BAMOS
Sept 2017
Conference report
ARCCSS Winter School Report
Sarah Perry
UNSW, Sydney
What would happen to the climate if the Earth spun backwards?
What about if all of the ocean surface warmed instantaneously by
one degree? Or, if there was no ocean at all?
These were the types of super-problems that postgraduate
students attending the Centre of Excellence for Climate System
Science (ARCCSS)’s recent Winter School were tasked with
solving. Held from the 19th to the 23rd of June at the University
of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, the theme of this Winter
School was the Science of Climate Change, and for the week we
all took a step back from our research projects and focused on
the big picture.
Attendees of the ARCCSS Winter School
Image: Alvin Stone
Lectures
The Winter School started with lectures about the fundamentals
of climate change, including radiative forcing, climate sensitivity
and climate commitment. To highlight the different properties
of greenhouse gases in a more physical way, Monash PhD
student Stephanie Jacobs taught us all the greenhouse gas
dance (for video evidence, and to learn the dance yourself,
check out the ARCCSS social media pages).
Throughout the rest of the week, lectures given by academics
from the ARCCSS covered many of the different aspects that
make up the climate system. Topics ranged from the small scale,
such as individual cloud processes and plant stomata, to the
broad scale, including the earth’s carbon cycle and the global
circulations of the atmosphere and oceans.
11