already been killed. Further reports from early in 2017 showed that bleaching again occurred, with this back-toback bleaching affecting more than two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef. Figure 1: The Tasmanian marine heatwave of summer 2015-16. (a) The mean 2015-16 summer (December to February) sea surface temperature anomalies from NOAA, with the box used to define the south-east Australia (SEAus) region. Anomalies are relative to the 1982–2005 climatology. Also shown are time series of (c) SST anomalies averaged over the SEAus region since 2012 from NOAA (black lines) and HadISST (circles). The red-filled circles indicate which months during the event were among the top ten on record since 1880. From Oliver et al., Nature Comms., 2017

A study led by Sophie Lewis and published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society annual supplement on the causes of climate extremes in the previous year examined multiple climatic and environmental influences that might have contributed to the severe bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in early 2016.

already experienced substantially greater increases in hot days and warm nights as a result of human-caused climate change compared to wealthy countries and have consequently incurred far more effects. Extreme hot days can have significant health and economic impacts, particularly for those countries that can least afford to adapt.

The results were clear. Using a suite of climate models, the researchers found that the significant observed warming of the Coral Sea region, including the Great Barrier Reef, was likely caused by greenhouse gases from human activities. This warming was the primary cause of the extreme 2016 bleaching episode.

For the period 1961-1990, wealthy and poor countries experienced approximately the same number of extremely hot days and nights, around 10% (37 days) every year. But by 2010, wealthy nations saw an increase in extremely hot days, from 10% to 16% (37-58 days per year), while the poorest nations saw that number rise to 22% (37-95 days per year). This result is largely due to the location of the poorest nations, which are mostly found in equatorial regions, while wealthier countries tend to be found in temperate zones. When the high temperatures of the tropical regions are coupled with low variability and high humidity, even small temperature increases have big effects.

The study showed that although the 2016 El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) probably also contributed to the bleaching, this was a secondary contributor to the corals’ thermal stress. The major factor was the increase in temperatures because of climate change. Pollution data used in the study showed that water quality in 2016 may have been better than in previous bleaching years, suggesting that the reef should have been at lower risk of bleaching compared to long-term average conditions, all else being equal. Instead, record bleaching hit the reef as a result of the warming temperature trend.

Observed Increases in Hot Days and Warm Nights A study led by Dr Nicholas Herald and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters assessed geographical variations of observed increases in hot days and warm nights since 1960. It shows that the poorest countries have

Future Extremes for Global Warming of 1.5°C The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is preparing a Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, following an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change after the Paris Agreement in December 2015. One of the key components of this assessment will be an assessment of the benefits of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C.

Figure 2: The changing annual risk of some recent Australian extreme climate events. Examples of the chance of occurrence in a given year of similar events to four recent Australian climate extremes in a pre-industrial world, the current climate, a 1.5ºC world and a 2ºC world. The best estimate is shown in bold with the 5th–95th percentile confidence intervals in parentheses. Based on King et al., Nature Clim. Change, 2017

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Several members of the Extremes program have published studies directly relevant to this IPCC Special Report. Dr Andrew King led a study published in Nature Climate Change looking at how Australian extremes in heat, drought, precipitation and ocean warming will change in a world 1.5°C and 2°C warmer than pre-industrial conditions. It assessed the likelihood of recent seasonal extreme events in Australia using climate model simulations for pre-industrial conditions, current conditions and global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C. For extreme heat, such as the Angry Summer of 2012-13 or the record sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea associated with extreme bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in late summer of 2016, there is a significant increase in the chances of these events even for global warming limited to 1.5°C but a much higher increase in the chances of such events for global warming of 2°C. For other extreme events, like the south-east Australian drought of 2006 and the rain events that led to widespread flooding in Queensland in 2010, there was much less of a signal from global warming. Extreme seasonal rainfall did not show any clear change because the effects of natural variability, like ENSO, monsoons, Indian Ocean temperatures and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, had more influence on rainfall than rises in global temperatures. There were some increases in drought intensity as a result of increased heat, but the weak reduction in rainfall meant only a slight overall increase in the frequency of droughts was detected. It is clear that keeping global temperatures under 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would have a clear benefit for Australia in terms of reducing the risks and intensity of extreme heat events and the impacts that come with them.

Another study on heatwaves, led by Sarah PerkinsKirkpatrick published in Scientific Reports, assessed how heatwaves will change with every 1°C rise in global temperatures in 26 regions across the globe. When all the regions are combined, for every 1°C of warming during summer, there would likely be an extra 15–28 heatwave days; heatwaves would be 3–17 days longer, and the peak intensity of heatwaves would increase by 1.2°C–1.9°C. The most startling changes appeared only when the individual regions were considered. By dividing the globe into 26 distinct regions, the research highlighted the wide variation in heatwave responses across the world. There was a much sharper increase in peak temperatures of heatwaves over the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Tropical regions saw many more additional heatwave days and longer continuous heatwaves than other parts of the world, with some regions in the tropics transitioning to an almost constant heatwave state with just 2°C global warming. Even with just a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures, almost all regions started to experience heatwave events every four years that once only occurred every 30 years. A study led by Sophie Lewis assessed the potential magnitude of future extreme temperatures in Australia under Paris targets of an increase in global temperatures of 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The increase in Australian summer temperatures indicates that major cities should be prepared for unprecedented future extreme heat. Climate modelling used in the study shows projected daily temperatures of up to 3.8°C above existing records in Victoria and New South Wales, despite the ambitious Paris efforts to curb warming. Some major Australian cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne, may experience unprecedented temperatures of 50°C under the 2°C global warming scenario.

Figure 3: Regional changes in heatwave characteristics for different global warming thresholds. These heatwave measures are estimated from the median of the CMIP-5 model ensemble. Based on Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Gibson, Scientific Reports, 2017

MEASURING THE IMPACTS OF THE PARIS ACCORD When the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and pursue initiatives to keep it below 1.5°C was adopted by consensus on December 12, 2015, there was considerable relief that action was being taken. But that agreement created a new research question: What does a world 1.5°C and 2°C above preindustrial temperatures look like? Over the course of 2017, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science published papers exploring the outcomes for Australia and the world if we managed to keep global average temperatures at the agreed levels. In large part, these papers examined these changes through the prism of extreme temperatures at a regional level. This was because previous investigations by Centre researchers had indicated regional changes could vary considerably more than the changes in average global temperatures. When Dr Sophie Lewis investigated how extreme temperatures would change specifically for Sydney and Melbourne, her research revealed that both major cities could experience days of 50°C even if global average temperature rise was restricted to 2°C. Two papers led by Dr Andrew King indicated there were significant differences in terms of the length and strength of heatwaves and hottest days in Australia and Europe, even between the 1.5°C and 2°C scenarios. Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick took this one step further and looked at changes to heatwaves for every 0.5°C incremental increase in global average temperatures. An interactive world map accompanying Sarah’s paper on its release, and showing how these extreme events changed for every continent, was viewed more than 100,000 times. Dr Ben Henley then looked at how a large natural variation, known as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, could alter the year when the 1.5°C target could be breached. He found this natural variation could shift the period by five years. Finally, working with partners at CSIRO, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Ocean University of China, Dr Agus Santoso found that restricting global average temperature rise to 2°C had direct and beneficial effects on El Niño-Southern Oscillation frequency. There was no change to the frequency at the levels agreed by the Paris accord but, should global average temperatures rise to 4.5°C above pre-industrial levels, El Niños would double in number, with significant consequences for Australia. Together, this group of papers gave policymakers an insight into the effectiveness of their proposed actions and highlighted the importance of keeping to the 1.5°C and 2°C guardrails for global average temperatures.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

The Role of Land Surface Forcing and Feedbacks for Regional Climate Highlights QQ A new hydrology scheme for CABLE, tested in ACCESS QQ Collaboration with long-term Partner Organisation ETH-Zurich to investigate the land surface energy balance perturbation during the recent Californian drought QQ New insights into land surface-atmosphere coupling under irrigation QQ A new tool for using FLUXNET data published in the international literature QQ UNSW PhD student Wasin Chaivaranont submitted his thesis QQ Ongoing contribution/leadership of international projects to benchmark LSMs QQ Support for a workshop linking Australian land surface modelling and experiment communities, held at the University of Western Sydney QQ Evaluation of climatic aridity in climate models extending back to the last glacial maximum QQ New science on the effect of urban modification in managing climate change.

Team Chief Investigators

Prof Michael Roderick (Lead, ANU) A/Prof Lisa Alexander (UNSW) A/Prof Todd Lane (U.Melb) Prof Andy Pitman (UNSW)

Partner Investigators

Prof Hoshin Gupta (University of Arizona, USA) Dr Christa Peters-Lidard (NASA-Goddard Space flight Centre, USA) Prof Rowan Sutton (NCAS, UK) Dr Ying Ping Wang (CSIRO)

Associate Investigators

Dr Gab Abramowitz (UNSW) Dr Randall Donohue (CSIRO) A/Prof Jason Evans (UNSW) Dr Jean-Francois Exbrayat (University of Edinburgh) Prof Graham Farquhar (ANU) A/Prof Michael Gagan (ANU) Dr Benjamin Henley (U.Melb) Dr Jatin Kala (Murdoch University) Dr Yi Liu (UNSW) Dr Ian Macadam (NSW OEH) Dr Timothy McVicar (CSIRO) A/Prof Katrin Meissner (UNSW) Prof Peter Rayner (U.Melb)

Centre Researchers

Dr Daniel Argueso (UNSW) Dr Adrian Barker (UNSW) Dr Mark Decker (UNSW) Dr Shaoxiu Ma (UNSW) Dr Anna Ukkola (UNSW) Dr Dongqin Yin (ANU)

PhD Students

Arden Burrell (UNSW) Wasin Chaivaranont (UNSW) Xi Chen (UNSW) Ned Haughton (UNSW) Nadja Herger (UNSW) Sanaa Hobeichi (UNSW) Chiara Holgate (ANU/UNSW) Mathew Lipson (UNSW) Sugata Narsey (Monash University) Alexander Norton (U.Melb) Justin Oogjes (U.Melb) Elisabeth Vogel (U.Melb)

During 2017 the Land research program team pursued its interest in land-atmosphere coupling with several interdisciplinary studies on ecohydrology being brought to fruition. The wide-ranging set of investigations included (i) two studies using the new hydrology model in Community Atmosphere-Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE), (ii) using the Californian drought as a case study to investigate how the surface energy balance changes during an extreme drought, and (iii) new insights into how vegetation is coupled to the atmosphere. With all the work on land-atmosphere coupling we have not forgotten the critical question of model evaluation. Any scientist involved in land model evaluation will soon realise that Flux Network (FLUXNET) data is central to model evaluation. First - what is FLUXNET? FLUXNET is an international database that includes measurements of gas exchange (photosynthesis and transpiration, for example) along with the associated energy fluxes (radiation, latent and sensible heat flux, etc.) at the land surface. Over the last 30 or so years various groups around the world have deployed flux towers to measure these critical surface-atmosphere fluxes. FLUXNET is essentially a system that brings all these disparate data from more than 200 different sites into a single common framework for use by the international scientific community. From our point of view, FLUXNET is indispensable for a range of tasks, including the opportunity to gain in-depth understanding of land surface-atmosphere fluxes and especially for model evaluation. However, whilst its indispensable, FLUXNET is not trivial to use. Imagine a database containing field observations at hourly, daily and monthly time scales from more than 200 separate sites that have each been operated at different times with each site having different amounts of missing data. Some scientists, including several in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS), have gained extensive experience in using FLUXNET, but this experience has not previously been captured in a form that is readily transferrable. Hence, many scientists starting with FLUXNET face a very steep learning curve. In that context, research led by Centre of Excellence research fellow Anna Ukkola has developed a new, transferrable and transparent system for using FLUXNET data. The new system has been published by Ukkola et al. (2017) as a new computer tool (using open source software), and our expectation is that this will prove extremely useful within the Centre but also across the entire international land surface community going forward. The FLUXNET data is provided by a group of field scientists around the world and Australia has long been well represented in that group. It is important that scientists focused on observations regularly exchange ideas with scientists focused on modelling and vice versa. In that sense, we were delighted to support a two-day workshop in June to bring together scientists from both the observational and modelling sides of the challenge. The workshop, organised by ARCCSS Associate Investigator Dr Randall Donohue from ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

CSIRO, was held at the Western Sydney University. WSU is also the site of a major FACE (free-air carbon dioxide enrichment) Experiment, in which a mature eucalypt stand is being exposed to increased CO² to see the response. Scientists travelled from around the country to hear experts talk about the latest findings, and we were delighted to receive a tour of the WSU facilities. From an Earth system science perspective there has long been interest in projected changes in aridity. For example, will the land surface become more or less arid as CO² increases? The vast majority of work on this topic has used offline hydrologic models forced by climate model output and has reported a projection for increasing aridity as temperature increases because of increasing CO². However, that conflicts with accepted wisdom that the last glacial maximum, some 20,000 years ago, was colder with low CO2 (~180 ppm) and was also generally more arid than conditions today. This paradox was first raised a few years ago by Centre researchers and was investigated at that time in a paper published in collaboration with scientists at ETH-Zurich. This was always a two-paper project, and the second paper from that collaborative project was published this year (Greve et al 2017). This new work used seven different climate models, starting some 20,000 years ago, and tracked those simulations to around the year 2100 using a range of different aridity measures. The researchers found that for most places, as CO2 and temperature increase, rainfall is simulated to increase, and they also found a nearly universal increase in vegetation productivity primarily because of increasing CO2. For runoff they found a much more mixed picture, with around 25% of the land having increased runoff, 20% with reduced runoff, and the remaining fraction (~55%) having no significant change in runoff. These results show that perceptions of changes in aridity depend on the metric being used.

Land Model Development, Evaluation and Approaches to Modelling Our major contribution in this area was led by Dr Mark Decker, who built a new turbulent resistance parameterization for soil evaporation based on a pore-scale model developed originally by Prof Dani Or at ETH-Zurich. Previous work had demonstrated that the CABLE land surface model overestimated evapotranspiration at numerous flux tower sites during boreal spring. Decker et al. (2017a) implemented new resistance terms, previously developed from a pore-scale model of soil evaporation, into the treatment of under-canopy water vapour transfer in CABLE. The new resistance improved the simulation of both daily latent and sensible heat fluxes. The more physically based treatment of soil evaporation eliminated the need for empirical functions that reduce evaporation as a function of soil moisture — functions which are included in many land surface models. Mark is currently exploring how this new approach might be used in other land models.

to negate the need to import energy and thereby reduce air temperatures. The energy produced and the benefits of cooling beyond local PV installation sites would reduce the vulnerability of urban populations and infrastructure to temperature extremes. The effect on temperatures is shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 1: The effect of land-atmosphere (blue) compared to land-only (uncoupled) model runs on the water required for irrigation purposes. From Decker at al, 2017b

In a second paper, led by Mark Decker, the feedbacks between irrigation and the atmosphere were explored using south-eastern Australia as a test bed. Decker et al. (2017b) demonstrated that irrigation demand is fundamentally different between land-only and land–atmosphere simulations – that is, off-line experiments are unlikely to provide reliable estimates of the real effect. While irrigation only has a small effect on maximum temperature, the semi-arid environment investigated experiences near-surface moistening in coupled simulations over the irrigated regions, a feedback that is prevented in off-line simulations. In land-only simulations that neglect the local feedbacks, the simulated irrigation demand is 25% higher (Figure 1). These local-scale irrigation-driven feedbacks are not resolved in coarse-resolution climate models, implying that use of these tools will overestimate irrigation demand. Future studies of irrigation demand must therefore account for the local land–atmosphere interactions by using coupled frameworks, at a spatial resolution that captures the key feedbacks.

Land Processes and Feedbacks In a collaboration between climate scientists, economists and solar technologists, Dr Shaoxiu Ma led a study published in the Nature-stable journal, Scientific Reports, examining the value – in dollars – of installing solar panels over Sydney. Cities import energy, which in combination with their typically high solar absorption and low moisture availability generates the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The UHI, combined with human-induced warming, makes our densely populated cities particularly vulnerable to climate change. Ma et al. (2017) examined how effective deploying solar photovoltaic (PV) systems were in reducing the UHI. Installing PV systems over Sydney cooled summer maximum temperatures by up to 1°C because the need to import energy was offset by local generation of electricity. This is a direct environmental benefit, cooling local maximum temperatures, but it also has a direct economic value in the energy generated. The indirect benefit associated with the temperature changes was valued at between net AUD$230,000 and $3,380,000 depending on the intensity of PV systems deployment. Unfortunately, the cooling due to PV installation (~1oC) is not enough to offset much of the projected warming over Sydney. However, it could generate enough energy 46

Figure 2: Impact on daily maximum temperature (°C) of installation of solar panels over the Sydney region under assumptions of 30% cover (top row), 40% cover (middle row) and 60% cover (bottom row) for January (left column) and July (right column). The results are shown as a difference from the control experiment where no solar panels were installed.

Land scientists are well aware that higher atmospheric CO2 increases the water-use efficiency of photosynthesis by land plants. In fact, the changes in vegetation due to increasing CO2 are now large enough to have been reported in several experimental programs over the last few decades. However, existing terrestrial biosphere models cannot yet explain the observed patterns. A collaboration led by CSIRO researcher and centre associate investigator Randall Donohue set out to formulate and test what could be called the “simplest possible model” of the response of vegetation to CO2 (Donohue et al. 2017; see Figure 3). To their surprise, the researchers found that this approach, based on both leaf-scale gas exchange and canopy-scale measurements, could actually account for the observed responses of vegetation to increasing CO2 over (undisturbed) mature vegetation. However, they also found that this model did not account for the observed responses when the vegetation was regrowing from a recent disturbance; for example, a young forest regrowing after harvest. These results highlight the importance of the vegetation response to CO2 and the need to distinguish between equilibrium and transient responses. Given that much of the land surface now has disturbed vegetation (harvest, agriculture, fire, etc.) these results show that we still have some way to go to reliably capture the response of the earth’s vegetation to increasing CO2.

Continuing with the drought theme, most people know that during a drought it is usually warmer. The key question is, why is it warmer? From a physical viewpoint one can answer that question by asking, what is the source of the heat for the warming? Like most things in climate science, this is easier said than done. Only in the last few years have we begun to develop the type of tools and especially data with which one can even enquire about these questions over regional scales of most interest.

Figure 3: Predicted versus observed vegetation responses at five FACE Experiment sites. Vegetation response is the leaf-area index (L) and the assimilation (A) and transpiration (E) per unit leaf (AL, EL) and ground (AG, EG) area. From Donohue et al 2017

Land Processes and Extremes Any resident of south-east Australia who experienced the infamous Millenium Drought will readily testify to the impacts of a multi-year drought. But when do we know that a drought has started? When does it finish? These turn out to be difficult questions to address. One thing is sure â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it generally takes a lot of rain to break a drought. The Millenium Drought ended in spectacular fashion with drought-breaking rains in 2010. A group led by CSIRO scientist Dr Yuting Yang, along with long-term CSIRO contributors and ARCCSS Associate Investigators Drs Randall Donohue and Tim McVicar, set out to ask how long it takes for streamflow to recover following a severe drought. They used the Millenium Drought as an ideal case study. Their findings were that it take several months to recover from hydrologic drought following rainfall. They also showed that the single most important thing in controlling the recovery was simply the amount of rainfall. This was initially surprising, but it makes more sense when you realise that drought is generally only broken by a lot of rain.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

A few years ago, a visiting Chinese PhD student and now Centre of Excellence researcher, Dr Dongqin Yin, led work that used radiation observations made by satellite. The study found that during drought the main source of radiative heating was an increase in solar radiation that was accompanied by a surface feedback whereby reduced evaporation further increased the warming. This same basic approach was recently followed in yet another collaboration with ETH-Zurich, this time led by Dr Sebastian Wolf, where we have examined the source of heating for the warming experienced during the recent California drought (Wolf et al 2017). The results confirmed that the warming during the California drought was primarily caused by increased solar radiation, with a small contribution from reduced evaporative cooling. This study demonstrates what is possible when there is unprecedented access to new data and when the types of questions we can reasonably answer are becoming more ambitious. It is an exciting time to be a land scientist! Lastly, dryland degradation is an issue of international significance as dryland regions play a substantial role in global food production. Remotely sensed data provide the only long-term, large-scale record of changes within dryland ecosystems. PhD student Arden Burrell and colleagues have used the Residual Trend (RESTREND) method with satellite observations to detect dryland degradation. Whilst effective in most cases, the RESTREND method failed to identify degraded pixels if the relationship between vegetation and precipitation had broken down as a result of severe or rapid degradation. Burrell et al. (2017) therefore extended the RESTREND methodology to incorporate the Breaks For Additive Seasonal and Trend method to identify step changes in the time series. When applied to Australia, this new methodology was able to detect degradation in 5.25% of pixels compared to only 2.0% for RESTREND alone. Even more impressively, the modified methodology could accurately capture both the timing and directionality of ecosystem change. 47

Drivers of Spatial and Temporal Climate Variability in Extra-tropical Australia Highlights QQ The tropical Pacific warming hiatus puzzle and why the models fail QQ Dynamics that control Australian heat waves QQ Australian rainfall changes linked to dynamical change in the atmosphere QQ West Antarctic ice sheet loss linked to oceanic wind-forced changes QQ Model evaluations of ENSO dynamics QQ ENSO workshop in Sydney 11/2017 QQ Outreach into high schools with the Monash Simple Climate Model.

Team Chief Investigators

Dr Dietmar Dommenget (Lead, Monash University) Dr Lisa Alexander (UNSW) Prof Matthew England (UNSW) A/Prof Andrew Hogg (ANU) Prof David Karoly (U.Melb) Prof Michael Reeder (Monash University)

Partner Investigators

Dr Peter Stott (Hadley Centre/Met Office, UK) Prof Rowan Sutton (NCAS, UK) Dr Ian Watterson (CSIRO)

Associate Investigators

Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU) A/Prof Julie Arblaster (Monash) Dr Ghyslaine Boschat (U.Melb) Dr Jennifer Catto (Monash University) Dr Ailie Gallant (Monash University) Dr Benjamin Henley (U.Melb) Dr Will Hobbs (UTAS) Prof Neil Holbrook (UTAS) Dr Nicolas Jourdain (Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l’Environnement) Dr Angela Maharaj (UNSW) Dr Shayne McGregor (Monash University) Dr Laurie Menviel (UNSW) Prof Neville Nicholls (Monash University) Prof Peter Rayner (U.Melb) Dr Agus Santoso (UNSW) Dr Alexander Sen Gupta (UNSW) Dr Andrea Taschetto (UNSW)

Centre Researchers

Dr Duncan Ackerley (Monash University) Dr Julian Quinting (Monash University) Dr Evan Weller (Monash University)

PhD Students

Esteban Abellan (UNSW) Jenny (Eunmi) Ahn (Monash University) Natasha Ballis (U.Melb) Pilar Andrea Barria (U.Melb) Sushma Chen Reddy (U.Melb) Dipayan Choudhury (UNSW) Scott Clark (Monash University) Anil Deo (U.Melb) Raktima Dey (ANU) Mandy Freund (U.Melb) Yue Li (UNSW) Jiale Lou (UTAS) Tammas Loughran (UNSW) Sonja Neske (Monash University) Stacey Osbrough (Monash University) Sarah Perry (UNSW) Robert Ryan (U.Melb) Christian Stassen (Monash University) Peter van Rensch (Monash University) Asha Vijayeta (Monash University) Jennifer Wurtzel (ANU) 48

The Variability research program spans a wide range of activities, from short-term local weather events to global-scale decadal changes. Its research activity ranges from regional phenomena over Australia, to remote actions in the deep ocean, to higher-levels ?? in the tropical atmosphere. A large part of the work done by the Variability program team is based on model development and analysis, of wide-ranging complexity. We have organised this work loosely under different themes.

ENSO Recent years have seen spectacular developments in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon that puzzle the research community. In 2015–2016 we have seen one of the biggest El Niño events in history, with impacts all over the world, but the nature of this event was fairly different from previous big events. The last few decades have seen unprecedented trends in the tropical Pacific climate (for example, the Walker Circulation, winds) that have no counterparts in any model simulations or scenarios. The complexity of the ENSO phenomenon, which became apparent in recent years, is one of the main research themes in the Variability program. Luo et al. (2017) find substantial mismatch between model simulations and observed trends in the tropical Pacific. They point out that models have common biases that appear to force the models into El Niño-like warming trends that are inconsistent with the observed La Niña-like trends. A systematic evaluation of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project model dynamics of ENSO by PhD student Asha Vijayeta and Dr Dietmar Dommenget (2017) illustrated that nearly all important feedbacks in the models are underestimated (see Figure 1), but at the same time models appear to be simulating the overall statistics of ENSO variability fairly well. This is due to the fact that the model errors compensate, leading to a good simulation of the large-scale statistics for the wrong reasons. Core ENSO dynamics are found to be controlled by climate outside the tropical Pacific. The simulation of the Walker Circulation trends in models not only depends on simulating the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) correctly but is also significantly influenced by the land surface temperature in the model simulations, as shown in a recent study by Yeh et al. (2017). One of the core dynamical elements of El Niño is the delayed negative feedback, thought to be due to wave propagation in the subsurface ocean heat content, that leads to the oscillatory behaviour of ENSO. The study by Dommenget and Yu [2017] has illustrated that a large part of this feedback results from the interaction with the tropical Indian and Atlantic oceans via atmospheric teleconnections. This emerging complexity of ENSO was the main theme of an international workshop in Busan, Korea, in October 2017, which focused on writing a community review article on ENSO complexity.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Figure 1: Summary of CMIP model parameter biases and spreads. Observed values and spread (90% interval) are marked by the black line and grey shaded area. The combined distributions of CMIP-3 and CMIP-5 models are shown as blue bars with the blue line marking the mean of the distributions. The parameters are sorted by how strongly the CMIP models’ parameter biases influence the standard deviation of SST (stdv(T)). The most influential is the uppermost. From Vijayeta and Dommenget 2017

Weather-Climate Interactions

Decadal Variability

Weather variation are a very important aspect of our climate. In many ways, the average of weather variations is what creates climate variability and the mean climate. Several projects in the Centre focus on weather phenomena and how they interact with climate variability. For instance, rainfall in the Australian monsoon regions generally occurs in short bursts. Whether the burst is initiated by mid-latitude or tropical weather systems is determined by the circulation balance. The study by Narsey et al. (2017) finds that about two-thirds of these bursts are controlled by mid-latitude frontal weather systems and only one-third are controlled by tropical waves and related systems.

Variation in the climate over decades and longer is a natural phenomenon, caused by the interactions of the climate system with the large-ocean heat capacity and ice sheets. Dr Leela Frankcombe started a new Discovery Early Career Researcher Award project in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence, focusing on how models simulate this natural decadal climate variability and how they may interact with climate change.

Precipitation in general is often organised along coherent lines of low-level atmospheric convergence of air masses, which at longer time and space scales form well-known convergence zones over the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oceans. Weller et al. (2017) used an automated, objective method to identify instantaneous low-level atmospheric convergence lines for the period 1979â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2013. They find that a large percentage of precipitation (between 65% and 90%) over the tropical oceans is associated with such convergence lines, with large regional variations of up to 30% throughout the year, especially in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Over land, the annual-mean proportion of precipitation associated with convergence lines ranges between 30% and 60%. Heatwaves in south-east Australia are an import aspect of our climate that have a negative impact on Australian communities. They pose a significant security risk for the Australian health service and are a main source for wildfires. Quinting and Reeder (2017) studied the dynamics of southeast Australia heatwaves by backward tracking trajectories of air flow over Australia for up to 10 days. They show the importance of (i) moist processes (surface evaporation and precipitation) in strengthening the circulation (anticyclone) in the upper atmospheric levels associated with the heat wave, and (ii) the compression of sinking air masses in warming the near-surface air (see Figure 2).

Climate Change Climate change plays into all aspects of the Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities. Recent extreme events are found to be much more likely due to anthropogenic climate change, illustrating the effect climate change already has on our climate. Climate change not only affects the mean state; it often fundamentally changes the behaviour of weather and climate variability. Weller et al. (2017) studied organised low-level convergence lines in the atmosphere that bring thunderstorms and rainfall. Projections find a reduction in the frequency and strength over the mid-latitudes. In the tropics, the largest changes in frequency are generally associated with shifts in major low-latitude convergence zones, consistent with changes in the precipitation. Increasing rainfall in north-west Australia since the 1950s is due mainly to an increase in the number of days per year that the region is affected by tropical cyclones (Clark et al. 2017). An increase in the frequency, but not the intensity, of heavy precipitation systems also contributes to the increased rainfall. Antarctic glacial ice-mass loss to the west of the Antarctica Peninsula is linked to ocean warming communicated by ocean internal waves that are kicked off by remote wind disturbance around the Antarctic coastline (Spence et al. 2017). This research result demonstrates the vulnerability of the West Antarctic region to a changing climate (see Figure 3).

Model Biases and Evaluations State-of-the-art climate models are one of the most important tools in climate system research. They provide powerful insight into the complex interactions in the climate system and they provide data for analysing the Earth system interaction that cannot be gathered from just observing the Earth. Evaluation of these climate models, detecting biases in the them and improving the models is a core aspect of climate science. The Variability program has a number of research groups working on different aspects of model evaluations and developments.

Figure 2: Sketch of pathways of air masses that are typically involved in the formation of south-east Australia heatwaves. Trajectories are coloured by pressure where reddish colours indicate low levels. Green contours show the low-level potential temperature field and the blue (red) cone denotes upper-level negative (positive) potential vorticity (rotation) anomaly. From Quinting and Reeder, 2017

A whole series of studies has focused on the ENSO mode and the tropical Pacific (see ENSO section above). Kajtar et al. (2017) focused on a related aspect, dealing with how the Atlantic Ocean interacts with the tropical Pacific. The early 21st century slowdown in global warming was partly attributed to unprecedented Pacific trade wind strength. The stronger winds led to increased ocean heat uptake, thereby

ACCESS Modelling Hierarchy Over the past few years we have developed a number of elements for the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) modelling hierarchy. We continued this development in 2017, by building more experimental configurations and simulations to study model uncertainties and interactions with the land. Based on the study by Ackerley and Dommenget (2016), we created a series of historical atmospheric model simulations (AMIPtype) and idealised future warming scenarios in which the land interactions are controlled in different ways. This allows us to evaluate the importance of land-atmosphere interaction and how simulated biases of land may affect the model simulations of climate variability and change. These experiments have been published at the National Computational Infrastructure database.

Figure 3: Ocean model simulation (MOM01) annual mean ocean temperature (Â°C) anomaly averaged between 75 m and 150 m depth in Year 5 of the wind perturbation simulation. Black numbers along the green line indicate the distance along the contour in 1,000 km intervals. From Spence et al. 2017

slowing the rate of atmospheric warming. Models do not appear to simulate trade winds as strong as those recently observed. By interrogating state-of-the-art coupled climate models, researchers find that model biases in the Atlantic Ocean appear to be the reason for this under-representation(see Figure 4).

Further model developments have been focused on perturbed physics experiments to study the effect of model biases on natural modes of variability, such as ENSO, and on the simulated climate change. This project is an ongoing collaboration with GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany. Pacemaker simulations in which a region of the oceans is prescribed with historical or idealised SST variability to study how the rest of the world is responding to it have also been developed this year. We also did further developments for the single-column upper-ocean mixing model (KPP) coupled to the low-resolution ACCESS atmosphere model. All of these developments are currently ongoing and will be continued into 2018.

Figure 4: Variability of Pacific zonal wind stress in CMIP-5 models and observations, over the period 1900-2014. (a) Equatorial mean of the standard deviation of annual zonal wind stress across the Pacific Ocean. (b) Equatorial mean of the standard deviation of running 10-year zonal wind stress trends. (c) The range of 10-year trends in central Pacific zonal wind stress, averaged over the region indicated by the vertical lines in (a) and (b). MMM denotes the CMIP-5 multi-model mean. MME denotes the range of the multi-model ensemble. NOAA-20CR and ERA-20C denote the two observation/reanalysis products. The figure illustrates that models tend to under-represent Pacific wind stress variability. From Kajtar et al. 2017

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Workshops and Outreach The large diversity in the Variability program is mostly showcased via regular video seminars in which we present recent work and discuss ongoing collaborations, model developments and studies. A major two-day workshop on ENSO research in November 2017 was one of the main national meetings of the Variability program in 2017. It fostered collaboration between the different Centre of Excellence groups doing ENSO research and with Partner Organisations CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. A main theme of this workshop was the puzzling changes in ENSO behaviour and the limited abilities in models to simulate this. Researchers from the Variability program have developed the Monash Simple Climate Model for the benefit of students and the general public. This interactive climate models allows everyone to get an understanding of how the climate system works, what climate model simulations are, and what climate change will look like in future climate change scenarios. Centre researchers held training workshops with teachers and brought the climate models into schools. Thousands of high-school students in Australia, Germany and elsewhere in the world have played with the model and learned what happens when you take away the clouds or remove the oceans from our climate. They solved fun puzzle questions, such as What would the climate of the Star Wars Death Star be like? and How would you make the world freeze over?

TUNE IN TO MARTIN JUCKER Dr Martin Jucker arrived at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science in April 2016 as a member of the Convection research program, where he is evaluating the UK Meteorological Office Unified Model and its performance over the Maritime Continent. This is crucial work that not only affects precipitation, monsoons and broad seasonal changes in this region and for Australia but also has knockon effects that extend well beyond the tropics. This year Martin was recognised by the World Climate Research Programme as a future leader in climate science. To promote excellent science undertaken by ECRs, WCRP identified two outstanding early career scientist candidates through an international selection process. Martin’s impact has not purely been felt in the area of science investigation. He also brings expertise in visualisation, developing — in his spare time — 3D animations, virtual reality videos on his own YouTube channel, and 3D interactive models. During his time at the Centre of Excellence, Martin has produced three 360-degree images of weather model output over Darwin and of tropical cyclones, including Tropical Cyclone Debbie, which made landfall over Queensland on March 28, 2017. He has also developed Weather a(live), a website that allows anyone to look at current weather around the world in three dimensions — and even backwards over the past month. Luckily, Martin has not kept these visualisation skills to himself. He runs animation workshops for Centre students and early career researchers so that they can find new and innovative ways to share their research with a wider audience, including for industry, policymakers and the general public. Martin brings to the Centre a skill set that not only enhances the science we do but also enables the general public to become engaged and care for the work we do.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Mechanisms and Attribution of Past and Future Ocean Circulation Change Highlights QQ New results showing remotely generated subsurface warming near the Antarctic Peninsula QQ Published work on carbon subduction and the biological signature of Southern Ocean eddies QQ Novel work understanding the life cycle of internal waves in the ocean QQ Pete Strutton’s membership on the Tropical Pacific Observing System Steering Committee and leadership of its Biogeochemistry Task Team represents Australian interests in this important international effort QQ Released the ACCESS-OM2 ocean-sea ice model at 1° and ¼° resolution, along with preliminary model evaluation QQ Alice Barthel and Craig McConnochie graduated (PhD) QQ Matthew England was awarded the Tinker Muse Prize QQ Bob Hallberg (GFDL, NOAA) visited for three weeks, including the ARCCSS Annual Workshop QQ Nicola Maher won the 2017 Uwe Radok Award QQ Leela Frankcombe and Adele Morrison commenced 2017 DECRAs (2017-2020) and Callum Shakespeare was awarded a DECRA to commence 2018 QQ Alex Sen Gupta awarded the AAS Frederick White Prize.

Team Chief Investigators

A/Prof Andy Hogg (Lead, ANU) Prof Nathan Bindoff (UTAS) Dr Dietmar Dommenget (Monash University) Prof Matthew England (UNSW) A/Prof Peter Strutton (UTAS) Partner Investigators Dr Stephen Griffies (GFDL, USA) Dr Anthony Hirst (CSIRO) Dr Richard Matear (CSIRO) Dr Scott Power (BoM)

Associate Investigators

Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU) Dr Jessica Benthuysen (AIMS) 54

Dr Catia Motta Domingues (UTAS) Dr Stephanie Downes (UTAS) Prof Ross Griffiths (ANU) Dr Will Hobbs (UTAS) Prof Neil Holbrook (UTAS) Dr Shane Keating (UNSW) Dr Andrew Kiss (ANU) Dr Angela Maharaj (UNSW) Dr Simon Marsland (CSIRO) Prof Trevor McDougall (UNSW) Dr Shayne McGregor (Monash University) A/Prof Katrin Meissner (UNSW) Dr Laurie Menviel (UNSW) Dr Maxim Nikurashin (UTAS) Dr Helen Phillips (UTAS) Dr Oleg Saenko (Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis) Dr Agus Santoso (UNSW) Dr Alexander Sen Gupta (UNSW) Dr Petteri Uotila (CSIRO) Dr Erik van Sebille (Imperial College London) Dr Stephanie Waterman (University of British Columbia) Dr Susan Wijffels (CSIRO) Dr Guy Williams (UTAS) Dr Jan Zika (UNSW)

Centre Researchers

Dr Bishakhdatta Gayen (ANU) Dr Ryan Holmes (UNSW) Ms Veronique Lago (UTAS) Dr Joan Llort (UTAS) Dr Eric Oliver (UTAS) Mr Callum Shakespeare (ANU) Dr Kial Stewart (ANU)

PhD Students

Alice Barthel (UNSW) Ana Berger (UTAS) Bella Blanche (UTAS) Pearse Buchanan (UTAS) Christopher Bull (UNSW) Dipayan Choudhury (UNSW) Ajitha Cyriac (UTAS) Fabio Boeira Dias (UTAS) Earl Duran (UNSW) Bethany Ellis (ANU) Angus Gibson (ANU) Wilma Huneke (UTAS) Veronica (Yuehua) Li (UNSW) Jiale Lou (UTAS) Mainak Mondal (ANU) Kaitlin Naughton-Alexander (UNSW) Sonja Neske (Monash University) Ramkrushnbhai Patel (UTAS) Ariaan Purich (UNSW) Serena Schroeter (UTAS) Catherine Vreugdenhil (ANU) David Webb (UNSW) Luwei Yang (UTAS) Mathias Zeller (Monash University) Haifeng Zhang (UNSW Canberra)

The Oceans research program focuses on understanding the ocean’s role in climate and predicting the ocean’s response to climate change. Our team’s activities in 2017 included further development of our high-resolution ocean models, which are focused towards building Australia’s next generation climate model, including the addition of ocean biogeochemistry into the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) modelling suite. We have published important manuscripts on a range of topics, including the warming response of the Antarctic coastal waters to remotely generated waves, the dynamics of carbon subduction into the Southern Ocean, the interactions between jets and topography that create ocean eddies, the biochemical properties of these eddies, and a better understanding of the generation and dissipation of internal waves in the ocean. Our work involves the synthesis of high-resolution cutting-edge ocean and climate models and idealised or low-order theoretical models, guided by the constraints of available observations.

Antarctic Waters The oceanography of the coastal waters of Antarctica is difficult to study, due in part to scarce observations; yet this region may hold the key to understanding future global sea level. A key question is whether relatively warm Southern Ocean water can encroach onto the continental shelves and interact with Antarctic glaciers. Our modelling systems have shown that the winds in East Antarctica can generate sea-level disturbances in the form of waves that propagate around the continent, known as Kelvin waves. When these waves encounter the steep underwater topography off the West Antarctic Peninsula they push warmer water towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline (Spence et al. 2017; see Figure 1). This work highlights a new mechanism that may help to control the rate of ocean warming near Antarctica.

Coastal Antarctica is a region where very cold, dense water is formed. This class of water, known as Antarctic Bottom Water (or AABW), is created at the surface, yet is dense enough to sink to the abyssal ocean to fill up the ocean from below. AABW in the deep ocean is warming in every ocean basin; however, the mechanism of this warming is unclear. Recent work by the Oceans program team has directly linked observed changes in dense water formation rate with deep-ocean circulation (Snow et al., 2017, under review), demonstrating that surface forcing may be responsible for observed changes in deep temperature records. This link has never been revealed before, because there is no direct method available to estimate the rate of AABW formation. Additional work has shown a potential way to measure AABW formation rate, using the effect that AABW transport has on the momentum balance of Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the Southern Ocean (Stewart & Hogg, 2017). This proposed technique may allow us to infer AABW formation rates from satellite data alone, so that we could create a historical record for AABW, backdated to the start of the satellite era.

Ocean Eddies and Biogeochemistry Ocean eddies are spinning parcels of water about 100 km across and up to 1500 m deep. They are everywhere in the ocean. For example, at any one time there are 1200 of them in the Southern Ocean alone. Eddies are generated from instabilities in the ocean currents, but these instabilities occur against the background of complex flows and are difficult to isolate. Our work has shown how, in the Southern Ocean, interactions between the circulation and ridges, seamounts or other sea-floor topography are critical in determining where these eddies occur, thereby governing their physical properties (Barthel et al. 2017). We have also found eddies to have unusual biological properties in the Southern Ocean. Common wisdom suggests that clockwise rotating

Figure 1: Schematic of the warming response of West Antarctic Peninsula waters to East Antarctic wind perturbation. The West Antarctic Peninsula is shown with bathymetry in grey shading and temperature in colour. The purple arrows indicate the pathway of barotropic Kelvin waves propagating from East Antarctica. From Spence et al. 2017

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Figure 2: Locations of subducted carbon (red dots) identified from the BGCArgo record. From Llort et al. 2017, under review

eddies should have increased biological productivity due to small-scale upwelling within the eddy; however, a survey of satellite data has shown that there are many places where the eddies behave opposite to our expectations. That is, clockwise rotating eddies have lower plankton concentrations compared to neighbouring waters and counter-clockwise rotating eddies have higher concentrations (Dawson et al. 2017, under review). This work is important because the productivity that occurs in these eddies plays a significant role in the exchange of carbon between the ocean and the atmosphere. Biological productivity is not the only determinant of carbon fluxes in the ocean. Another important control on the ocean carbon cycle is the physical injection (or subduction) of carbon from the surface waters into the deep ocean. Recently, several studies have found that vertical carbon transport can occur as short-lived events. These events are the most efficient way to inject surface organic matter into the ocean, yet they are extremely hard to observe. We have used biogeochemical autonomous floats to capture these events and to map, for the first time, their spatial distribution throughout the Southern Ocean (Llort et al. 2017, under review; see Figure 2).

High-resolution Modelling One of the key research aims of the Oceans program is to improve our ability to model the ocean at high resolution. Traditionally, efforts have focused on quantifying the effect of enhancing the lateral resolution of global ocean models, but the vertical resolution is commonly not considered. We have been working on an objective scheme to understand how to optimise the vertical resolution of an ocean model 56

(Stewart et al. 2017). In short, ocean flow can be broken up into a series of modes, or wave patterns: to represent the vertical structure of ocean currents we must be able to resolve these wave patterns in the vertical direction. By improving the vertical resolution in our flagship models we improved both the representation of the eddy field and the deep ocean circulation. This work points towards a significant improvement in ocean model fidelity at minimal computational cost. Global ocean models are unable to resolve all ocean processes. For this reason, we need to study small-scale processes so as to parameterize them better in large-scale models. One way to study these small-scale dynamics is to use regional models of a small part of the ocean with resolution 10-100 times higher than the global model. In 2017, results from ultra-high resolution numerical modelling revealed a new source of internal wave energy in the ocean. Internal waves are thought to be responsible for mixing the deep ocean and thereby maintaining the ocean overturning circulation. Our model illustrates the process of â&#x20AC;&#x153;spontaneous generationâ&#x20AC;? where waves emerge from the mean flow due to a breakdown of balanced dynamics, without any direct forcing (Shakespeare & Hogg, 2017). Figure 3 shows how these surface-generated waves propagate to the ocean bottom, potentially providing an energy source for mixing in the abyss.

Ocean Heat Uptake and Transport The rate and distribution of heat uptake by the oceans profoundly affects regional and global climate. In work that utilised the coupled ocean-sea-ice model simulations at Âź

Figure 3: Ultra-high resolution numerical model showing the spontaneous generation of internal waves from fronts and jets near the ocean surface. Colours show the energy transfer into the downward wave field from the mean flow. The downward propagating waves are visualised by an isosurface of the vertical wave energy flux. From Shakespeare & Hogg, 2017

degree resolution, the role of decadal Pacific trade wind variations in driving global climate and ocean heat uptake was examined (Maher et al. 2017]). This work is focused on the ocean dynamics and hydrography response, although the findings also have implications for decadal climate variability. In the main perturbation experiment, atmospheric trends as observed in the Pacific sector during 1992-2011 were applied, while the rest of the ocean is forced by Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments normal year fluxes. The 1992-2011 period was chosen as it was characterised by a marked acceleration of the Walker Circulation and trade winds, and a trend toward a negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). In response to this wind anomaly, there is a strengthening of the tropical Ekman divergence and Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), which brings cool water to the surface of the eastern Pacific and an increase in the Pacific shallow overturning cells, in turn subducting heat into the western Pacific (Fig. 4). The wind acceleration also results in an increase in the Indonesian throughflow (ITF), taking anomalous heat from the warm subsurface western Pacific into the Indian Ocean. Despite east Pacific cooling, there is an overall increase in net IndoPacific heat content. A 20-year future scenario experiment was then examined, applying a symmetric reversal of the atmospheric fields to mimic a return to the neutral phase of the IPO. In response, we find a slowdown of the EUC, the ITF and the Pacific overturning cells, and a return to climatological Sea Surface Temperature (SST) conditions in the Pacific. However, the ocean heat content response is not symmetric, due to an overall increase in the surface heat flux into the ocean ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

associated with the decades-long reduced SSTs in the east Pacific and also due to irreversible heat transfer from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean via the ITF. There is also irreversible heat transport across the thermocline via diapycnal mixing, further contributing to the asymmetric response, with the Indo-Pacific subsurface remaining warmer than it was in its initial state. This could have implications for longterm heat content changes in the ocean interior. In other work, coupled ocean-atmosphere-ice model simulations were conducted to examine the role of the circumpolar Southern Ocean in global climate [England et al., 2017]. In particular, the response of the climate system to Drake Passage (DP) closure was examined to better understand what an open southern gateway does to set Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mean climate, including the temperatures and ice extent over the Southern Hemisphere. Upon DP closure the initial response was consistent with previous ocean-only studies, with an invigoration of Antarctic overturning and a collapse of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production. This results in a dominance of southward heat transport and Antarctic sinking when DP is closed. However, within just a decade, the increased southward heat transport has melted back much of Antarctic sea-ice and weakened the subpolar westerlies. These effects, not captured in models without ice-atmosphere feedbacks, combine to force AABW to warm and freshen, to the point that this water mass becomes less dense than NADW. This leads to a contraction of Antarctic overturning, allowing NADW to ventilate the deep ocean once more. Poleward heat transport also settles back to values very similar to the unperturbed DP open case. Yet, remarkably, the equilibrium 57

Figure 4: Schematic illustrating the simulated temperature and circulation trends in response to the observed surface atmospheric trends measured over the two-decade period 1992â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011. Approximately half the additional heat absorbed by the Pacific Ocean is transported into the Indian Ocean via the Indonesian throughflow. Of that extra Indian Ocean heat content, about half remains in the ocean and half is returned to the atmosphere. From Maher et al., 2017

climate retains a strong Southern Hemisphere warming. Here, it is ocean-atmosphere-ice feedbacks, particularly the sea-ice albedo feedback, not southern sinking, that maintain the warm polar oceans when DP is closed. We further find that DP closure leads to warming that is sufficient to inhibit ice sheet growth over West Antarctica. This highlights the importance of a Southern Ocean gateway, Antarctic sea-ice and the associated ice-albedo feedback in maintaining the present-day glacial state over Antarctica.

FROM SUMMER STUDENT TO FIRST-AUTHOR PAPER Roohi Ghelani came to the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science in early 2017 as a participant in a six-week Undergraduate Summer Research Scholarship program that the Centre runs every year. As a third-year undergraduate student in environmental science she saw it as an opportunity to learn about the scientific process and learn the fundamentals of coding. Roohi was selected to be part of a project at the University of Tasmania, where she was supervised by Dr Eric Oliver and Professor Neil Holbrook. Over her first few weeks of involvement in the project she read papers and was introduced to the coding language, Python. Some time during her third week there, Roohi’s coding produced some very interesting results that suggested the Madden Julian Oscillation was affecting La Niñas and El Niños. As a consequence, the original aim of the project changed and they began investigating these patterns, with Dr Matthew Wheeler coming on board. Towards the end of the program it was decided the project would be extended beyond the six weeks to explore the findings further and that a paper would be written. It was during one of these meetings that Roohi found out she would be the lead author, which she said left her speechless. Roohi continued working on the paper while completing her BSc at the University of Melbourne. When Dr Philip Kloztbach visited the Centre of Excellence during this period, he also expressed interest in some of the paper’s findings and suggested extending the research. When the paper was first submitted, reviewers suggested the same extension and Philip was added as an author. The paper was accepted and published in Geophysical Research Letters in October, 2017. Roohi also had the good fortune of seeing Matthew Wheeler present the paper at a conference in Singapore. She was delighted by the results of what started as a six-week project, saying the entire journey from project to publication was surreal. Read this exceptional paper here for yourself! Ghelani, R.P.S., Oliver, E.C.J., Holbrook, N.J., Wheeler, M.C., Klotzbach, P.J., 2017. Joint Modulation of Intraseasonal Rainfall in Tropical Australia by the Madden-Julian Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL075452. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075452 ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

COMPUTATIONAL MODELLING SUPPORT Highlights QQ Added JRA55-do as meteorological forcing for MOM and ACCESS-OM2. Created three RYF data sets for evaluation QQ Worked towards more automated data publishing QQ Coordinated work between CMS and NCI to organise the CMIP-5 and to develop tools to discover the data.

Modelling Work Dr Aidan Heerdegen worked in 2017 on implementing a new atmospheric forcing for the Modular Ocean Model (MOM) Version 5 in collaboration with the Consortium of OceanSea Ice Modelling in Australia and with Nic Hannah (Double Precision). Researchers at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) are now able to run Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator—Ocean Model 2 (ACCESS-OM2) at three different resolutions (1°, 0.25° and 0.1°) forced by the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis for ocean modelling (JRA55do). The Computational Modelling Systems (CMS) team has also generated three Repeat Year Forcing (RYF) data sets to evaluate in collaboration with international Partner Organisations the National Center for Oceanic Research, Japan Meteorological Agency and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). We have implemented a standardised methodology, with published code, to re-grid initial conditions and salinity-restoring fields for these models. Nic also improved the model speed and efficiency compared to its predecessors. In 2017 the CMS team also installed or developed a range of models: QQ Scott Wales worked on the atmosphere component of the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS-Atmosphere) version 5.0. QQ Dr Claire Carouge developed the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) versions 3.9 and 3.9.1.1 and updated a local enhanced WRF model to use version 3.9.1.1. QQ Dr Holger Wolff developed ACCESS version 1.0 using the Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme (MOSES) and coupled it to the Multi-Column K Profile Parameterization ocean model (MC-KPP).

QQ Several researchers have started research based on perturbations to simulations for Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP-5). Scott helped them get started. He also updated the documentation or modified some model inputs to satisfy the researchers’ needs. This work was done for ACCESS version 1.0 as ACCESS version 2.0 is not yet released.

QQ Nic Hannah has assisted the development effort on MOM Version 6 (MOM6) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/GFDL by doing regular comprehensive testing on the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) supercomputer. Our MOM6 test suite consists of over 600 tests, which often inform new fixes or additions to the software. QQ We continued to maintain the MOM5 project. This includes hosting the website, source code and mailing list, as well as engaging with developers to test and integrate new code contributions. Our work is essential to a large and active global user community; for example, the mailing list has approximately 260 members and receives several hundred posts per year. Modelling development work has also started for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx), as detailed in the CLEx report. NCI leaves each group to manage its own Python packages. The packages installed for the ARCCSS by the CMS team had traditionally been installed within the ACCESS modules area. The management of this area was starting to become more work than it was worth. We have decided to reinstall major Python packages in another area using Miniconda. This move resulted in several benefits: QQ easier management of Python v2.x and Python v3.x packages QQ easier installation of packages QQ disentangling general Python packages from ACCESS

at least create the technical side of the automation and help induce the cultural change through training sessions and discussions. We are currently QQ upgrading our DMPonline instance to ensure the entry fields can be programmatically processed (Dr Paola Petrelli); QQ writing a mapping from the xml file produced by DMPOnline to the xml file format used by NCI (Paola); QQ coordinating with NCI to allow the exchange of DMPs via xml files rather than manually filling a web form (Paola); and QQ working on a program to convert model outputs to CF-compliant netCDF files. This program is currently working for the Unified Model and MOM models, but more work is needed to add the other models supported by the Centre (Scott, Aidan). Following a researcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s request, Aidan Heerdegen has also worked on understanding how to publish Python code via PyPI. He put together some instructions on our wiki to help researchers promote their work through more channels than paper publications only. Paola has helped researchers from the Centre to publish a number of data sets this year: QQ LGMc13 and T1C13 for Laurie Menviel QQ PLAMIP for Duncan Ackerley QQ MCASClimate for Claire Vincent and Todd Lane

QQ access to the same Python packages from all areas at NCI, including Raijin, accessdev and the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

QQ DOLCE for Sanaa Hobeichi

Following the move to Miniconda to manage our Python packages, Scott Wales and Aidan Heerdegen also implemented automatic updates of the packages and some automatic testing to ensure an update does not break the installation. We are also moving non-ACCESS related tools to the same new area.

QQ EmCEI-CMIP-5 for Andrea Dittus

Data Publication and Data Replication Work The CMS team has decided to pay more attention to the publishing process. This process had and still has many manual steps. We are working on automating as many of these steps as possible. The end goal is to be at a stage where researchers produce data directly in the correct format for publication and maintain a data management plan (DMP) during the data production process. Then, when researchers need to publish some data, they would simply share their DMP with us and the publishing would happen quickly and automatically. This is a very ambitious goal as it implies a cultural change from the researchers. Our aim is to ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

QQ MK3L-LGM and Mk3L-BioPump for Pearse Buchanan

QQ Marine Heatwaves code for Eric Oliver QQ GREB-Tuning for Dietmar Dommenget QQ Paola also installed replica of several data sets for use by our researchers: QQ The Japanese 55-year Reanalysis for ocean modelling (JRA55-do) QQ Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) QQ Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) version 3.1 QQ Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) QQ The Global Ocean Gridded L4 Sea Surface Heights And Derived Variables Reprocessed QQ Last Millennium Ensemble (LME) 61

QQ However, there were also two data sets needing significant work:

(represented by CMS members) have been held. It is intended these meetings will continue in 2018.

QQ Real-time TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TRMM)

Training

QQ NOAAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CPC MORPHing technique, high resolution precipitation (CMORPH) It was discovered these contained missing or corrupted data. The data was re-downloaded and additional testing to the quality control was added where necessary. Significant work has been done on the Weather@Home project by Paola. This project is particularly challenging as this is a complex data set with a nearly constant flow of new data coming in. Thus Paola has developed a working workflow prototype based on the Mediaflux data management platform and other tools. This workflow handles the ingestion and curation of incoming data and facilitates the discovery and access to the data set. A lot of work has been happening with the CMIP-5 data set. NCI and the climate and weather community are reorganising the CMIP-5 area to prepare for the start of Phase 6 of CMIP. From the years of management of the CMIP-5 data, it has become apparent this data set needs better communication between the different entities managing and using it. It is also evident that NCI could play a stronger role in this data set management. NCI has fully reorganised the data produced by the Australian community (with simulations by the ACCESS model submitted for CMIP-5) to better follow guidance from the Earth System Grid Federation on file organisation. At the same time, Paola performed a thorough scanning of the CMIP-5 data set replicated at NCI. She identified a host of duplicated data. This list has been handed over to NCI, and these duplicated data have now been removed from the system. NCI also developed a database to better catalogue the data hosted at NCI. This database not only contains the location of the data but also some information taken from the files themselves. ARCCSSive, the ARCCSS tool developed by Scott Wales and Paola Petrelli, has been extensively modified in collaboration with Jon Smilie and Sean Pringle at NCI to use this new central database. Notably, the tool now integrates scripts that previously needed to be installed separately. This should simplify the user experience in using ARCCSSive. This work has not been released to researchers yet as the database is still in development. Paola has developed an online training course on the NCI website covering both an induction to the CMIP-5 collection and how to use ARCCSSive. The choice of an online course was made to enable CMIP-5 users to access the training at any time, allowing researchers to start their work with CMIP5 in accordance with their own agenda. Finally, to enable better coordination around CMIP and other data sets, regular technical meetings between NCI, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Centre of Excellence 62

Following the ARCCSS 2017 Annual Workshop, the CMS team organised a one-day training session. We provided training on debugging code, BASH shell programing and data management on NCI systems. The trainers were Paola, Aidan and Holger, helped by the rest of the CMS team and some NCI staff members. The event attracted 24 trainees. The feedback received was universally positive, with some very constructive comments. Additionally, Paola has helped with Software Carpentry Python training at the Institute of Marine Studies, UTAS, which ran for two hours every week from 27th July to 14th September. She also delivered training on data publishing and the ARCCSSive Python module, at UNSW. Holger and Scott have produced several tutorial videos on debugging and use of certain Python modules. CMS team members have also attended several training sessions or conferences during the year: QQ Claire attended a training session on the Allinea-ARM software suite for code performance and debugging facilitated by NCI and Allinea-ARM. She also attended the new supervisor training course provided by the Australian Institute of Management at the ANU. QQ Paola attended PyCon AU 2017, a Science and Data Specialist Day and training on Mediaflux data management tool. QQ Holger attended PyCon AU 2017. QQ Aidan attended Code Optimisation and Modernisation for Intel Xeon Phi Processors, delivered by Intel at NCI, March 2017.

CMS STAFF PROFILES Dr Claire Carouge Computational Modelling Systems Leader Dr Claire Carouge is the leader of the Computational Modelling Systems (CMS) team at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. She coordinates the efforts of the team members distributed over the five nodes of the Centre. In parallel, Claire provides the modelling support for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) atmospheric regional model and CSIRO Atmosphere, Biosphere and Land Exchange (CABLE) land surface model at the Centre of Excellence. As such she has coupled CABLE to WRF via the integration of CABLE into the Land Information System (LIS). She has also developed new diagnostics in WRF required for simulations for the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment. She now maintains, keeps up-to-date and documents a stand-alone modified WRF model and the CABLELIS-WRF coupled model. Dr Carouge is also developing a proper suite of tests for CABLE in collaboration with the CABLE development team at CSIRO. She supports researchers using and developing the CABLE and WRF models at the Centre.

Dr Aidan Herdeegen Computational Modelling Support Dr Aidan Heerdegen is a computational scientist with a background in physical chemistry, with experience supporting research in climate modelling and statistical analysis of climate data. Aidan is primarily responsible for supporting the use and development of ocean simulation codes within the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. His current major focus is the development of a new, high-resolution (1/10°) global ocean model configuration in collaboration with the Consortium of Ocean-Sea Ice Modelling in Australia. Aidan has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Physics and Chemistry from Massey University (NZ) and a PhD from ANU. He is based with the Climate Fluid Physics group, Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU, and joined the Computational Modelling Systems team in 2014.

Dr Paola Petrelli Computational Modelling support Dr Paola Petrelli is the data manager of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). Before joining the Centre of Excellence she managed oceanographic and climate data sets for the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing, acquiring extensive experience in web services and software used by the earth science research community. She received a PhD from the University of Siena (Italy) in 2005.

data management practices. She leads the data collaborations with our Partner Organisations and the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) to manage shared data resources. Paola represents the Centre of Excellence in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 6 technical and climate data set committees. An important part of her role is to publish ARCCSS data and metadata on public repositories such as the NCI data services, the Earth System Grid Federation and the Australian National Data Service’s Research Data Australia. Contact her if you need advice for your data management plan and to access, download, store, share and/or publish data. She can also provide advice with any aspect of data policy, such as licensing, rights and retention requirements.

Scott Wales Computational Modelling Support Scott Wales supports the researchers at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science who work with the Unified Model (UM), the atmospheric component of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) model. He helps researchers to understand, run and modify the model and works with our Partner Organisations to make their model configurations usable on the National Computational Infrastructure supercomputers. Scott also works closely with leaders across the ACCESS community, providing technical advice and helping to develop and maintain the infrastructure needed to run the model at NCI — such as the Accessdev and Subversion servers. He also works with our partners at the UK Meteorological Office on collaborative development across the entire UM partnership. Scott has experience in a variety of different computational modelling techniques, including numerical atmospheric models, cosmological N-body simulations, and stochastic partial differential solvers. He has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Physics from the University of Queensland.

Dr Holger Wolff Computational Modelling Support Dr Holger Wolff has a background in physics. After graduating from the University of Hannover, he successfully completed a PhD in quantum-atom optics at Swinburne University in Melbourne, with a focus on micro-fabrication of atom chips for Bose-Einstein-Condensate Experiments. Following the PhD, Holger worked with CSIRO as a programmer for atmospheric modelling for three-and-a-half years. He joined the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science in November 2013.

Paola sets the Centre data strategy and provides advice on ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

ACTUARIES USE DATA BY ARCCSS RESEARCHERS FOR GLOBAL INDEX A group of North American actuary organisations has developed the Actuaries Climate Index (ACI) for North America using key data developed by Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science researchers. These organisations are comprised of the American Academy of Actuaries, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, Casualty Actuarial Society, and the Society of Actuaries. The index they have developed is an objective measure of changes in extreme weather and sea level, using the period 1960-1990 as the base level for comparing this change. The GHCNDEX data set developed by Centre of Excellence researchers is a key component of this ACI. GHCNDEX provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation-related climate extremes. This database was originally intended for detecting the climate change component of extreme events, evaluating climate models and monitoring extreme events in real time. GHCNDEX is being distributed through the web platform CLIMDEX (www. climdex.org), which the actuaries can also access. The climate extremes indices in GHCNDEX focus on potentially impact-relevant temperature and precipitation events and therefore are relevant for the wider research community interested in the effects of climate change and climate extremes. The actuarial group uses the data sets to inform actuaries, policymakers and the general public about the economic, human and health risks associated with our changing climate. The use of this data in this way is a world-first for actuarial bodies. As a result of the success of this North American index there are already efforts under way to reproduce this for other countries and potentially to expand this to a global index.

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM Highlights QQ A successful winter school on The Science of Climate Change held at UNSW QQ A technical training day led by the CMS team covering data management and publication, debugging and shell scripting QQ A virtually delivered development session on academic poster design delivered by our Media Manager QQ A full day of professional development training organised by and for our ECRs QQ Another successful scientific paper writing workshop QQ 17 students completed their degrees in 2017, including 10 who submitted their PhD theses QQ Destinations for our graduated PhD students included Cambridge University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bureau of Meteorology and NASA QQ Our students were authors on 39 journal articles — 30 as first author — including one paper in Nature Climate Change and three in Journal of Climate QQ 16 undergraduate students were introduced to climate science research via our summer scholarship initiative. Summer students were supervised by our ECRs, giving them vital supervisory experience. In 2017 the graduate program maintained its honours and graduate student numbers. We had six honours students and 83 graduate students affiliated with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). All have been actively involved in our graduate activities. Centre of Excellence staff at the University of Tasmania were also involved in the supervision of 11 students participating in the 2+2 Program, which gives students from Ocean University of China the opportunity to complete two years of their undergraduate studies in Hobart. We had 17 students submit this year (10 PhD, two masters and five honours) and they have been moving on to positions in top institutions worldwide. We are proud to have an employment rate of 100% for our PhD students within six months of completion. In collaboration with the Computational Modelling Systems (CMS) team we have offered a variety of technical training opportunities in 2017, including a full training day following our annual workshop; a software carpentry workshop; an Intro to National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

workshop, delivered by our Partner Organisation NCI; and data induction and management workshops. Our students and early career researchers (ECRs) continue to be supported in their writing via our scientific paper writing workshops, the success of which is evident in the number of papers published by Centre students: an impressive 39 this year, 30 as first author. Included in this publication list was a first-author paper in Nature Climate Change by Jiawei Bao. Three of our students were first authors on notable papers in Journal of Climate; namely, Esteban Allebán, Peter Gibson and Eytan Rocheta. Peter was first author on two papers on heatwaves and climate extremes published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, and Tammas Loughran also published a first-author paper on heatwaves in Geophysical Research Letters. Professional development of our students continued via an Early Career Researcher Day developed by our ECRs, for our ECRs, and a science communications session during our annual workshop. We also offered continued development sessions via our videoconferencing system, including a session on academic poster design by the ARCCSS Media and Communications Manager, Alvin Stone.

Winter School Our winter schools are the cornerstone of our graduate program and are open to all climate science honours and graduate students regardless of ARCCSS affiliation. The theme and location of the winter school changes every year; in 2017 we were at UNSW investigating The Science of Climate Change. To ensure we build capacity in the climate sciences beyond our Centre, we open up our winter schools to participants Australia- and New Zealand-wide and often extend this to the Asia Pacific. Over the life of the Centre we have had 406 participants from 33 institutions attend our winter schools. Thirty of these participants have been from outside of Australia, from 17 different institutions.

Undergraduate Summer Scholarships in Climate System Science Climate science students come from a range of undergraduate degree programs with quantitative content. To ensure undergraduate students are aware of the opportunities within the climate sciences we offer highly competitive undergraduate summer scholarships. These scholarships provide the students with an introduction to cutting-edge climate science research at one of our five universities or one of our national Partner Organisations; namely, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and Department of the Environment and Energy. Over the lifetime of the Centre we have had 100 students join this program. One-quarter of these students have continued on to graduate studies with us, and many have continued on to positions in our Partner Organisation, BoM. Summer students are supervised by our ECRs, giving them vital supervisory experience. Some of our 65

summer scholars have also been successful in publishing their summer research project, including Roohi Ghelani, who turned her project at UTAS — supervised by Eric Oliver and Neil Holbrook — into a first-author paper in Geophysical Research Letters titled “Joint modulation of intraseasonal rainfall in tropical Australia by the Madden-Julian Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation”.

Travel Many of our students had the opportunity during 2017 to spend significant amounts of time embedded in international research institutes, including many of our international Partner Organisations, or to attend Northern Hemisphere summer schools. Some highlights: QQ Bella Blanche attended the Mathematics for Climate Change Detection and Attribution Summer School in Aussois, in the French Alps. This winter school was linked to ARCCSS Partner Organisation LMD – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and endorsed by the World Climate Research Programme. QQ Sonya Fiddes embarked on an Antarctic voyage on the Aurora Australis. QQ Maxime Colin spent almost a month collaborating on research projects with scientists at Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique. QQ Anil Deo progressed his research during a four-week visit to NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. QQ Sarah Perry spent a fortnight working with researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Our students are also actively involved in cross-node collaborations and often spend time visiting nodes other than their home institution, or talking to researchers and supervisors at other nodes via videoconferencing.

Prizes Our students were extremely successful in winning both national and international prizes this year:

Nicola Maher

Uwe Radok Award for best PhD thesis in meteorology, oceanography, glaciology or climatology

Robert Ryan

Rotary Global Sustainability Award Scholarship

Bethany Ellis

Second runner-up at ANU Three Minute Thesis Competition

Stephanie Jacobs

Best Poster, AMOS 2017

Ariaan Purich

ARCCSS Award for Best Paper by a Student

WINTER SCHOOL Report by: Sarah Perry What would the climate be like if the Earth spun backwards? How about if all of the ocean surface warmed instantaneously by one degree? Or if there was no ocean at all? These were the kinds of “super problems” that participants were tasked with solving at the sixth Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) Annual Winter School, which took place on June 19–23rd at the University of New South Wales. The theme of the winter school was The Science of Climate Change. It encouraged students to take a step back from our focused postgraduate research projects and improve our understanding of the broader climate system. Over the week, academics from the Centre of Excellence gave lectures on everything from the earth’s radiation balance and the mechanisms driving the broad-scale circulations of the atmosphere and oceans, to the importance of correctly modelling plant stomata in land surface models. In a tutorial using the Monash Simple Climate Model, our understanding of the climate system was put to the test. In addition to the science, we heard an insider view into the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from an IPCC Coordinating Lead Author, Professor Nathan Bindoff, after which Professor Matthew England spoke about both the importance and the challenges of communicating our research to the broader community. The postgraduate process is challenging and, in a workshop run by a recent UNSW graduate, Dr Willem Huiskamp, we were reminded of how important it is as research students to manage our mental health. At the student social afternoon, we put the advice into practice, enjoying a game of Ultimate frisbee at Coogee beach, followed by a night of drinks and food. On Friday afternoon it was time to present our answers to our “super problems”, and although we may not have solved all of the ways the earth’s climate may change in these scenarios, some of us got creative in the process, with Star Wars and IPCC themes making their way into our presentations. On behalf of all the attending students, I would like to thank the ARCCSS Graduate Director, Dr Melissa Hart, and Swa Rath for organising another great winter school, as well as all of the academics who shared their knowledge in great lectures. ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

SELECTED STUDENT PROFILES Student Q&A Profiles – ARCCSS 2017 Stephanie Jacobs PhD student, Monash University Who in ARCCSS are you working with? Associate Investigator Ailie Gallant from Monash University. Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I first became interested in weather when I would watch the weather forecast every night before the 6pm Simpsons. I ended up doing bachelor and master of science degrees in atmosphere and ocean science at the University of Melbourne, and now I’m doing a PhD in Climate Science at Monash. Tell us a little about your project. I’m using a weather model to simulate heatwaves hitting the city of Melbourne, then changing the city surface to represent different cooling strategies to try and reduce the temperature of the heatwave. This includes simulations where all the roofs in Melbourne have been painted white and when gardens have been planted all over the city. I do this because heatwaves are the deadliest natural disaster in Australia and reducing the temperature could save lives.

The Melbourne temperature difference during heatwaves between a simulation with 40% vegetation and the current value of 27%. More vegetation can cool the city by up to 1.5˚C.

What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? The main benefit from being in the Centre of Excellence has been the social aspect. There are several times a year when the students in the Centre have an opportunity to get together and forge collaborations and friendships, including the winter school and annual workshop. I am now familiar with a large portion of the climate community in Australia. The Centre’s Computational Modelling Support team has also helped me in many ways, including coupling a new urban model to the weather model, and with coding problems. Also, the Centre has funded visits for me to other nodes to gain experience from academics working there. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? I would like to work as a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology or do a post-doc in the USA.

Taimoor Sohail PhD student, ANU Who in ARCCSS are you working with? I am a second -year PhD student working with Dr Bishkahdatta Gayen and Dr Andy Hogg at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University. Tell us a little about your project. I use high-resolution simulations to understand the effect of small-scale turbulence and convection on circulation in the Southern Ocean. I am specifically trying to shed light on the role of surface winds and sea surface temperature in driving ocean circulation and mixing. My research will help expand understanding of heat uptake, carbon dioxide absorption and biological activity in the Southern Ocean. Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College, USA, in 2014. During my undergraduate studies I was exposed to a number of different scientific disciplines, and I found myself drawn towards climate science and climate modelling. I subsequently returned to Pakistan upon the completion of my undergraduate degree and worked at a climate change policy think tank for two years. Following this experience, I decided to take the plunge and learn more about climate science. The project proposed by Dr Gayen and Dr Hogg represented a perfect mix of fluid dynamics and geophysical applications, and I enrolled in a masters by research degree, funded by the Australian Government’s Endeavour Scholarship. After one year as a masters student I converted my degree program up to a PhD in order to more closely explore my research topic. What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? The Centre has offered numerous opportunities for travel,

by oceanography and, when choosing my PhD project, wanted to apply my quantitative background to studying the dynamics of ocean circulation. Tell us a little about your project. My project aims to look at the effect of internal lee waves on large-scale circulation of the Southern Ocean. Lee waves are generated by eddies and currents impinging on rough topography in the deep ocean. They apply stress to oceanic flows and drive turbulent mixing and hence are expected to be important for the Southern Ocean circulation and its response to changes in winds. Lee waves are not resolved by global ocean models, and their effects need to be parameterized. My work focuses on quantifying the effect of lee waves on eddies in the Southern Ocean and implementing lee wave processes into MOM6 in a physical and energetically consistent way.

A constant-density surface taken at a time instant in a high-resolution model of the Southern Ocean. The surface is coloured by depth, with shallow being white and deep being green.

career development and project development. I have gained an understanding of the climate science studies being conducted in Australia by attending the annual ARCCSS workshops. The workshops have provided the opportunity to begin research collaborations with other scientists around Australia, and the connections I have made will no doubt be invaluable for the next stage in my career. I have also attended the annual winter schools, which have helped broaden my base of understanding of the processes that drive our climate. Finally, I attended a paper writing workshop during the process of writing my first peer-reviewed journal article, and it was extremely helpful in formulating a coherent, cohesive article. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? In the future, I hope to continue working in academia, particularly in using and developing ocean models that help to predict the effect of climate change on our globeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oceans.

Luwei Yang PhD student, UTAS Who in ARCCSS are you working with? I am working with Maxim Nikurashin (UTAS), Andy Hogg (ANU) and Bernadette Sloyan (CSIRO). Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I completed a Bachelor of Science in Marine Sciences at Ocean University of China. My undergraduate studies focused on mathematics, physics and fluid dynamics, with some basic introduction to oceanography. I was fascinated ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

A schematic made to illustrate lee waves.

What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? I attended a winter school organised by the Centre in 2017, which was about climate change. It was a good opportunity to broaden my knowledge beyond physical oceanography. I also attended an intensive writing workshop in 2017, which really helped me to construct my first manuscript and develop skills in scientific writing. I enjoyed the 2016 and 2017 annual workshops where I got feedback on my work and talked to students and researchers from other universities. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? With my enthusiasm and skills, I plan to further develop my career as a physical oceanographer and continue research on the Southern Ocean circulation and ocean physics across a wide range of scales.

Sanaa Hobeichi PhD student, UNSW Who in ARCCSS are you working with? I am a PhD student at the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. The broad aim of my research is to get temporal estimates of the surface water and energy budgets, at a fine scale for 69

Sanaa Hobeichi

most of the land on the globe. My project is supervised by Dr Gab Abramowitz and Prof Jason Evans. Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I hold a BSc in mathematics and computer sciences and an MSc in environmental science and have achieved a proficient-teacher accreditation. I am a previous International Baccalaureate teacher with long experience and a big passion for teaching, and I also worked as a remote sensing specialist at ExxonMobil Research, Qatar. Tell us a little about your project. We developed a new monthly global latent heat flux product that includes spatio-temporal uncertainty estimates. To derive this product we applied a novel weighting method to combine six existing observationally based latent-heat products, and we constrained them with flux-tower observations. We will apply the same technique to derive each component of the budgets. What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? ARCCSS has given me the opportunity to pursue my research project and to access resources, workshops and training programs. It has provided me aid with my computational and data management needs and enabled me to publicise my research to a wider audience. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? My future research interests revolve around the global 70

carbon budget. My future plans also include working with experts to jointly develop a program for high schools that provides students with the skills and knowledge to carry out climate science research.

Jiawei Bao PhD student, UNSW (Image caption:] Extreme precipitation vs. water vapour in NARCliM simulations. Fractional changes in the 99.9th percentile precipitation for each model versus changes in near-surface water vapour (a) and column water vapour (b) between 2060-2079 and 1990-2009 in Australia. Solid lines correspond to identity lines. Who in ARCCSS are you working with? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m working with Prof Steven Sherwood and A/Prof Lisa Alexander. Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I graduated from Beijing Normal University in 2015 with a Master of Science. During my masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research, I did some work on evaluating CMIP-5 model simulations of precipitation and used CMIP-5 model output and the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) to simulate the future precipitation change. The previous work was mainly

about the statistics, but I really wanted to know the mechanisms causing the change.

What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? I’ve attended two winter schools and annual workshops. This gives me the chance to broaden my knowledge and know more about what other people are doing in the climate science community. The Centre of Excellence CMS team is extremely helpful, as my work involves a lot of modelling. The paper writing workshop is also very beneficial for improving my scientific writing. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? I hope to continue doing research, as there are so many interesting questions.

Elisabeth Vogel PhD student, University of Melbourne Who in ARCCSS are you working with? Markus Donat (UNSW), David Karoly (University of Melbourne) and Lisa Alexander (UNSW). Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I completed a degree in environmental engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, with specialisations in soil science and hydrology. For my final thesis, I worked with researchers at Lund University to investigate the role of soil respiration for the carbon balance of boreal forests. This project allowed me to combine numerical analyses of long-term carbon cycle measurements with field work in two forest sites in Sweden and to gain practical experience in data collection in the field. After my studies, I worked as a research assistant at PIK Potsdam before joining the Australian-German Climate & Energy College at the University of Melbourne. Tell us a little about your project. My project looks at the impacts of extreme climate events, such as heatwaves or droughts, on global agricultural yields, using statistical and machine learning methods. Such extreme events are predicted to become more frequent ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

4.5

350.0 300.0

4.0

250.0 200.0

3.5

150.0

3.0

100.0

Yield [t/ha]

FAO Food Price Index [-]

Tell us a little about your project. The aim of my PhD is to understand how extreme precipitation changes with temperature in a warmer climate. For the first part, by analysing observational and modelling data, I’ve resolved the inconsistencies in some previous literature about the observed rate of extreme precipitation change with temperature and found that extreme precipitation is projected to increase faster than theoretical rate (ClausiusClapeyron scaling) in Australia. For the second and third parts I’m trying to identify the possible mechanisms leading to the large increase in extreme precipitation, by doing some idealised simulations with the WRF model.

Wheat yield losses and global food price spikes

2.5

50.0 0.0

2.0

FAO Food Price Index

Europe Yield

Linear (Europe Yield)

and/or severe in a warming world and can lead to harvest failures and threaten the livelihoods of farmers worldwide. If we have a better understanding of the impacts of climate extremes on agriculture in the past, it may help us to prepare for such events in the future and increase the resilience of the food system. What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? With the support of the Centre of Excellence I was able to visit Markus and Lisa at UNSW and work directly with them on my research, which was incredibly helpful. The Centre winter schools, the writing workshop and the Intro to NCI workshop have all been really useful for my academic work. Last but not least, through the Centre I met a lot of other students and scientists from very diverse and interesting research areas. What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? I keep an open mind about what comes next, but I would be excited to continue researching climate impacts on agricultural or ecosystems and stay a while longer in Australia.

Christian Stassen PhD student, Monash University Who in ARCCSS are you working with? I am working with Dietmar Dommenget. Tell us a little about your background, how did you get here? I completed my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, with a major in meteorology. After graduating I received an email from Dietmar about scholarship opportunities in Australia at the ARCCSS and Monash University. After getting in touch with Dietmar via email we arranged a Skype meeting and had a chat about my work so far and possible topics for a PhD. Not long after he contacted me, I was encouraged to apply for a scholarship at Monash University. After a few months, I received an email of the successful outcome. When everything was set up to leave 71

Schematic of the physical processes considered in the GREB model.

my home country for at least three-and-a-half years I was looking forward to an exciting time in Melbourne and Monash University. Tell us a little about your project. My project is about understanding the simulation of the large-scale hydrological cycle, especially precipitation changes under global warming, using a simplified model approach. My interest is in why precipitation tends to increase in the equatorial Pacific and in high latitudes and tends to decrease in some climatologically dry regions. The model I am using is called GREB, and it also has a web-based version, called the Monash Simple Climate Model (MSCM) that is used in teaching. (See Figure 1 for a brief schematic of GREB.) What opportunities has the Centre of Excellence offered you? The Centre offered me many opportunities to attend national conferences and workshops, like the yearly AMOS conference or the yearly Centre workshops held in different locations. The best opportunity so far was a six-week shortterm placement at the UK Met Office. I got the chance to work with one of the best research facilities and researchers in Europe. Following the short-term placement I had the chance to attend the two-week Climate Modelling Summer School at Cambridge University, which gathered experts in climate science and PhD students from all over the world working with climate models. Apart from all the things I learned there I got the opportunity to meet people from all over the world.

What are your hopes/plans for after you graduate? After my graduation, I hope to stay in Australia and find a job in research or academia. I am planning on an internship with the Bureau of Meteorology, where again the Centre is helping me with getting contacts and with the application process.

PEARSE BUCHANAN Pearse has his future planned Pearse Buchanan has had an extraordinary year in 2017, winning a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. Remarkably, he already has the beginnings of his career mapped out after being offered a postdoctoral position at the University of Liverpool starting in 2019. As a leader among our students, Pearse has also been an important part of the running of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS). He was a member of the ARCCSS Annual Workshop committee and led the highly successful Early Career Researcher Day that followed that workshop. He also willingly shared his expertise with other PhD students. Most recently, working with coding-savvy students Ramkrushn Patel and Saurabh Rathore, he put together a coding resource that will help future students and researchers at the Centre of Excellence produce compelling visualisations of their work. His Fulbright Scholarship will take him to Princeton University, where he will work at the Sigman Lab with world-leading researchers on a project that investigates what changes in past oceans caused dramatic shifts in the marine nitrogen cycle, which is an important factor in greenhouse climate change The Fulbright Scholarship also led to media interviews with major newspapers and the ABC, which he handled with the professionalism of a veteran. As noted above, Pearse is in the exceptional position of already having a postdoctoral position at the conclusion of his PhD. He will take up the University of Liverpool position to work with Alessandro Tagliabue and Laurent Bopp from March 2019 to 2021. This research will focus on modelling the isotopic composition of Arctic ecosystem from 1950-2100, to quantify how food webs have changed and will change in the future. The team will also work with ecologists who have been collecting isotope data for the past 50 years.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS Highlights QQ 681 stories placed in media QQ Heatwave map developed by James Goldie attracted 110,638 hits QQ Twitter growth to 1696 followers QQ Facebook pages: ARCCSS, 1018 followers; Ask a Climate Scientist, 1535 followers QQ Centre newsletter subscriptions up to 437 QQ Website metrics: ARCCSS website had 84,159 hits and 39,625 unique visits Plastinography website had 140,814 hits and 29,033 unique visits Adrift website had 21,148 hits and 16,833 unique visits. The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) is now well established as a key contact for media seeking climate experts. Our media presence grew again this year as we placed 681 stories in Australia and around the world, with many of them again in the world’s leading media outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and every major media outlet in Australia. We continue to use The Conversation as an important outlet for producing articles to accompany research or as stand-alone think pieces. In 2017, we ran 23 articles in The Conversation, with one in three of these being syndicated to other media outlets. An article in The Conversation that stood out as much for its charm as its reach was written by Dr Paul Spence and colleague Dr Shane Keating to commemorate the 100th birthday of Walter Munk, a researcher who has been described as the Einstein of the oceans. The article was acknowledged by Walter Munk himself, who described it as a wonderful birthday present, and was reproduced in Time magazine. More importantly, in terms of the Centre, it highlighted how confident our early and mid-career researchers have become when it comes to communicating their science to a broad audience in an entirely new way. In fact, the idea of approaching climate in a more personal way almost became a theme of the year. Three ARCCSS researchers appeared on ABC’s Lateline to talk about their fears around climate change and how they have one eye on the future. It was a program that was discussed across a broad range of media for weeks afterwards — as much for its emotional as for its scientific content. 74

But perhaps the most personal of messages came from our researchers who were new mothers. Dr Sophie Lewis and Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick both wrote compelling personal pieces on their feelings about bringing children into a world likely to be affected by climate change. This led to wide-ranging discussions across social and mainstream media and a fascinating interview with both researchers on Radio National’s Life Matters program. It has also been fascinating to see how in 2017 our younger researchers are giving serious consideration to how to communicate their research in a way that captivates the public from the very beginning. Early in the year, Dr Ben Henley described the complex phenomenon of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation as “El Niño’s cranky uncle”, which gave it an immediate hook and allowed outlets like news.com. au, SBS and a range of niche environmental magazines to describe and discuss his complex findings. Dr Ryan Holmes and Dr Casimir de Lavergne also came up with a catchy phrase in a Nature paper that described how the oldest ocean water in the world formed deep below the Pacific Ocean. When they named that area the “shadow zone”, it immediately got traction that saw it reported around the world. A key series of papers that looked at how the world would be affected if we managed to meet the Paris targets of 1.5°C and 2°C was all very well reported and opened conversations around adaption and policy settings for Australia and globally. It was a case of our science informing public debate but without itself becoming pigeonholed as having a political aim. These were extremely practical media exercises, as they gave us opportunities to train and prepare our researchers for interviews in which they could discuss the science and avoid the politics. This is a tightrope that can be difficult to walk, but all did it successfully. Over the past year, we have also started exploring the value of creating interactive and multimedia assets to accompany our media releases. One of the highlights of the year was a simple global heatwave map developed by PhD student James Goldie to accompany a new piece of research by Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick. In a matter of weeks, more than 100,000 people had engaged with the map. Around 40,000 of these came from Australia after it was reproduced by Fairfax media, but there were large numbers of users from Norway, Hungary and Spain. We continued our multimedia explorations, with a video partnership between ARCCSS researchers, Dr Nerilie Abram and Ben Henley, and The Conversation. The video, “Why reducing carbon emissions matters – a little story about climate change”, looked at the relationship between carbon dioxide and global temperatures. It was a very clear explainer on the role of carbon dioxide and how it affects global temperature over time. To date it has been read by 72,997 people on the website, been shared on Facebook 11,649 times, tweeted 1222 times, shared on LinkedIn 311 times and has 242 comments below the article itself.

Clearly, creating interactive or multimedia assets with care can have large returns.

no longer are a part of the pattern, and we now see good activity on a daily basis.

Our regular newsletters have seen an increase in subscriptions during 2017, with 437 people now receiving each issue. Our opening rates are consistently over 50%, which is well above the average industry opening rate of 18.75%. Not surprisingly, the Director’s Report is inevitably the most wellread article in each newsletter.

Technical issues with Scorcher’s analytics means we are unable to give specific figures on the website, but we have had significant engagement with schools in New South Wales, suggesting it is getting considerable use as an education resource.

Our online presence Our primary website has maintained its performance, with 84,159 hits and 39,625 unique visits in 2017. While individual hits have fallen slightly, unique users have increased and time spent on the website has increased. Drilling down, one of the most intriguing details of the website has been where people have spent their time. After the home page itself, the most popular page has been the article, Ten tips to write an opinion piece people read, written by our Media & Communications Manager, Alvin Stone. On average, users spend up to 15 minutes on this page, and it is almost three times more popular than any other article on the website. Its popularity may explain some of the success that the Centre has had in getting articles into The Conversation. In 2017 we have increasingly focused on practical advice for researchers, and in late October we produced an online guide to designing academic posters. This was in response to the lack of quality design guides available elsewhere and the absence of any formal training sessions in poster design being offered at our university nodes. Two formal poster design sessions have been instituted since this time, to go with this guide. The poster guide has become the fourth-mostread article on the website since it was introduced. These are both examples of creating content that is useful and primed for return visits. While the results of our science research often leads to weekly spikes, we have found that sustained numbers and return visits are boosted by content that is broadly useful across a wide audience over time. Our three satellite websites, Adrift, Plastinography and Scorcher continue to be popular with the general public broadly and, in the case of Plastinography, with schools specifically. The Plastinography website had 140,814 hits and 29,033 unique visits. Visitors spend between one to two minutes on each of the five lessons, with around one in four visitors completing all the lessons. The Adrift website could only be monitored for six months in 2017. From the information that is available, it attracted around 72,000 visitors, who spent about three minutes on each page. When the page was first produced it tended to have periods of spikes followed by lulls, as it was often highlighted when there were ocean searches, stories about drifting plastic and other, similar events. As the site has become more established as a go-to destination, those lulls ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Our Facebook pages have seen consistent growth, with Ask A Climate Scientist and the ARCCSS Facebook page both adding around 200 followers over the past year. Twitter has also added around 200 followers.

The Media Communications Legacy As we move into the final year of the Centre of Excellence, it is clear that the most prominent communications legacy has been developing the early career researchers (ECRs) as spokespeople of the future. In the first year of the Centre, ECRs were involved in only three per cent of all media stories for the Centre. By 2014, as they grew in confidence and made use of the Media & Communications Manager, 48% of all media stories included an ECR. In 2017 that percentage has surged to 73%. These are the leaders and climate science communicators of the future. We have clearly established the Centre’s reputation and those of its researchers as the point of first call for many reporters across a wide range of outlets. Our website not only holds a record of ARCCSS research. Through its graduate, media and Computational Modelling Systems support pages it has left a range of guides and advisory articles that will be a permanent reference for scientists of all stripes long into the future. Working with CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and a range of other scientific partners, the Centre played a key role in preparing the media for the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The media effort in Australia was described by an IPCC executive as the most successful ever. It is not insignificant that since that time there has since been a generally positive shift in the way IPCC reports, and climate stories more broadly, are reported. Our media and communication activities have regularly included our Partner Organisations and other members of the climate research community, and we have been an important part of growing and strengthening the network of media professionals in climate science.

ANDREW KINGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LEADERSHIP LEGACY Dr Andrew King has become a prime example of the strength of the student program at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and how it builds the leaders of the future. Today he is a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, a leading science communicator and, in late 2017, was granted a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to continue his extremes research. Andrew joined the Centre of Excellence as a PhD student, where he researched extreme rainfall variability in Australia. Determining the influence of anthropogenic climate change on precipitation continues to be one of the great challenges of climate science, and his work was important in furthering this discipline, particularly as it related to Australia. During the final year of his PhD, Andrew also began to explore the role of climate change in heatwave events. As part of this research he explored ways that a climate change signal could be detected in heatwave events. This led to an important and well-publicised series of papers that showed not only that a climate change signal was detectable in current heat events but when it may have first emerged in different regions around the world. It was also around this time that Andrew decided to focus on developing his public communications skills, writing for The Conversation and working hard on his public speaking and interview techniques. Environment and science reporters across mainstream media outlets now regard him as a key expert in the areas of climate change and extreme events. He was also a regular and prolific columnist with The Conversation. As he moves into the next phase of his career, Andrew has returned to examining rainfall in Australia. His DECRA is specifically aimed at improving the predictability of extreme rainfall and how such rainfall events may alter with climate change across our continent. At the same time as his significant research legacy continues to grow, Andrew is also preparing the next rank of climate researchers by teaching and coordinating the first-year Wonders of the Weather course at Melbourne University.

PUBLICATIONS LIST BOOK

1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-0173861-0

Lewis, S.C., 2017a. A Changing Climate for Science, 1st ed. 2017 edition. ed. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY.

Azorin-Molina, C., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., McVicar, T.R., Revuelto, J., Jerez, S., López-Moreno, J.-I., 2017c. Assessing the impact of measurement time interval when calculating wind speed means and trends under the stilling phenomenon. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 480–492. https://doi.org/10.1002/ joc.4720

BOOK SECTIONS King, A., Donat, M.G., Hawkins, E., Karoly, D.J., 2017. Timing of anthropogenic emergence in climate extremes, in: Wang, S.-Y., Yoon, J.-H., Funk, C., Gillies, R.R. (Eds.), Climate Extremes: Patterns and Mechanisms. Wiley, UK, pp. 93–103. Lewis, S.C., Karoly, D.J., King, A.D., Perkins, S.E., Donat, M.G., 2017a. Mechanisms Explaining Recent Changes in Australian Climate Extremes, in: Wang, S.-Y.S., Yoon, J.-H., Funk, C.C., Gillies, R.R. (Eds.), Climate Extremes. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 249–263. Vincent, C.L., Trombe, P.-J., 2017. Forecasting intrahourly variability of wind generation, in: Kariniotakis, G. (Ed.), Renewable Energy Forecasting, Woodhead Publishing Series in Energy. Woodhead Publishing, pp. 219–233.

JOURNAL ARTICLES Abellán, E., McGregor, S., England, M.H., 2017. Analysis of the Southward Wind Shift of ENSO in CMIP5 Models. J. Climate 30, 2415–2435. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0326.1 Abhik, S., Krishna, R.P.M., Mahakur, M., Ganai, M., Mukhopadhyay, P., Dudhia, J., 2017. Revised cloud processes to improve the mean and intraseasonal variability of Indian summer monsoon in climate forecast system: Part 1. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 1002–1029. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016MS000819 Ahn, E., Huang, Y., Chubb, T.H., Baumgardner, D., Isaac, P., de Hoog, M., Siems, S.T., Manton, M.J., 2017. In situ observations of wintertime low-altitude clouds over the Southern Ocean. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc 143, 1381–1394. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3011 Alexander, L.V., Arblaster, J.M., 2017. Historical and projected trends in temperature and precipitation extremes in Australia in observations and CMIP5. Weather and Climate Extremes 15, 34–56. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.wace.2017.02.001 Azorin-Molina, C., Dunn, R.J.H., Mears, C.A., Berrisford, P., McVicar, R.T., 2017a. Global climate; Atmospheric circulation; Surface winds Surface winds [in “State of the Climate in 2016”]. Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, State of the Climate in 2016 8, S37–S39. Azorin-Molina, C., Menendez, M., McVicar, T.R., Acevedo, A., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Cuevas, E., Minola, L., Chen, D., 2017b. Wind speed variability over the Canary Islands, 1948–2014: focusing on trend differences at the land–ocean interface and below–above the trade-wind inversion layer. Clim Dyn

Badlan, R.L., Lane, T.P., Moncrieff, M.W., Jakob, C., 2017. Insights into convective momentum transport and its parametrisation from idealised simulations of organised convection. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc. 143, 2687–2702. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3118 Bador, M., Terray, L., Boé, J., Somot, S., Alias, A., Gibelin, A.-L., Brigitte Dubuisson, 2017. Future summer mega-heatwave and record-breaking temperatures in a warmer France climate. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 074025. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ aa751c Bagniewski, W., Meissner, K.J., Menviel, L., 2017. Exploring the oxygen isotope fingerprint of Dansgaard-Oeschger variability and Heinrich events. Quaternary Science Reviews 159, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. quascirev.2017.01.007 Bao, J., Sherwood, S.C., Alexander, L.V., Evans, J.P., 2017a. Future increases in extreme precipitation exceed observed scaling rates. Nature Clim. Change 7, 128–132. https:// doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3201 Bao, J., Sherwood, S.C., Colin, M., Dixit, V., 2017b. The Robust Relationship Between Extreme Precipitation and Convective Organization in Idealized Numerical Modeling Simulations. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 2291–2303. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017MS001125 Baringer, M., Smeed, D.A., Willis, J.K., Lankhorst, M., Hobbs, W.R., Dong, S., McCarthy, G., Rayner, D., Johns, W.E., Goni, G., Send, U., 2017. Meridional overturning and oceanic heat transport circulation observations in the North Atlantic Ocean [in “State of the Climate in 2016”]. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 98, S84–S87. https:// doi.org/10.1175/2017BAMSStateoftheClimate.1 Barthel, A., McC. Hogg, A., Waterman, S., Keating, S., 2017. Jet–Topography Interactions Affect Energy Pathways to the Deep Southern Ocean. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 1799–1816. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JPO-D-16-0220.1 Bergemann, M., Khouider, B., Jakob, C., 2017. Coastal Tropical Convection in a Stochastic Modeling Framework. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 2561–2582. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017MS001048 Brown, A.L., Vincent, C.L., Lane, T.P., Short, E., Nguyen, H., 2017. Scatterometer estimates of the tropical sea breeze circulation near Darwin, with comparison to regional models. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc. 143, 2818–2831. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3131

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Burrell, A.L., Evans, J.P., Liu, Y., 2017. Detecting dryland degradation using Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend analysis (TSS-RESTREND). Remote Sensing of Environment 197, 43–57. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.05.018 Cai, W., Wang, G., Santoso, A., Lin, X., Wu, L., 2017. Definition of Extreme El Niño and Its Impact on Projected Increase in Extreme El Niño Frequency. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL075635. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL075635 Cheung, A.H., Mann, M.E., Steinman, B.A., Frankcombe, L.M., England, M.H., Miller, S.K., 2017a. Comparison of Low-Frequency Internal Climate Variability in CMIP5 Models and Observations. J. Climate 30, 4763–4776. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0712.1 Cheung, A.H., Mann, M.E., Steinman, B.A., Frankcombe, L.M., England, M.H., Miller, S.K., 2017b. Reply to “Comment on ‘Comparison of Low-Frequency Internal Climate Variability in CMIP5 Models and Observations.’” J. Climate 30, 9773–9782. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0531.1 Chung, C.T.Y., Power, S.B., Santoso, A., Wang, G., 2017. Multiyear Variability in the Tasman Sea and Impacts on Southern Hemisphere Climate in CMIP5 Models. J. Climate 30, 4413–4427. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0862.1 Cooper, N., Green, D., Meissner, K.J., 2017. The Australian National Pollutant Inventory Fails to Fulfil Its Legislated Goals. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14, 478. https://doi. org/10.3390/ijerph14050478 Dätwyler, C., Neukom, R., Abram, N.J., Gallant, A.J.E., Grosjean, M., Jacques-Coper, M., Karoly, D.J., Villalba, R., 2017. Teleconnection stationarity, variability and trends of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) during the last millennium. Clim Dyn 1–19. https://doi. org/10.1007/s00382-017-4015-0 Davies, L., Reeder, M.J., Lane, T.P., 2017. A climatology of atmospheric pressure jumps over southeastern Australia. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc. 143, 439–449. https://doi.org/10.1002/ qj.2933 De Kauwe, M.G., Medlyn, B.E., Knauer, J., Williams, C.A., 2017. Ideas and perspectives: how coupled is the vegetation to the boundary layer? Biogeosciences 14, 4435–4453. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-144435-2017 de Lavergne, C., Madec, G., Roquet, F., Holmes, R.M., McDougall, T.J., 2017. Abyssal ocean overturning shaped by seafloor distribution. Nature 551, 181. https://doi. org/10.1038/nature24472 Decker, M., Ma, S., Pitman, A., 2017a. Local land–atmosphere feedbacks limit irrigation demand. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 054003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa65a6 Decker, M., Or, D., Pitman, A., Ukkola, A., 2017b. New turbulent resistance parameterization for soil evaporation based on a pore-scale model: Impact

on surface fluxes in CABLE. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 220–238. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016MS000832 Donat, M.G., Pitman, A.J., Seneviratne, S.I., 2017. Regional warming of hot extremes accelerated by surface energy fluxes. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL073733. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL073733 Donohue, R.J., Roderick, M.L., McVicar, T.R., Yang, Y., 2017. A simple hypothesis of how leaf and canopy-level transpiration and assimilation respond to elevated CO2 reveals distinct response patterns between disturbed and undisturbed vegetation. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 122, 2016JG003505. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JG003505 Downes, S.M., Langlais, C., Brook, J.P., Spence, P., 2017. Regional Impacts of the Westerly Winds on Southern Ocean Mode and Intermediate Water Subduction. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 2521–2530. https://doi. org/10.1175/JPO-D-17-0106.1 England, M.H., Hutchinson, D.K., Santoso, A., Sijp, W.P., 2017. Ice–Atmosphere Feedbacks Dominate the Response of the Climate System to Drake Passage Closure. J. Climate 30, 5775–5790. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JCLI-D-15-0554.1 Evans, C., Wood, K.M., Aberson, S.D., Archambault, H.M., Milrad, S.M., Bosart, L.F., Corbosiero, K.L., Davis, C.A., Dias Pinto, J.R., Doyle, J., Fogarty, C., Galarneau, T.J., Grams, C.M., Griffin, K.S., Gyakum, J., Hart, R.E., Kitabatake, N., Lentink, H.S., McTaggart-Cowan, R., Perrie, W., Quinting, J.F.D., Reynolds, C.A., Riemer, M., Ritchie, E.A., Sun, Y., Zhang, F., 2017. The Extratropical Transition of Tropical Cyclones. Part I: Cyclone Evolution and Direct Impacts. Mon. Wea. Rev. 145, 4317–4344. https://doi.org/10.1175/ MWR-D-17-0027.1 Evans, J.P., Meng, X., McCabe, M.F., 2017. Land surface albedo and vegetation feedbacks enhanced the millennium drought in south-east Australia. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 21, 409–422. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess21-409-2017 Fan, Y., Olson, R., Evans, J.P., 2017. A Bayesian posterior predictive framework for weighting ensemble regional climate models. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 2321–2332. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2321-2017 Fiddes, S., Timbal, B., 2017. Future impacts of climate change on streamflows across Victoria, Australia: making use of statistical downscaling. Climate Research 71, 219–236. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01447 Freund, M., Henley, B.J., Karoly, D.J., Allen, K.J., Baker, P.J., 2017. Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia’s major climatic regions. Clim. Past 13, 1751–1770. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp13-1751-2017 Furue, R., Guerrerio, K., Phillips, H.E., McCreary, J.P., Bindoff, N.L., 2017. On the Leeuwin Current System and its linkage to zonal flows in the South Indian Ocean as inferred from a gridded hydrography. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 583–602. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JPO-D-16-0170.1 Gergis, J., Henley, B.J., 2017. Southern Hemisphere rainfall variability over the past 200 years. Clim Dyn 48, 2087–2105. https://doi. org/10.1007/s00382-016-3191-7

Ghelani, R.P.S., Oliver, E.C.J., Holbrook, N.J., Wheeler, M.C., Klotzbach, P.J., 2017. Joint Modulation of Intraseasonal Rainfall in Tropical Australia by the Madden-Julian Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL075452. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075452 Gibson, A.H., Hogg, A.M., Kiss, A.E., Shakespeare, C.J., Adcroft, A., 2017. Attribution of horizontal and vertical contributions to spurious mixing in an Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian ocean model. Ocean Modelling 119, 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ocemod.2017.09.008 Gibson, P.B., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Alexander, L.V., Fischer, E.M., 2017a. Comparing Australian heat waves in the CMIP5 models through cluster analysis. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 122, 2016JD025878. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016JD025878 Gibson, P.B., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Uotila, P., Pepler, A.S., Alexander, L.V., 2017b. On the use of self-organizing maps for studying climate extremes. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 122, 2016JD026256. https://doi.org/10.1002/ 2016JD026256 Gibson, P.B., Pitman, A.J., Lorenz, R., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., 2017c. The Role of Circulation and Land Surface Conditions in Current and Future Australian Heat Waves. J. Climate 30, 9933–9948. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0265.1 Goldie, J., Alexander, L., Lewis, S.C., Sherwood, S., 2017. Comparative evaluation of human heat stress indices on selected hospital admissions in Sydney, Australia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 41, 381–387. https://doi. org/10.1111/1753-6405.12692 Graham, F.S., Wittenberg, A.T., Brown, J.N., Marsland, S.J., Holbrook, N.J., 2017. Understanding the double peaked El Niño in coupled GCMs. Clim Dyn 48, 2045–2063. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3189-1 Green, D., Pitman, A., Barnett, A., Kaldor, J., Doherty, P., Stanley, F., 2017a. Advancing Australia’s role in climate change and health research. Nature Clim. Change 7, 103–106. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3182 Green, D., Sullivan, M., Cooper, N., Dean, A., Marquez, C., 2017b. A Pilot Study of Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Mount Isa, Queensland. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14, 1567. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph14121567 Greenslade, J.W., Alexander, S.P., Schofield, R., Fisher, J.A., Klekociuk, A.K., 2017. Stratospheric ozone intrusion events and their impacts on tropospheric ozone. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 17, 10269–10290. https://doi. org/10.5194/acp-2016-1124 Greve, P., Roderick, M.L., Seneviratne, S.I., 2017. Simulated changes in aridity from the last glacial maximum to 4xCO 2. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 114021. https://doi. org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa89a3 Gross, M.H., Alexander, L.V., Macadam, I., Green, D., Evans, J.P., 2017. The representation of health-relevant heatwave characteristics in a Regional Climate Model ensemble for New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 1195–1210. https://doi.org/10.1002/

joc.4769 Harris, R.M.B., Kriticos, D.J., Remenyi, T., Bindoff, N., 2017. Unusual suspects in the usual places: a phylo-climatic framework to identify potential future invasive species. Biol Invasions 19, 577–596. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10530-016-1334-8 Henley, B.J., 2017. Pacific decadal climate variability: Indices, patterns and tropical-extratropical interactions. Global and Planetary Change 155, 42–55. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2017.06.004 Henley, B.J., King, A.D., 2017. Trajectories toward the 1.5°C Paris target: Modulation by the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 4256–4262. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL073480 Henley, B.J., Meehl, G., Power, S.B., Folland, C.K., King, A.D., Brown, J.N., Karoly, D.J., Delage, F., Gallant, A.J.E., Freund, M., Neukom, R., 2017. Spatial and temporal agreement in climate model simulations of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 044011. https://doi. org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5cc8 Herold, N., Alexander, L., Green, D., Donat, M., 2017a. Greater increases in temperature extremes in low versus high income countries. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 034007. https:// doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5c43 Herold, N., Behrangi, A., Alexander, L.V., 2017b. Large uncertainties in observed daily precipitation extremes over land. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 122, 2016JD025842. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025842 Hogg, A.M., Spence, P., Saenko, O.A., Downes, S.M., 2017. The energetics of Southern Ocean upwelling. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JPO-D-16-0176.1 Holgate, C.M., Dijk, A.I.J.M. van, Cary, G.J., Yebra, M., 2017. Using alternative soil moisture estimates in the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index. Int. J. Wildland Fire 26, 806–819. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF16217 Hope, P., Henley, B.J., Gergis, J., Brown, J., Ye, H., 2017. Time-varying spectral characteristics of ENSO over the Last Millennium. Clim Dyn 49, 1705–1727. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00382-016-3393-z Huang, Y., Chubb, T., Baumgardner, D., deHoog, M., Siems, S.T., Manton, M.J., 2017. Evidence for secondary ice production in Southern Ocean open cellular convection. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc. 143, 1685–1703. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3041 Jacobs, S.J., Gallant, A.J.E., Tapper, N.J., 2017. The Sensitivity of Urban Meteorology to Soil Moisture Boundary Conditions: A Case Study in Melbourne, Australia. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol. 56, 2155–2172. https://doi. org/10.1175/JAMC-D-17-0007.1 Jiang, N., Scorgie, Y., Hart, M., Riley, M.L., Crawford, J., Beggs, P.J., Edwards, G.C., Chang, L., Salter, D., Virgilio, G.D., 2017. Visualising the relationships between synoptic circulation type and air quality in Sydney, a subtropical coastal-basin environment. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 1211–1228. https://doi. org/10.1002/joc.4770 Jourdain, N.C., Mathiot, P., Merino, N., Durand, G., Le Sommer, J., Spence, P., Dutrieux, P., Madec, G., 2017. Ocean circulation and

sea-ice thinning induced by melting ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans 122, 2550–2573. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016JC012509 Jucker, M., Gerber, E.P., 2017. Untangling the Annual Cycle of the Tropical Tropopause Layer with an Idealized Moist Model. J. Climate 30, 7339–7358. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0127.1 Kajtar, J.B., Santoso, A., England, M.H., Cai, W., 2017a. Tropical climate variability: interactions across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. Clim Dyn 48, 2173–2190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3199-z Kajtar, J.B., Santoso, A., McGregor, S., England, M.H., Baillie, Z., 2017b. Model under-representation of decadal Pacific trade wind trends and its link to tropical Atlantic bias. Clim Dyn 1–14. https://doi. org/10.1007/s00382-017-3699-5 King, A.D., 2017. Attributing Changing Rates of Temperature Record Breaking to Anthropogenic Influences. Earth’s Future 5, 1156–1168. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017EF000611 King, A.D., Karoly, D., 2017. Climate extremes in Europe at 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 114031. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8e2c King, A.D., Karoly, D.J., Henley, B.J., 2017. Australian climate extremes at 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming. Nature Clim. Change 7, 412–416. https://doi.org/10.1038/ nclimate3296 King, M.J., Wheeler, M.C., Lane, T.P., 2017. Mechanisms Linking Global 5-Day Waves to Tropical Convection. J. Atmos. Sci. 74, 3679–3702. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JAS-D-17-0101.1 Kobashi, T., Menviel, L., Jeltsch-Thömmes, A., Vinther, B.M., Box, J.E., Muscheler, R., Nakaegawa, T., Pfister, P.L., Döring, M., Leuenberger, M., Wanner, H., Ohmura, A., 2017. Volcanic influence on centennial to millennial Holocene Greenland temperature change. Scientific Reports 7, 1441. https:// doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01451-7 Kornhuber, K., Petoukhov, V., Karoly, D., Petri, S., Rahmstorf, S., Coumou, D., 2017. Summertime Planetary Wave Resonance in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. J. Climate 30, 6133–6150. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0703.1 Koster, R.D., Betts, A.K., Dirmeyer, P.A., Bierkens, M., Bennett, K.E., Déry, S.J., Evans, J.P., Fu, R., Hernandez, F., Leung, L.R., Liang, X., Masood, M., Savenije, H., Wang, G., Yuan, X., 2017. Hydroclimatic variability and predictability: a survey of recent research. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 21, 3777–3798. https://doi. org/10.5194/hess-21-3777-2017 Kvale, K.F., Meissner, K.J., 2017. Primary production sensitivity to phytoplankton light attenuation parameter increases with transient forcing. Biogeosciences 14, 4767–4780. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-144767-2017 Labrousse, S., Sallée, J.-B., Fraser, A.D., Massom, R.A., Reid, P., Hobbs, W., Guinet, C., Harcourt, R., McMahon, C., Authier, M., Bailleul, F., Hindell, M.A., Charrassin, J.-B., 2017. Variability in sea ice cover and climate elicit sex specific responses in an Antarctic pred-

ator. Scientific Reports 7, 43236. https://doi. org/10.1038/srep43236 Lewis, S., 2017. Extreme climate change: Damage and responsibility. AQ - Australian Quarterly 88, 3–8. Lewis, S.C., 2017b. Assessing the Stationarity of Australian Precipitation Extremes in Forced and Unforced CMIP5 Simulations. J. Climate 31, 131–145. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0393.1 Lewis, S.C., 2017c. Mitigating the Risks of Rapid Event Attribution in the Gray Literature. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 98, 2065–2072. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0320.1 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119068020. ch15 Lewis, S.C., King, A.D., 2017. Evolution of mean, variance and extremes in 21st century temperatures. Weather and Climate Extremes 15, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. wace.2016.11.002 Lewis, S.C., King, A.D., Mitchell, D.M., 2017b. Australia’s Unprecedented Future Temperature Extremes Under Paris Limits to Warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2017GL074612. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074612 Li, J., Evans, J., Johnson, F., Sharma, A., 2017. A comparison of methods for estimating climate change impact on design rainfall using a high-resolution RCM. Journal of Hydrology 547, 413–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jhydrol.2017.02.019 Li, J., Johnson, F., Evans, J., Sharma, A., 2017. A comparison of methods to estimate future sub-daily design rainfall. Advances in Water Resources 110, 215–227. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.020 Li, Y., Jourdain, N.C., Taschetto, A.S., Gupta, A.S., Argüeso, D., Masson, S., Cai, W., 2017. Resolution dependence of the simulated precipitation and diurnal cycle over the Maritime Continent. Clim Dyn 48, 4009– 4028. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-0163317-y Li, Y., Liu, D.L., Schwenke, G., Wang, B., Macadam, I., Wang, W., Li, G., Dalal, R.C., 2017. Responses of nitrous oxide emissions from crop rotation systems to four projected future climate change scenarios on a black Vertosol in subtropical Australia. Climatic Change 142, 545–558. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10584-017-1973-5 Lipson, M.J., Hart, M.A., Thatcher, M., 2017. Efficiently modelling urban heat storage: an interface conduction scheme in an urban land surface model (aTEB v2.0). Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 991–1007. https://doi. org/10.5194/gmd-10-991-2017 Loughran, T.F., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Alexander, L.V., 2017a. Understanding the spatio-temporal influence of climate variability on Australian heatwaves. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 3963–3975. https://doi.org/10.1002/ joc.4971 Loughran, T.F., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Alexander, L.V., Pitman, A.J., 2017b. No significant difference between Australian heat wave impacts of Modoki and eastern Pacific El Niño. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL073231. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL073231 Ma, S., Goldstein, M., Pitman, A.J., Haghdadi, N., MacGill, I., 2017. Pricing the urban

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

cooling benefits of solar panel deployment in Sydney, Australia. Scientific Reports 7, 43938. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43938 Ma, S., Pitman, A., Hart, M., Evans, J.P., Haghdadi, N., MacGill, I., 2017. The impact of an urban canopy and anthropogenic heat fluxes on Sydney’s climate. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5001 Marotzke, J., Jakob, C., Bony, S., Dirmeyer, P.A., O’Gorman, P.A., Hawkins, E., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S., Quéré, C.L., Nowicki, S., Paulavets, K., Seneviratne, S.I., Stevens, B., Tuma, M., 2017. Climate research must sharpen its view. Nature Clim. Change 7, 89– 91. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3206 Mashayek, A., Salehipour, H., Bouffard, D., Caulfield, C.P., Ferrari, R., Nikurashin, M., Peltier, W.R., Smyth, W.D., 2017. Efficiency of turbulent mixing in the abyssal ocean circulation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2016GL072452. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016GL072452 McCrindle, J., Green, D., Sullivan, M., 2017. The Association between Environmental Lead Exposure and High School Educational Outcomes in Four Communities in New South Wales, Australia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14, 1395. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph14111395 McGregor, S., Sen Gupta, A., Dommenget, D., Lee, T., McPhaden, M.J., Kessler, W.S., 2017. Factors influencing the skill of synthesized satellite wind products in the tropical Pacific. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans 122, 1072–1089. https://doi.org/10.1002/ 2016JC012340 Meissner, K.J., Bralower, T.J., 2017. Palaeoclimate: Volcanism caused ancient global warming. Nature 548, 531. https://doi. org/10.1038/548531a Menviel, L., Yu, J., Joos, F., Mouchet, A., Meissner, K.J., England, M.H., 2017. Poorly ventilated deep ocean at the Last Glacial Maximum inferred from carbon isotopes: A data-model comparison study. Paleoceanography 32, 2016PA003024. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016PA003024 Michael, P.E., Thomson, R., Barbraud, C., Delord, K., De Grissac, S., Hobday, A.J., Strutton, P.G., Tuck, G.N., Weimerskirch, H., Wilcox, C., 2017a. Illegal fishing bycatch overshadows climate as a driver of albatross population decline. Marine Ecology Progress Series 579, 185–199. https://doi.org/10.3354/ meps12248 Michael, P.E., Wilcox, C., Tuck, G.N., Hobday, A.J., Strutton, P.G., 2017b. Japanese and Taiwanese pelagic longline fleet dynamics and the impacts of climate change in the southern Indian Ocean. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, Future of oceanic animals in a changing ocean 140, 242–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. dsr2.2016.12.003 Moreau, S., Penna, A.D., Llort, J., Patel, R., Langlais, C., Boyd, P.W., Matear, R.J., Phillips, H.E., Trull, T.W., Tilbrook, B., Lenton, A., Strutton, P.G., 2017. Eddy-induced carbon transport across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 31, 1368–1386. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GB005669 Morgenstern, O., Hegglin, M.I., Rozanov,

E., O’Connor, F.M., Abraham, N.L., Akiyoshi, H., Archibald, A.T., Bekki, S., Butchart, N., Chipperfield, M.P., Deushi, M., Dhomse, S.S., Garcia, R.R., Hardiman, S.C., Horowitz, L.W., Jöckel, P., Josse, B., Kinnison, D., Lin, M., Mancini, E., Manyin, M.E., Marchand, M., Marécal, V., Michou, M., Oman, L.D., Pitari, G., Plummer, D.A., Revell, L.E., Saint-Martin, D., Schofield, R., Stenke, A., Stone, K., Sudo, K., Tanaka, T.Y., Tilmes, S., Yamashita, Y., Yoshida, K., Zeng, G., 2017. Review of the global models used within phase 1 of the Chemistry–Climate Model Initiative (CCMI). Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 639–671. https://doi. org/10.5194/gmd-10-639-2017 Mu, X., Hu, R., Zeng, Y., McVicar, T.R., Ren, H., Song, W., Wang, Y., Casa, R., Qi, J., Xie, D., Yan, G., 2017. Estimating structural parameters of agricultural crops from groundbased multi-angular digital images with a fractional model of sun and shade components. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 246, 162–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. agrformet.2017.06.009 Narsey, S., Reeder, M.J., Ackerley, D., Jakob, C., 2017. A Midlatitude Influence on Australian Monsoon Bursts. J. Climate 30, 5377–5393. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0686.1 Naughten, K.A., Galton-Fenzi, B.K., Meissner, K.J., England, M.H., Brassington, G.B., Colberg, F., Hattermann, T., Debernard, J.B., 2017. Spurious sea ice formation caused by oscillatory ocean tracer advection schemes. Ocean Modelling 116, 108–117. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2017.06.010 Niemeyer, D., Kemena, T.P., Meissner, K.J., Oschlies, A., 2017. A model study of warming-induced phosphorus–oxygen feedbacks in open-ocean oxygen minimum zones on millennial timescales. Earth Syst. Dynam. 8, 357–367. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8357-2017 Oliver, E.C.J., Benthuysen, J.A., Bindoff, N.L., Hobday, A.J., Holbrook, N.J., Mundy, C.N., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., 2017. The unprecedented 2015/16 Tasman Sea marine heatwave. Nature Communications 8, 16101. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16101 PAGES2K Consortium, 2017. A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era. Scientific Data 4, 170088. https://doi.org/10.1038/ sdata.2017.88 Pepler, A.S., Alexander, L.V., Evans, J.P., Sherwood, S.C., 2017a. The influence of topography on midlatitude cyclones on Australia’s east coast. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 122, 2017JD027345. https://doi.org/10.1002/ 2017JD027345 Pepler, A.S., Fong, J., Alexander, L.V., 2017b. Australian east coast mid-latitude cyclones in the 20th Century Reanalysis ensemble. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 2187–2192. https://doi. org/10.1002/joc.4812 Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S.E., Gibson, P.B., 2017. Changes in regional heatwave characteristics as a function of increasing global temperature. Scientific Reports 7, 12256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-125202 Perry, S.J., McGregor, S., Gupta, A.S., England, M.H., 2017. Future Changes to El Niño–Southern Oscillation Temperature and

Precipitation Teleconnections. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL074509. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL074509 Peters, K., Crueger, T., Jakob, C., Möbis, B., 2017. Improved MJO-simulation in ECHAM6.3 by coupling a Stochastic Multicloud Model to the convection scheme. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 193–219. https:// doi.org/10.1002/2016MS000809 Power, S., Saurral, R., Chung, C., Colman, R., Kharin, V., Boer, G., Gergis, J., Henley, B., Mcgregor, S., Arblaster, J., Holbrook, N., Liguori, G., 2017. Towards the prediction of multi-year to decadal climate variability in the Southern Hemisphere. Past Global Changes Magazine 25, 32–40. https://doi. org/10.22498/pages.25.1.32 Quinting, J.F., Reeder, M.J., 2017. Southeastern Australian Heat Waves from a Trajectory Viewpoint. Mon. Wea. Rev. 145, 4109–4125. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-17-0165.1 Ramsay, H., 2017. The Global Climatology of Tropical Cyclones. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.79 Ramsay, H.A., Richman, M.B., Leslie, L.M., 2017. The Modulating Influence of Indian Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures on Australian Region Seasonal Tropical Cyclone Counts. J. Climate 30, 4843–4856. https:// doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0631.1

co-occurrence of marine heatwaves and cold-spells. Progress in Oceanography 151, 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. pocean.2017.01.004 Schroeter, S., Hobbs, W., Bindoff, N.L., 2017. Interactions between Antarctic sea ice and large-scale atmospheric modes in CMIP5 models. The Cryosphere 11, 789–803. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-789-2017 Shakespeare, C.J., Hogg, A.M., 2017a. Spontaneous Surface Generation and Interior Amplification of Internal Waves in a Regional-Scale Ocean Model. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 811–826. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JPO-D-16-0188.1 Shakespeare, C.J., Hogg, A.M., 2017b. The viscous lee wave problem and its implications for ocean modelling. Ocean Modelling 113, 22–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ocemod.2017.03.006 Spence, P., Holmes, R.M., Hogg, A.M., Griffies, S.M., Stewart, K.D., England, M.H., 2017. Localized rapid warming of West Antarctic subsurface waters by remote winds. Nature Clim. Change advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3335 Stewart, A.L., Hogg, A.M., 2017. Reshaping the Antarctic Circumpolar Current via Antarctic Bottom Water export. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 2577–2601. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JPO-D-17-0007.1

Raut, B.A., Reeder, M.J., Jakob, C., 2017. Trends in CMIP5 Rainfall Patterns over Southwestern Australia. J. Climate 30, 1779–1788. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0584.1

Stewart, K.D., Haine, T.W.N., McC. Hogg, A., Roquet, F., 2017a. On Cabbeling and Thermobaricity in the Surface Mixed Layer. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 47, 1775–1787. https://doi. org/10.1175/JPO-D-17-0025.1

Reuter, M., Buchwitz, M., Hilker, M., Heymann, J., Bovensmann, H., Burrows, J.P., Houweling, S., Liu, Y.Y., Nassar, R., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Marshall, J., Reichstein, M., 2017. How Much CO2 Is Taken Up by the European Terrestrial Biosphere? Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 98, 665–671. https://doi.org/10.1175/ BAMS-D-15-00310.1

Stewart, K.D., Hogg, A.M., Griffies, S.M., Heerdegen, A.P., Ward, M.L., Spence, P., England, M.H., 2017b. Vertical resolution of baroclinic modes in global ocean models. Ocean Modelling 113, 50–65. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2017.03.012

Rocheta, E., Evans, J.P., Sharma, A., 2017. Can Bias Correction of Regional Climate Model Lateral Boundary Conditions Improve Low-Frequency Rainfall Variability? J. Climate 30, 9785–9806. https://doi. org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0654.1 Santer, B.D., Fyfe, J.C., Pallotta, G., Flato, G.M., Meehl, G.A., England, M.H., Hawkins, E., Mann, M.E., Painter, J.F., Bonfils, C., Cvijanovic, I., Mears, C., Wentz, F.J., Po-Chedley, S., Fu, Q., Zou, C.-Z., 2017. Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates. Nature Geosci 10, 478–485. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2973 Sarmadi, F., Huang, Y., Siems, S.T., Manton, M.J., 2017. Characteristics of Wintertime Daily Precipitation over the Australian Snowy Mountains. J. Hydrometeor. 18, 2849–2867. https://doi.org/10.1175/ JHM-D-17-0072.1 Saunders, K., Stephenson, A.G., Taylor, P.G., Karoly, D., 2017. The spatial distribution of rainfall extremes and the influence of El Niño Southern Oscillation. Weather and Climate Extremes 18, 17–28. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.wace.2017.10.001 Schlegel, R.W., Oliver, E.C.J., Wernberg, T., Smit, A.J., 2017. Nearshore and offshore

Stoney, L., Walsh, K., Babanin, A., Ghantous, M., Govekar, P., Young, I., 2017. Simulated ocean response to tropical cyclones: The effect of a novel parameterization of mixing from unbroken surface waves. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 759–780. https://doi. org/10.1002/2016MS000878 Stott, P.A., Karoly, D.J., Zwiers, F.W., 2017. Is the choice of statistical paradigm critical in extreme event attribution studies? Climatic Change 144, 143–150. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10584-017-2049-2 Tan, J., Oreopoulos, L., Jakob, C., Jin, D., 2017. Evaluating rainfall errors in global climate models through cloud regimes. Clim Dyn 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382017-3806-7 Tian, F., Brandt, M., Liu, Y.Y., Rasmussen, K., Fensholt, R., 2017. Mapping gains and losses in woody vegetation across global tropical drylands. Glob Change Biol 23, 1748–1760. https://doi.org/10.1111/ gcb.13464 Timbal, B., Fiddes, S., Brown, J.R., 2017. Understanding south-east Australian rainfall projection uncertainties: the influence of patterns of projected tropical warming. Int. J. Climatol 37, 921–939. https://doi. org/10.1002/joc.5047 Trancoso, R., Larsen, J.R., McVicar, T.R., Phinn,

S.R., McAlpine, C.A., 2017a. CO2-vegetation feedbacks and other climate changes implicated in reducing base flow. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL072759. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017GL072759 Trancoso, R., Phinn, S., McVicar, T.R., Larsen, J.R., McAlpine, C.A., 2017b. Regional variation in streamflow drivers across a continental climatic gradient. Ecohydrol. 10, n/a-n/a. https:// doi.org/10.1002/eco.1816 Ukkola, A.M., Haughton, N., De Kauwe, M.G., Abramowitz, G., Pitman, A.J., 2017. FluxnetLSM R package (v1.0): a community tool for processing FLUXNET data for use in land surface modelling. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 3379–3390. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3379-2017 Vincent, C.L., Lane, T.P., 2017. A 10-Year Austral Summer Climatology of Observed and Modeled Intraseasonal, Mesoscale, and Diurnal Variations over the Maritime Continent. J. Climate 30, 3807–3828. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0688.1 Wahiduzzaman, M., Oliver, E.C.J., Wotherspoon, S.J., Holbrook, N.J., 2017. A climatological model of North Indian Ocean tropical cyclone genesis, tracks and landfall. Clim Dyn 49, 2585–2603. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3461-4 Walsh, K., Govekar, P., Babanin, A.V., Ghantous, M., Spence, P., Scoccimarro, E., 2017. The effect on simulated ocean climate of a parameterization of unbroken wave-induced mixing incorporated into the k-epsilon mixing scheme. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 9, 735–758. https:// doi.org/10.1002/2016MS000707 Wang, G., Cai, W., Gan, B., Wu, L., Santoso, A., Lin, X., Chen, Z., McPhaden, M.J., 2017a. Continued increase of extreme El Niño frequency long after 1.5 °C warming stabilization. Nature Climate Change 7, 568. https://doi. org/10.1038/nclimate3351 Wang, G., Cai, W., Santoso, A., 2017b. Assessing the Impact of Model Biases on the Projected Increase in Frequency of Extreme Positive Indian Ocean Dipole Events. J. Climate 30, 2757–2767. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0509.1

de Perez, E., Ray, A.J., Murray, V., Bharwani, S., MacLeod, D., James, R., Fleming, L., Morse, A.P., Eggen, B., Graham, R., Kjellström, E., Becker, E., Pegion, K.V., Holbrook, N.J., McEvoy, D., Depledge, M., Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S., Brown, T.J., Street, R., Jones, L., Remenyi, T.A., Hodgson-Johnston, I., Buontempo, C., Lamb, R., Meinke, H., Arheimer, B., Zebiak, S.E., 2017. Potential applications of subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) predictions. Met. Apps 24, 315–325. https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1654 Whitley, R., Beringer, J., Hutley, L.B., Abramowitz, G., De Kauwe, M.G., Evans, B., Haverd, V., Li, L., Moore, C., Ryu, Y., Scheiter, S., Schymanski, S.J., Smith, B., Wang, Y.-P., Williams, M., Yu, Q., 2017. Challenges and opportunities in land surface modelling of savanna ecosystems. Biogeosciences 14, 4711–4732. https://doi. org/10.5194/bg-14-4711-2017 Wolf, S., Yin, D., Roderick, M.L., 2017. Using radiative signatures to diagnose the cause of warming during the 2013–2014 Californian drought. Journal of Hydrology 553, 408–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.07.015 Yang, Y., McVicar, T.R., Donohue, R.J., Zhang, Y., Roderick, M.L., Chiew, F.H.S., Zhang, L., Zhang, J., 2017. Lags in hydrologic recovery following an extreme drought: Assessing the roles of climate and catchment characteristics. Water Resour. Res. 53, 4821–4837. https://doi. org/10.1002/2017WR020683 Yim, B.Y., Yeh, S.-W., Song, H.-J., Dommenget, D., Sohn, B.J., 2017. Land-sea thermal contrast determines the trend of Walker circulation simulated in atmospheric general circulation models. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 5854–5862. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL073778 Yue, R.P.H., Lee, H.F., Hart, M.A., 2017. Perceptions of visibility degradation in Hong Kong. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 60, 1073–1091. https://doi.org/10.1080/0 9640568.2016.1197826

Wang, Y., Zhang, Y., Chiew, F.H.S., McVicar, T.R., Zhang, L., Li, H., Qin, G., 2017. Contrasting runoff trends between dry and wet parts of eastern Tibetan Plateau. Scientific Reports 7, 15458. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15678-x Warren, R.A., Richter, H., Ramsay, H.A., Siems, S.T., Manton, M.J., 2017. Impact of variations in upper-level shear on simulated supercells. Mon. Wea. Rev. 145, 2659–2681. https://doi. org/10.1175/MWR-D-16-0412.1 Wartenburger, R., Hirschi, M., Donat, M.G., Greve, P., Pitman, A.J., Seneviratne, S.I., 2017. Changes in regional climate extremes as a function of global mean temperature: an interactive plotting framework. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 3609–3634. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-103609-2017 Weller, E., Jakob, C., Reeder, M.J., 2017a. Projected Response of Low-Level Convergence and Associated Precipitation to Greenhouse Warming. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 2017GL075489. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075489 Weller, E., Shelton, K., Reeder, M.J., Jakob, C., 2017b. Precipitation Associated with Convergence Lines. J. Climate 30, 3169–3183. https:// doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0535.1 White, C.J., Carlsen, H., Robertson, A.W., Klein, R.J.T., Lazo, J.K., Kumar, A., Vitart, F., Coughlan ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

PRIZES, OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT Prizes, Awards, Elections and Citations Alexander, L. 2017/18 WMO Commission for Climatology Outstanding Service Award Ashcroft, L. Australian Academy of Sciences 2018 Moran Award for History of Science Research - joint winner Bony, S. Gérard Mégie Prize by the French Academy of Sciences Donat, M. WCRP/GCOS International Data Prize 2017. Ellis, B. ANU Three Minute Thesis Competition - second runner-up England, M. Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica for 2017 Griffies, S. Nominated Fellow of the American Geophysical Union Jacobs, S. Best Student Poster at the 2017 AMOS conference Jakob, C. Named as a Fellow of AMOS Kala, J. Murdoch University Research Award Maher, N. 2017 AMOS Uwe Radok Award for the best PhD thesis in the fields of meteorology, oceanography, glaciology or climatology McDougall, T. NSW Premier’s Prize for Excellence in Mathematics, Earth Sciences and Statistics Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S. ARC Future Fellowship recipient Ryan, R. Rotary Global Sustainability Award scholarship Sen Gupta, A. 2017 AAS Frederick White Prize Taschetto, A. ARC Future Fellowship recipient

Government and Industry Engagement Dommenget, D. Meeting with the Melbourne Museum for potential collaborations on a climate change exhibition England, M. Climate change science briefing to Greens senators - Australian Parliament House 82

England, M. Meeting with Patrick Suckling, Australian Ambassador for the Environment England, M. KPMG climate change briefing

journalists Steffen, W. Briefing on climate change science to four members of the ACT Legislative Assembly

Hart, M. and Di Virgilio, G. Submission to the NSW government, the Clean Air for NSW consultation

Public Talks and Community Engagement

Karoly, D. Meetings with UNESCO World Heritage Committee Secretariat and several committee delegates on climate change and the Great Barrier Reef, arranged by EarthJustice and Environmental Justice Australia

Abram, N. Climate science talk for Melrose High School Year 9 ACE science program.

Karoly, D. Meeting of Lead Authors and Scientific Steering Committee, WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2018 Lewis, S. Delivered seminar to ACT Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainability

Abram, N. Panel member for European Union climate diplomacy week film screening (“Thirty-million”) Blanche, B. Volunteer assisting science communicators and presenters deliver their presentations and interactive activities at the the Festival of Bright Ideas (FoBI, Hobart TAS)

Pitman, A. Submission to Senate Enquiry on Implications of Climate Change on Australia’s Security

Colin, M. UNSW Open Day: Experiments for potential future students

Pitman, A. Expert advice towards report of the NSW Energy Security Taskforce (http://www. chiefscientist.nsw.gov.au/reports/ nsw-energy-security-taskforce/ initial-report)

Colin, M. Preschool visit to conduct experiments on oceans and climate

Pitman, A. Walkley Foundation for Journalism meeting with eight Korean journalists Pitman, A. Briefed the board of Suncorp with talk on “Climate Science and the pace of change” and took part in Q&A session Pitman, A. High-Performance Computing Governance Review Pitman, A. Australian Prudential Regulation Authority - Climate Risk Pitman, A. Reserve Bank of Australia Climate Risk

Dommenget, D. Collaboration with German school project on climate with the DKRZ in Hamburg, Germany Dommenget, D. High school project on climate modelling with the Monash Simple Climate model, with students from Penleigh and Essendon Grammar Schools Dommenget, D. Lecture and discussion at Oakleigh High School on climate change Ellis, B. Shirty Science and Co: Lab Science Meets Street Art events during National Science Week

Pitman, A. NESP advisory board meeting

England, M. 1st French-Australian Conversations: Speech on “Paris Agreement and climate change” at the French-Australian Conversation event sponsored by The Conversation, UNSW and the Embassy of France in Australia, with France’s then Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Jean-Marc Ayrault

Sherwood, S. Walkley Foundation for Journalism meeting with eight Korean

England, M. Hosted UNSW Grand Challenge Lecture by Michael Molitor,

Pitman, A. Helped rewrite Extension Science curriculum for NESA (http:// educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/ portal/nesa/11-12/Understanding-thecurriculum/curriculum-development/ senior-years/science-extension)

“Sending Bill Gates to Mars”

change policies (or lack of them)”

England, M. UNSW New College formal dinner Grand Challenge, Climate change: science, implications, and action

Karoly, D. Participated in panel event at Oxford Martin School (Oxford University), on “Climate Policy: The world needs to prepare for a risky future”, with Janos Pasztor and Baroness Worthington

England, M. “Academic media engagement on political hot potatoes” at Michael Crouch Innovation Centre, UNSW England, M. Launched the UNSW Grand Challenge on Climate Change Blueprints on Energy, Health and Justice, Leighton Hall, UNSW Henley, B. Invited talk and panel discussion on “Humanitarian impacts of climate change” at Woodford Folk Festival, QLD Hobbs, W. Presented at the Hobart Pint of Science event Jakob, C. Presentation on climate change to the Sustainability Victoria Teacher’s Breakfast for Resource-Smart Schools Jakob, C. Teacher training course on climate for the Gippsland Region, held at Morwell Primary School Jakob, C. Training day on climate, climate change and climate models for VCE teachers in environmental science, Earth Ed Centre, Ballarat, Victoria Jakob, C. Seven lectures and one public talk at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, India Jucker, M. Six Minutes with a Scientist event at the University of Melbourne — a career advice event for students Jucker, M. Q&A showcase for prospective students at the University of Melbourne Open Day Jucker, M. Presentation about our research, to Year 10 students Karoly, D. Presented talk to community group in Ipsden, titled “Values and choices: our environment and climate change” Karoly, D. Presented talk to Oxford ANZ Society titled “Australian climate

Karoly, D. Panel presentation, AYCC Powershift 2017, “Everything you wanted to know about climate change and its impacts” Karoly, D. Panel presentation, Uni. Melbourne, “Trump and international development” Karoly, D. Panellist, ACMD, St Vincent’s Hospital, “Opinion vs fact: Will the demise of quality news kill science?” Karoly, D. Talk, St Kevin’s College Melbourne, “Climate change: why you should be interested in it” Karoly, D. Talk to Shepparton U3A, “Climate change in the Goulburn Valley: Where are we now and where are we heading?” Karoly, D. Talk to community group Cooking for a Better Future, Shepparton, “Climate change and food” Lewis, S. Presented to the SAGE gender equity Tom Welton tour, CSIRO, Black Mountain

by Lung Health Research Centre, University of Melbourne, and Environmental Justice. Schroeter, B. Ran a stall for IMAS/ AGP at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for a community day of public science outreach. Steffen, W. U3A talk in Canberra, “The Anthropocene: the age of humans” Steffen, W. Talk on climate change to Engineers Australia symposium, Canberra Steffen, W. Annual meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm Steffen, W. Lecture on “Climate change and The Anthropocene”, a Climate and Law Initiative event (audience was finance sector) Steffen, W. Series of lectures on climate change and The Anthropocene, organised by Vector Ltd NZ; lectures in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington Steffen, W. Lecture on climate change and security; National Security Summit, Canberra Steffen, W. Keynote lecture on climate change and forests; IUFRO, Freiburg, Germany

Lewis, S. Delivered talk to 350.org

Stone, A. Guest speaker at Keep Australia Beautiful’s Young Reporters for the Environment Awards

Lewis, S. Delivered talk in Haig Park Master Plan Expert Speaker Series on climate change and Canberra

Vogel, E. R-Ladies seminar, Random Forests, Climate Change and Food Production

Pitman, A. Goyder Water Forum dinner and invited presentation, “Pushing the boundaries of climate science”

Steffen, W. Engineering course, University of Queensland

Roderick, M. Fireside chat with residents of Ursula College (residential college at ANU) about climate change Schofield, R. Presented at St Catherine’s school in Toorak at their science assembly Schofield, R. Presentation at National Air Pollution Standards and Lung Health workshop, organised by

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Editor Roles Abram, N. Chief Editor, Climate of the Past Alexander, L. Member, Editorial Board, Weather and Climate Extremes Evans, J. Associate Editor, Journal of Climate Hogg, A. Editor, Geophysical Research Letters 83

Jakob, C. Associate Editor, Journal of Climate

extreme weather Events (EUPHEME) project

Henley, B. Victorian Government (DELWP) Research Advisory Committee

Karoly, D. Chief Editor, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal

Lane, T. American Meteorological Society Committee on Mesoscale Processes

Karoly, D. Climate Change Authority to 30 June 2017

Lane, T. Editor of Monthly Weather Review

Lane, T. Council of the International Forum of Meteorological Societies

Lewis, S. Inaugural Editor, Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth System Science

Lane, T. WMOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Monsoon Panel Expert Team on Severe Monsoon Weather

Pitman, A. Associate Editor, International Journal of Climatology Saenko, O. Editor, Journal of Climate Santoso, A. Associate Editor, Journal of Climate Sherwood, S. Editor, Environmental Research Letters

International Committee Memberships Alexander, L. GEWEX Scientific Steering Group Arblaster, J. Author, Chapter 5, 2018 WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment on Ozone Depletion Bindoff, N. CLIVAR Science Steering Group, 2014-2017 Bindoff, N. Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund Committee for Earth Science Panel, 2014-2017 Jakob, C. Attended WCRP JSC meeting and reported on the WCRP Model Advisory Council Jakob, C. Chaired the 6th Session of the WCRP Modelling Advisory Council, Reading, UK Jakob, C. Scientific Steering Committee of the Numerical Weather Prediction Centre of the Chinese Meteorological Agency Karoly, D. External Advisory Board, European Climate and Weather Events: Interpretation and Attribution (EUCLEIA) project Karoly, D. Scientific Steering Committee, WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2018 Karoly, D. External Advisory Board, European Prototype demonstrator for the Harmonisation and Evaluation of Methodologies for attribution of 84

Meissner, K. PAGES Past Global Change Parry, M. Local Organizing Committee for the 29th Annual Conference for the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology (2017) Parry, M. Steering Committee for the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Student and New Researchers Network (SNRN). Appointed in early March 2016 for a 3 year term (approximately) Santoso, A. CLIVAR Pacific Panel Schofield, R. Elected to the International Ozone Commission Sherwood, S. Steering Committee of the WCRP Grand Challenge on Clouds, Circulation and Climate Strutton, P. Steering Committee for the Tropical Pacific Observing System 2020 (tpos2020.org). Also Chair of the TPOS2020 Biogeochemistry Task Team

Karoly, D. Board, Tipping Point Australia Karoly, D. Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists Lane, T. Advisory Board, Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science Lane, T. AMOS Conference & Events Working Group Lane, T. National Councillor and immediate past President of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Lane, T. Advisory Board, Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science Phillips, H. Elected Chair of the Tasmanian Regional Centre of AMOS Pitman, A. National Committee for Earth System Science Pitman, A. Monash Foundation Scholarships Pitman, A. National council, AMOS Schofield, R. Appointed to the Executive Committee of the Melbourne Energy Institute

Walsh, K. WMO Expert Team on Climate Impacts on Tropical Cyclones

Schofield, R. Chair of AMOS Expert Group on Atmospheric and Oceanic Composition

Australian Committee Memberships

Sen Gupta, A. National Committee for Earth System Science

Abram, N. National Committee for Earth System Science Arblaster, J. National Climate Science Advisory Committee Arblaster, J. National Committee for Earth System Science Fiddes, S. Secretary, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Goldie, J. AMOS ACT Committee Green, D. Expert advisory panel for the Climate and Health Alliance Hart, M. Chair - AMOS Equity and Diversity Committee

Sherwood, S. Australian Academy of Science meeting (invited as external member) Strutton, P. Co-lead of Bluewater and Climate Node of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Integrated Marine Observing System

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS The table below shows the Centre’s progress against its key performance targets (KPTs) for calendar year 2017. Key Result Area

Performance Measure Number of research outputs Journal papers Book chapters

Target 2017

Reporting Frequency Annually

Peer reviewed conference proceedings

Research findings

156

1 2

Quality of research (defined as percent of the journal publications in top tier journals)

Annually

80%

89%

Number of invited talks/papers/keynote lectures given at major international meetings

Annually

Annually Media releases

Articles

Print: 136 Radio: 122 Online: 334 TV: 89

Number and nature of commentaries about the Centre’s achievements (list media releases and articles separately)

Citation data for publications

At review

250

171 citations to-date of 2017 publications >3000 citations in 2017 of 20112017 publications

Number of attended professional training courses for staff and postgraduate students

Annually

Number of Centre attendees at all professional training courses

Annually

100

223

Number of new postgraduate students working on core Centre research and supervised by Centre staff (include PhD, Masters by research and Masters by coursework). Note we do not plan a Masters by Coursework program. Research training and professional education

Notes

Achieved 2017

Annually Masters by coursework Masters by Research PhD

Number of new postdoctoral researchers recruited to the Centre working on core Centre research

Annually

Number of new Honours students working on core Centre research and supervised by Centre staff

Annually

Number of postgraduate completions and completion times, by students working on core Centre research and supervised by Centre staff

Annually

Honours: 5 Masters: 2 PhD: 10 Total: 17

Completion time

(PhD average, in years)

Number of Early Career Researchers (within five years of completing PhD) working on core Centre research

Annually

Number of students mentored

Annually

Honours:6 Masters:8 PhD:83

Number of mentoring programs (this is an integrated program, split into subprograms on the basis of student need)

Annually

Annually International, national and regional links and Number of national and international Annual workshops held/organised by the Centre networks Number of visits to overseas Annually laboratories and facilities

Number of international visitors and visiting fellows (significant visits – excludes visits of less than a week).

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

3.75

3.79

Key Result Area

Performance Measure

Reporting Frequency

Target 2017

Notes

Achieved 2017

International, national and Examples of relevant interdisciplinary regional links and research supported by the Centre networks (cont)

Annually

Number of government, industry and business community briefings

Annually

Number and nature of public awareness Annually programs

>50 (content updated at least weekly)

End-user links

Currency of information on the Centre’s website (we expect a weekly update of the Web site in year 1, standardizing to a fortnightly update in subsequent years)

Annually

Number of website hits

Annually

10,000

Unique visits: 39,625 Website hits: 84,159

Number of public talks given by Centre staff

Annually

Annual Cash and In-kind contributions from Collaborating Organisations

See Financial Statements on page xx $3m

$11,878,660

$100,000

$1,467,142

$200,000

$3,394,459

Nil

$9,001

1.8 (Used) 2.5 (Available)

90%

99%

ARC grants Other research income secured by Centre staff (list research income from Other Australian Competitive Grants ARC grants, other Australian competitive Other Commonwealth, State and grants, grants from the public sector, Local Government Grants industry and CRCs and other research income separately). Industry/Private Sector Grants Organisational support

Number of new organisations collaborating with, or involved in, the Centre Level and quality of infrastructure provided to the Centre (note the Centre already includes all organizations with significant capacity. We do anticipate new capacity emerging, but we will be advised by the Board on the strategic advantage of partnering with new organisations. We are therefore setting these measures to reflect new significant partnerships).

Governance

Annually Supercomputing time at NCI (million hours) On-line storage to serve models, tools and data (Petabytes) Key software system availability (Evo, Subversion, NCL) (percentage availability)

Breadth, balance and experience of the members of the Advisory Committee

At review

See Page 12 for details of the Board membership

Frequency, attendance and value added by Advisory Committee meetings

At review

The board met in November 2017 with a final meeting scheduled for February 2018.

Vision and usefulness of the Centre strategic plan

At review

The Centre strategic plan was approved by the Board. It is reviewed annually. This document informs Centre direction and priorities.

The adequacy of the Centre’s performance measure targets

At review At review

Effectiveness of the Centre in bringing researchers together to form an interactive and effective research team

Cross-institutional meetings per year

>50 via videoconference

PhD students mentored by staff of more than one institution

PhD students spending time at nonenrolled institution

Research Fellows spending time at non-enrolled institution

The Board assesses performance against targets. These measures will be reviewed annually.

Key Result Area

Governance (cont)

Performance Measure

Capacity building of the Centre through scale and outcomes

Reporting Frequency

Target 2017

Recruitment and training of staff

Recruitment and training of students

International linkages

Establishment of national leadership through workshops and conferences Annually Contribution to the National Research Priorities and the National Innovation Priorities

Notes

Achieved 2017

Journal articles relevant to NIPs

156

Projects relevant to NIPs (assumes NIPs does not change and “projects” are of a significant scale beyond the capacity of an individual researcher)

PhDs relevant to NIPs

Development/updating of significant data sets of national significance

Development/updating of significant modelling tools of national significance

At review

National benefit Measures of expansion of Australia’s capability in the priority area(s)

ADDITITIONAL ARCCSS TARGETS Review/Synthesis papers, reports, book chapters etc. Number of Cross-institutional publications (percentage of journal papers produced by the centre - the increasing percentage reflects growing connectivity of Centre Research) Number of invited talks/papers/keynote lectures given at major international meetings

Demonstrated contribution of Centre participants to the 5th Assessment report of the IPCC

Establishment and delivery of a virtual graduate program

National Benefit

Annual

70%

72%

At Review

Research Findings

Research Training and Professional Education

Annual

Lectures delivered virtually to multiinstitutions Winter School in support of virtual graduate program Number of PhD students involved in cross-institutional activities (highlights that new PhD students will be primarily cross-institutional from Year 1)

Engagement via Convening lead authors, lead authors and review editors

Contributions via use of Centre research (e.g. via analyses, publications, tools etc.)

Talks, briefings etc. on IPCC 5th Assessment Report

At Review

80%

76%

New/refined/enhanced software modules for the climate models Annual developed and served to the community. New/Refined/updated software tools for data analysis developed and served to the community

Annual

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

Key Result Area

Performance Measure Shared climate-modelling system available to the community.

National Benefit (cont)

International, national and regional links and networks

Reporting Frequency

Target 2017

Notes

Achieved 2017

At Review

Modules available to the community via Annual shared-modelling systems

New/refined/updated data sets served to Annual the community

Effectiveness of the Centre as the University Sector's leading contributor to the National Framework for Climate Science

At Review

Acknowledged contributions to the National Framework for Climate Science (measured via Centre board and/or Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency)

Number of visits by overseas researchers to Centre [in person months] Number of Centre staff involved in leadership positions in major international committees/science programs

Annually

n/a

Footnotes 1. We have not focussed on conference proceedings. There will be occasional major conferences that generate proceedings that we will contribute to, but we do not intend this to be a major priority 2. For this metric we define ‘quality journals’ as those rated in the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) top 10% of journals 3. The majority of new students commencing in 2017 were affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes given that this was the final year of ARCCSS operations. 4. We have been continually developing our graduate program through the leadership of the Graduate Director. This program encapsulates an annual calendar of science and computational workshops, professional development and leadership days, social activities, cross node-meetings and supervision and the launch of mentoring circles 5. This is difficult to quantify. The vast majority of the Centre’s research crosses our five research programs which themselves each combine discrete disciplines. Therefore, our research is by nature inter-disciplinary 6. We have established a strong media profile, a very strong scientific awareness program and we are also very visible to federal and state governments. We continue to bring these strands together into a fully integrated public awareness program

7. Sum includes CE17 funding awarded to CIs who are involved in both ARCCS and CLEX 8. This target was set unrealistically high for the latter years of the Centre’s operations as we are not seeking to, nor able to continue to grow staff numbers at this stage of the Centre lifecycle 9. This number includes our overseas partner institutions as well as labs where ARCCSS staff and students made substantial visits to during 2017 10. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report was just getting under way in 2017 and roles of authors, review editors, etc were still being determined. At least two chief investigators have confirmed commitments to AR6. Work is yet to commence in earnest on the compilation of AR6. 11. The National Framework for Climate Science has been suspended. We have received advice, via our board, from the Department of Environment that the Centre should seek approval to update this KPI after a new national framework emerges.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT Executive Summary

2017 Income

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) formally commenced operations on 1 July 2011. The Centre’s financial affairs are conducted within the established procedures, controls and delegations of the relevant universities, and as set out by the Australian Research Council (ARC). This statement provides an analysis of the income and expenditure of the Centre of Excellence.

Cash income totalled $4,861,609 from all sources. The Centre derived its income from the ARC, the Department of the Environment and Energy and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), participating universities and Partner Organisations.

In 2017, the ARCCSS received $4,861,609 (100.2%) income compared to the full year budget of $4,847,591. In terms of the Centre’s expenditure, $5,608,971 (96%) was spent compared to the full year budget of $5,842,029.

1: Australian Research Council Funding

In 2017, personnel accounted for the highest proportion of expenditure of $4,036,879 (72%), followed by travel and annual workshop expenditure of $861,960 (15%). Overall, the Centre’s cash balance in 2017 is -$747,819 and the life-todate cash balance is $4,247,806.

Financial Management and Performance Quarterly financial reporting monitors institutional income and expenditure against the Centre-wide budget. The Centre’s Finance and Resource Officer prepares consolidated financial statements for review by the Director. The Centrewide finances are discussed at Centre Executive meetings and financial statements are tabled at Centre Board meetings. The Centre meets its reporting requirements to the ARC by submitting the annual Centre Outputs and Detailed Income and Expenditure (CODIE) report. The Centre also meets all other reporting obligations set by Partner Organisations that provide financial support.

Income is summarised by source in detail in the tables that follow.

The Centre received indexed income from the ARC of $3,557,349. This was distributed to the institutions in accordance with the inter-institutional agreement and was used for payroll, scholarships, consumables, equipment, materials, maintenance and travel.

2: Government Funding 2.1 Department of the Environment and Energy The Department of the Environment and Energy initially committed $100,000 per annum for the first two years of the Centre’s operations. This support was subsequently renewed until 2016. No funding was received in 2017. 2.2 The NSW Science Leveraging Fund (SLF) Funding is provided to the Centre via a Science Leveraging Fund grant of $500,000 that was received in 2011 and 2012. No funding was received in 2017. 2.3 NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) With the efforts of the OEH and ARCCSS combined, the NSW Government will ensure a significant enhancement of efforts towards climate system science research specifically relevant to NSW, whilst maintaining strong and coordinated links with the Commonwealth Government. No funding was received in 2017.

3: Collaborating Organisation Funding Cash contributions to the Centre of Excellence from the Administering Organisation and the Collaborating Organisations amounted to $1,304,260, as follows: $541,943 UNSW $126,207 ANU $119,305 University of Melbourne $213,684 University of Tasmania $303,121 Monash University

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

4: In-kind Contributions

2017 Expenditure

In-kind support totalled $3,902,206 in 2017. The Centre is grateful for $2,749,459 of in-kind contributions, provided by the Administering Organisation and the Collaborating Organisations. The contributions are primarily personnel related, and consist of the apportioned salary, on-costs and burdens of faculty members and other university staff members who contribute towards the Centre. Partner Organisations provided additional in-kind contributions of $1,152,746. Again, this was mainly personnel time.

In 2017 the Centre expended $5,608,971 analysed below:

Organisation

In Kind Budget

In Kind Actual

ANU

176,384

195,456

Bureau of Meteorology

183,488

CSIRO

194,129

164,908

Dept. of the Environment and Energy

50,000

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

15,000

Hadley Centre/ Meteorological Office

36,496

37,495

LMD/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

5,700

403,583

419,104

NASA-Goddard Space Flight Centre

24,498

National Centre for Atmospheric Research

36,975

28,932

National Centre for Atmospheric Science

17,000

526,925

Monash University

National Computational Infrastructure OEH

80,000

U.Tasmania

186,635

224,644

U.Melbourne

746,135

899,957

University of Arizona

18,800

UNSW

742,713

1,010,298

TOTAL

2,917,536

3,902,206

2017 Leverage The Centre’s 2017 cash income of $4,861,609 and in-kind support of $3,902,206 total $8,763,815, with ARC funding accounting for $3,557,349 of the total income. The Centre’s leverage of $5,206,466 equates to $1.46 of external funding and in-kind contributions for each $1.00 received from the ARC.

Equipment Costs

$42,058

6.07%

Materials and Maintenance (IT)

$2,718

0.05%

Consumables and Events

$325,683

5.81%

This amount included computer software, repairs and maintenance, student fees, consumables, internal printing, consulting, entertainment, marketing, utilities, office supplies and the cost of producing the annual report. Personnel (including on-costs) $4,036,879 71.97% Scholarships $340,445 6.07% Travel and Workshop Costs $861,960 15.37% Other -$774 -0.01%

2017 Income Vs Expenditure Income and Expenditure is based on cash and is derived from the institutions’ general ledgers. The Collaborating Organisations certify income and expenditure by formally acquitting all grants as at 31 December 2017. The Centre’s cash expenditure of $5,608,971 was above income of $4,861,609 by $747,362. The Centre will carry over a balance deficit of $747,362 to 2018. The carry-over by institution is as follows: UNSW $75,589 deficit ANU $12,140 surplus University of Melbourne $150,233 deficit University of Tasmania $65,872 deficit Monash University $467,819 deficit In summary, as at 31 December 2017, the financial position for the life of the ARCCSS after its seventh year of operation is as follows: Total Cash Income $34,790,894 Total Expenditure $30,543,088 Surplus carried forward to 2018 $4,247,806

ARCCSS Cash Income & Expenditure Actual Income

2011

2012

2013

Forecast

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

TOTAL

Australian Research CouncilCentre of Excellence

3,148,827

3,269,977 3,395,785 3,498,407 3,446,192 3,504,777

3,557,349

University Cash Contributions

1,130,663

1,112,401 1,184,630 1,471,982 1,314,779 1,352,850

1,304,260

62,000

8,933,565

2,098,014

4,947,925 4,630,019 4,907,037 5,246,182 5,156,805 5,041,317 4,861,609

62,000

34,852,894

Others

Total Income

Expenditure Australian Research CouncilCentre of Excellence

668,435

2011

247,640

2012

326,622

2013

275,793

2014

395,834

2015

183,690

2016

23,821,314

2017

2018

TOTAL

1,001,021 2,937,425 3,467,685 3,341,937 2,829,815 3,560,360 4,120,494

2,562,578

23,821,312

3,264,216

2,344,474

18,687,286

People Cost

687,853

Scholarship

85,360

65,288

103,828

125,074

203,998

113,276

130,106

45,844

872,773

227,808

569,799

708,381

679,659

553,557

623,615

726,173

172,260

4,261,253

386,246

900,842 1,028,158 1,218,817 1,270,553 1,145,354 1,327,626

859,552

8,137,149

People Cost

177,012

491,072

617,472

490,280

514,013

601,509

633,516

354,128

3,879,003

Scholarship

116,532

166,196

144,892

460,088

245,459

243,969

223,030

250,246

1,850,411

92,702

243,574

265,794

268,449

511,081

299,876

471,080

255,179

2,407,735

Others (exclude special projects)

31,729

202,171

227,502

488,089

664,141

232,269

160,852

91,261

2,098,014

People Cost

30,586

177,745

213,652

482,660

623,262

214,855

139,147

91,261

1,973,168

Scholarships

34,618

3,800

42,218

1,143

24,426

13,851

5,429

6,261

13,614

17,904

82,628

1,418,996 4,040,438 4,723,346 5,048,843 4,764,510 4,937,984 5,608,972

3,513,391

34,056,476

Non-People Cost

University Cash Contributions

Non-People Cost

Total Expenses

2,302,338 2,655,473 2,537,203 2,072,260 2,823,470

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

2017 Cash Income & Expenditure 1. 2017 Cash Income

Monash Uni

FY Budget

% Variance

3,000,000

50,000

557,349

ANU

U. Mel

U.Tas

1,072,514

415,383

419,383

677,337

402,349

35,000

CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

Department of Environment (formerly known as DIICCSRTE)

Department of Trade Investment and Regional Infrastructure and Services

Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence indexation distribution

NSW Office of Environment and Heritage University Cash Contributions Other (including Interest Distribution) Total

2. 2017 Cash Expenditure

UNSW

(Year-To-Date Dec 2017)

Total A$

541,943

126,207

119,305

213,684

303,121

1,304,260

1,290,242

100%

2,016,806

576,590

569,688

668,067 1,030,458

4,861,609

4,847,591

ANU

U. Mel

U.Tas

FY Budget

% Variance

UNSW

Monash Uni

Total A$

Leased/Hired Equipment

Materials & Maintenance (IT and lab)

2,718

18,500

85%

1,353,295

424,024

574,899

456,219 1,228,442

4,036,879

4,371,550

Consumables & Events

203,764

19,593

16,117

19,089

67,121

325,683

164,300

-98%

Purchased Equipment

19,422

4,869

11,263

6,505

42,058

20,000

-110%

181,981

10,767

18,976

106,684

22,037

340,445

437,136

22%

154,218

29,697

49,958

55,718

72,501

362,092

445,958

19%

125,454

36,075

29,794

58,902

65,795

316,019

221,000

-43%

24,272

8,220

169

5,761

5,878

20,027

42,000

52%

Travel - Visitor travel to the Centre

32,887

37,840

12,938

4,005

28,767

116,437

48,500

-140%

Travel - Visits to nodes (Dir, COO, CIs)

10,782

1,071

2,262

1,800

1,011

16,925

37,000

54%

2,372

515

3,082

219

6,188

19,000

67%

Other

818

-1,592

-774

17,086

105%

Total

2,092,394

564,450

719,911

733,939 1,498,277

5,608,971

5,842,029

ANU

U. Mel

U.Tas

FY Budget

% Variance

Personnel

Scholarship Shared Equipment/Facilities Travel - Conferences and workshops (Dir, COO, CIs) Travel - Conferences and workshops (Postdocs and students) Travel - New staff relocation expenses Travel - Regular meetings of Centre staff

Travel - Visits to nodes (Postdocs and students)

3. Summary 2017 Income Vs. Expenditure / Carry Over

UNSW

Monash Uni

Total A$

Total Income

2,016,806

576,590

569,688

668,067 1,030,458

4,861,609

4,847,591

Total Expenditure

2,092,394

564,450

719,911

733,939 1,498,277

5,608,971

5,842,029

Income less Expenditure

-75,589

12,140

-150,223

-65,872

-467,819

-747,362

-994,438

25%

Carry over to 2017 surplus / (deficit)

-75,589

12,140 -150,223

-65,872

-467,819

-747,362

-994,438

25%

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE SYSTEM SCIENCE REPORT 2017

2017 Cash Income & Expenditure

(Year-To-Date Dec 2017)

AFFILIATED PROJECTS 1. 2013-2017 Cash Income

UNSW

LTD Budget

% Variance

CSIRO

625,909

Total

625,909

UNSW

LTD Budget

% Variance

6,610

567,230

5,238

31,614

Travel - Conferences and workshops (Postdocs and students)

Travel - New staff relocation expenses

Travel - Regular meetings of Centre staff

Travel - Visitor travel to the Centre

Travel - Visits to nodes (Dir, COO, CIs)

Travel - Visits to nodes (Postdocs and students)

Other

Total

610,692

UNSW

LTD Budget

% Variance

Total Income

625,909

Total Expenditure

610,692

Income less Expenditure

15,217

Carry over to 2018 surplus / (deficit)

15,217

2. 2013-2017 Cash Expenditure Purchased Equipment & Maintenance Personnel Consumables & Events Travel - Conferences and workshops (Dir, COO, CIs)

3. Summary 2013-2017 Income Vs. Expenditure / Carry Over

Summary Cash Income/Expenditure LifeTo-Date (2017 Affiliated Projects) In summary, as at 31 December 2017, the financial position for the life of the ARCCSS Affiliated Projects after its seventh year of operation is as follows: Total Cash Income

$625,909

Total Expenditure $610,692 Surplus carried forward to 2018

$15,217