Undergraduate scholarships

ANU01: Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation

Anthropogenic climate change has been most clearly observed in the world’s midlatitude regions. The limited number of observations for the Southern Hemisphere has prevented the development of a long-term understanding of these changes. This project aims to fill this critical gap by examining daily changes in Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation back to 1830. To do this, the project will build on recently recovered daily instrumental weather observations for southern Australia.

ANU02: Fire Weather in Southeast Australia

The passage of weather fronts over southeast Australia during the spring and summer increases the risk of dangerous fire weather. This project will carry out an analysis of observational data to determine a method for characterising when fronts have passed through southeast Australia.

UNSW01: response of the marine carbon cycle to a gradual increase in atmospheric carbon

In this project the student will work with model output from Earth System Models participating in the sixth round of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to assess how a gradual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide impacts carbon uptake and storage in the global ocean.

UNSW02: impact of carbon dioxide removal on the marine carbon cycle

The student will work with climate model output from Earth System Models participating in the sixth round of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to assess how a gradual decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide impacts carbon uptake and storage in the global ocean. Together with a partner project this project will test the reversibility of carbon emissions in terms of the marine system.

UNSW03: Quantifying Urban Climate Injustice in australian Cities

This project aims to quantify the disproportionate exposure to urban heat intensity across major Australian cities. Urban heat stress poses a major risk to the health and wellbeing of urban dwellers. Case studies of individual cities suggest that environmental stressors such as urban heat may be unequally distributed across income groups.

UNSW04: IF It Rains Does It Pour? Understanding Concomitancy of Mean and Extreme Changes in Global Daily Precipitation

Recent research has shown that mean (raining) and extreme (pouring) changes can align in some regions. This project will use a recently developed long-term global dataset of daily precipitation to answer why, how and where changes in mean frequency and intensity align with changes in extreme frequency and intensity of precipitation.

UNSW05: Quantification of Continental-Scale shifts in Extreme Precipitation Intensity Across the Globe

Due to the lack of appropriate historical datasets, quantification of shifts in global extreme precipitation intensity has not been possible so far. This project will use a recently developed long-term global dataset of daily precipitation alongside a dataset of global temperature changes to calculate the CC scaling for broad climatic regions across the globe.

UNSW06: Concurrent Hot and Dry Extremes Under Different Atmospheric Carbon Loads

Compound events (CEs) caused by a combination of multiple drivers often result in more severe socio-economic and ecological impacts than conventional events. One example for CEs with the potential to cause considerable negative impacts on crop yields and human health is the cooccurrence of hot and dry conditions. The student will work with climate model output from Earth System Models participating in the sixth round of the CMIP6 and assess what impact a gradual increase followed by a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide has on the occurrence frequency of hot and dry CEs.

UTAS01: data collation of the climate-cooling gas dma in antarctic snow, sea ice and UNDERLYING sea water

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is a biogenic source of sulfate aerosol that influences the climate system by reducing solar radiation and altering cloud properties. Recent observations suggest that DMS may play a dominant role in the aerosol and cloud formation along the Antarctic coast where DMS is produced by marine microbes that reside on top, in, and under sea ice. However, the role of DMS remains unclear especially over the regional scale, partly due to the lack of compilation of DMS data.

MON01: Will ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE RECOVERY affect australian rainfall?

Ozone depletion over Antarctica from the late 1970s to 2000 has been linked to changes in the surface climate over the Southern Hemisphere in summer, among them a more positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Over Australian latitudes, a more positive SAM is associated with increased rainfall over eastern Australia in the summer season. Given stratospheric ozone over Antarctica is projected to recover to 1980 levels by ~2050, the impact of ozone recovery on its own would be to reduce this upward trend in summertime rainfall over eastern Australia.

MON02: Characteristics of the southern HEMISPHERE jet stream

The jet stream is a band of strong westerly winds in the upper atmosphere. Shifts in the jet are associated with shifts in the storm tracks, with associated changes in regional weather and rainfall. This project will look at methods to characterise the position and strength of the jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere, with a focus on changes in the Australian region with time.

UMELB01: Visualising Victoria’s droughts

In this project you will be addressing the challenge of recurring droughts by helping us build a collection of data visualisations to tell the story of Victoria’s parched history. Your collection will help us understand these droughts were experienced by people across the state, and how our understanding of drought is changing as we move into a warmer world.

UMELB02: Melbourne flooding and ‘easterly moving’ weather systems

In 1891, Melbourne experienced one of its worst floods on record leading to extensive damage and many deaths. But what was this wayward weather system? How often do lows from our east coast drift westward, and what are their impacts in Victoria? How many of our most significant flooding events are associated with a pattern like this? And are these systems changing over time?

UMELB03: Storm organisation and short duration extreme rainfall in Melbourne

In Melbourne, 50% of rainfall and 75% of extreme daily rainfall occurs on days with at least one linearly organized convective system. However, thunderstorms are often localized events, and much of the rainfall in a region falls over a short period of time. Furthermore, not all thunderstorms necessarily occur in lines, and organized storms that lead to extreme sub-daily rainfall may be different from those that lead to extreme daily rainfall. This projects aims to identify and categorize organizational structures linked with the most intense rainfalls in the region.

BOM01: Effects of compound hot and dry events on agricultural production in australia

The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of compound hot and dry events on agricultural production in Australia, and to assess the predictability of yield losses due to compound events using seasonal climate and hydrological forecasts. The outcome of the project may inform the development of seasonal forecasts of hydro-climatic risk indicators for agricultural production in Australia.

BOM02: Impacts of hydrological extremes using machine learning

This project will explore the use of supervised and unsupervised statistical learning methods (such as neural networks, random forest, clustering) to understand the impact of climate change on hydrological extremes and/or to simulate downstream impacts on affected sectors, such as agriculture, energy, transport, water resources management.

BOM03: realise added value of bias correction and downscaling methods on hydrological projections

Hydrological impact studies analyse the effects of climate change on hydrological variables, such as changes in soil moisture, streamflow or hydrological extremes. This project aims to investigate the realised added value effect of model bias correction and downscaling methods on hydrological projections for Australia.

Undergraduate scholarships - CLEX

ANU01: Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation

ANU02: Fire Weather in Southeast Australia

UNSW01: response of the marine carbon cycle to a gradual increase in atmospheric carbon

UNSW02: impact of carbon dioxide removal on the marine carbon cycle

UNSW03: Quantifying Urban Climate Injustice in australian Cities

UNSW04: IF It Rains Does It Pour? Understanding Concomitancy of Mean and Extreme Changes in Global Daily Precipitation

UNSW05: Quantification of Continental-Scale shifts in Extreme Precipitation Intensity Across the Globe

UNSW06: Concurrent Hot and Dry Extremes Under Different Atmospheric Carbon Loads

UTAS01: data collation of the climate-cooling gas dma in antarctic snow, sea ice and UNDERLYING sea water

MON01: Will ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE RECOVERY affect australian rainfall?

MON02: Characteristics of the southern HEMISPHERE jet stream

UMELB01: Visualising Victoria’s droughts

UMELB02: Melbourne flooding and ‘easterly moving’ weather systems

UMELB03: Storm organisation and short duration extreme rainfall in Melbourne

BOM01: Effects of compound hot and dry events on agricultural production in australia

BOM02: Impacts of hydrological extremes using machine learning

BOM03: realise added value of bias correction and downscaling methods on hydrological projections

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