In predicting the trajectory of future climate, water and ecosystems, we can no longer ignore the many ways in which human feedbacks modify our natural systems. The 5th national OzEWEX workshop explored how well we understand stores and […]
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As the planet warms, subtropical regions of the Southern Hemisphere, including parts of southern Australia and southern Africa, are drying. These trends include major drought events such as Cape Town’s “Day Zero” in 2018. Climate projections suggest this […]
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The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant and most consequential climate variation on the planet. Answering the question of how ENSO may change under greenhouse warming has been plagued for decades by a persistent lack of inter-model […]
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New research in Nature Climate Change suggests droughts may not increase as a result of climate change. This finding resulted from researchers investigating an apparent climate model contradiction that saw climate change projections of the 21st Century produce […]
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Water is essential for life. It shapes where and how we live, determines the availability of food and other services that underpin human well-being and is crucial for healthy natural ecosystems. Yet in Australia and globally the water […]
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It has been well established that rising temperatures are increasing precipitation extremes. It is natural to hence assume that the risk of flooding will also increase. However, contrary to this popular belief most published literature finds more evidence […]
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Australia is facing more severe floods and droughts as rainfall patterns diminish over the past three decades, a new report has warned. Co-author Professor Will Steffen from the Climate Council said the report shows an intensification of drought and […]
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Two years ago we were celebrating just about the best year for farmers ever. Now many farmers – particularly in New South Wales and southern Queensland – are in the grip of drought. It underlines just how variable […]
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It’s not about more money for farmers. It’s about long-term settings for a changing climate – and taking the politics out of it Central to the Australian meaning of drought is the idea of a rainfall deficiency, a […]
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Australia’s rainfall events are already becoming more intense with climate change, raising the risks of flashflooding and potentially exceeding the nation’s engineering codes, a new study finds. While it’s long been understood the atmosphere holds about 6.5 per […]
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Currently, flood risk management practitioners in Australia mostly use event-based models (simulating a single flood event in isolation) as opposed to continuous models (simulating runoff dynamically over time). However, there is a commonly held belief in the hydrology […]
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New data recording the past 1,500 years of flows in the Brisbane River have revealed that South-East Queensland’s climate – once assumed to be largely stable – is in fact highly variable. Until now, we have only had access to […]
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Australia is a continent defined by extremes, and recent decades have seen some extraordinary climate events. But droughts, floods, heatwaves, and fires have battered Australia for millennia. Are recent extreme events really worse than those in the past? […]
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The Coalition government’s ag leaders are putting climate change and sustainability on the agenda, but don’t expect new policies like emissions trading just yet – the solutions will be industry-led. Today Federal Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water […]
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Australia is a continent of extremes and has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Yet we know little about its past climate. Our new study uses tree rings, corals, ice cores and cave sediments from […]
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Sustainable and equitable water resources systems require managers to understand the pressures and changes affecting our catchments at a range of time scales and spatial scales. Managers need to balance the competing needs of agriculture, towns, the environment […]
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In an opinion piece in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, University of Wollongong researcher Dr Sarah Hamylton writes about the emotional challenges facing environmental scientists as the effects of climate change become more obvious and more widespread. She urges more scientists […]
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In recent years, scientists have successfully identified the human fingerprint on hot years, heatwaves, and a range of other temperature extremes around the world. But as everyone knows, climate change affects more than just temperature. The “signal” of human-induced climate […]
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Drought in the Murray River doesn’t just affect the river itself – it also affects the ecosystems that live in the ocean beyond. In a study published in Marine and Freshwater Research today, we found that the very low […]
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Remember the movie “Moneyball”? The Oakland A’s are struggling, financially and on the baseball field. Then they introduce an innovative system for figuring out which players will improve team performance. Moving away from observations by scouts, the A’s begin […]
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