CLEX, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

The Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX) is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council. The Centre is an international research consortium of five Australian universities and a network of outstanding national and international partner organizations.

The Centre will improve our understanding of the processes that trigger or enhance extremes and build this understanding into our modelling systems. The improved predictions of climate extremes will enable improvements in how Australia copes with extremes now and in the future.

Breaking news

Research brief: Categorising and naming marine heatwaves

At the start of 2011 an unprecedented heatwave off the coast of western Australia warmed waters 2-4oC above normal for almost three months. This marine heatwave (MHW) led to mass...
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Research brief: Redesigning the Tropical Pacific Observing System

El Niño and La Niña events, collectively referred to as ENSO, occurring in the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system trigger changes in the atmosphere and ocean circulation...
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PhD Opportunity: Unravelling the role of lags and legacies in explaining the response of grasslands to elevated CO2

The rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stimulates plant growth; however, in grassland ecosystems, the observed growth responses are highly variable and often depart...
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Research brief: Changes to weather features of atmospheric conversion lines drive future changes to rainfall

Future changes in precipitation have been shown to have contributions from both thermodynamic and dynamic processes. Although the thermodynamic part is reasonably well understood...
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Research briefs

Research brief: Redesigning the Tropical Pacific Observing System

El Niño and La Niña events, collectively referred to as ENSO, occurring in the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system trigger changes in the atmosphere and ocean circulation...
Read more

Research brief: Why record-breaking droughts had very different impacts on Amazon forests

In 2005, the Amazon experienced a once-in-a-century drought. Five years later, in 2010, it was struck by a worse drought, with even lower rainfall occurring in the...
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Research brief: Global warming to transform Australia’s temperate marine ecosystems

Deep ocean reefs are likely to transform with global warming bringing together species from temperate and tropical waters that may have never coexisted before. This was the...
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Research brief: Influence of the Madden-Julian oscillation on Costa Rican mid-summer drought timing

The Central American mid‐summer drought (MSD) is the decline of precipitation during the middle of the wet season (July and August) over Central America and southern Mexico,...
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CLEX Research programs

Extreme rainfall

Drought

Heatwaves and cold air outbreaks

Climate variability and teleconnections