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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Convective organisation refers to convective systems that cover a larger area and last longer than an individual convective cell. Tropical extreme rain is closely related to convective organisation, but it is unclear how it influences extreme rainfall and […]
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The nation’s pre-eminent science agency has cast doubt on the environmental benefits claimed under the Morrison government’s main climate policy, raising concerns Australia is overstating its contribution to the fight against global warming. Despite concerns over the scheme, […]
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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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Another summer, another drought. Sydney’s water storages are running on empty, and desalinisation plants are being dusted off. Elsewhere, shrunken rivers, lakes and dams are swollen with rotting fish. Governments, irrigators and environmentalists blame each other for the drought, or just blame […]
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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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‘If you think this is bad,’ say locals of recent mass fish kills, ‘just wait until the Menindee Lakes project goes ahead’ On the banks of the Darling, near Menindee, two grown men are fighting back tears. It’s […]
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Sydney households will have up to $35 added to their annual water bills to cover the restart of the city’s desalination plant, the Berejiklian government says. On Tuesday, Sydney and Wollongong’s dams were 60.3 per cent full, marginally […]
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Water bird numbers at the world famous Menindee Lakes, near the site of this year’s massive fish kill, are in long-term decline, amid an ongoing failure to manage water levels to match weather fluctuations, leading ecologist Richard Kingsford […]
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“Nice hydrographs! Can you now compare your model to ‘that other hydrology groups model’?” The phd student suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Her supervisor is asking her to go back into code-hell. That other model is […]
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The deaths of a million of fish in the lower Darling River system over the past few weeks should come as no surprise. Quite apart from specific warnings given to the NSW government by their own specialists in […]
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A million fish have died in the Murray Darling basin, as oxygen levels plummet due to major algal blooms. Experts have warned we could see more mass deaths this week. Fingers have been pointed at poor water management […]
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A New South Wales government agency says it is in uncharted territory regarding management of the state’s water supply because of the drought. Water New South Wales said in previous years it had relied on modelling from past […]
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The widespread deaths of fish in the Darling River – with more predicted to come – has raised serious questions about the allocation of water between agriculture and the environment. Water-hungry crops like cotton and rice are also […]
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NSW National Parks staff are preparing to rally outside NSW parliament over job losses in the parks service The quality of Sydney’s water supply could be put at risk by a decision to axe a specialist team of […]
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The droughts of past decades have burnt the term El Nino into the Australian vocabulary, but after the drought of 2018, perhaps the IOD — short for Indian Ocean Dipole — might also become a household name. A […]
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There have been positive changes to Australian water management in past decades, but new challenges have emerged that require a refreshed national water reform agenda. This was one of the main themes of the 2018 Peter Cullen Lecture, […]
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The CSIRO has found serious flaws in Adani’s key water management plan to protect an ancient springs complex near its proposed Carmichael coal mine, threatening to further delay the controversial project. The ABC can reveal Australia’s peak scientific […]
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Opponents of plan to dump waste from coal seam gas mining celebrate court decision Controversial plans to dump up to 15m tonnes of salt and other waste near a creek in drought-stricken Queensland have hit an unexpected roadblock […]
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A controversial coal mine planned for the Southern Highlands has hit a major hurdle with the government finding groundwater effects “would be the most significant for any mining project that has ever been assessed in NSW”. The damning […]
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