This year’s AMOS conference was memorable for the number of participants it attracted, the diversity of the presentations, the array of workshops and social events…and the weather. The good news was that the heat helped attract media coverage. The bad news was that delegates had to endure a week that had temperature records "tumble like Jenga blocks" across large swathes of southeastern Australia.
Blair Trewin, Bureau of Meteorology and AMOS stalwart, told his Facebook followers that on the day after the conference, Saturday 11 February, Canberra Airport recorded its equal second warmest day on record, with the peak of 41.6 °C occurring obligingly "at almost the exact moment I stepped onto the tarmac".
AMOS 2017 ran from 7–10 February at Australian National University (ANU)’s Manning Clark Centre and attracted 450 delegates from Australia and New Zealand. The theme was Australasian weather, climate and oceans: past, present and future.
AMOS cleverly maximised the value of the conference by scheduling a series of workshops on the Monday. They covered software, hands-on science activities, downscaled projections, and communicating with policymakers. The conference itself included more than 260 verbal presentations, dozens of lightning lectures (I searched in vain for one on lightning) and over 130 posters.
Plenary talks
Tuesday saw the official conference launch. There were welcomes by AMOS president Mary Voice; Chair of the Conference Committee, Clem Davis; and Jim Renwick, representing the Meteorological Society of New Zealand. Next, the RH Clarke lecturer Ian Simmonds, the University of Melbourne, told us that every January the Arctic loses sea ice equivalent to around 20 times the size of Port Phillip Bay.
Kristie Ebi from the University of Washington gave us the second plenary, on climate change and health. She startled us with the fact that Aedes mosquitoes will come for you if you get within two kilometres of them, after which you run the risk of malaria or dengue.
NIWA’s Craig Stevens described to Wednesday’s early starters the influence of the Ross Ice Shelf ocean cavity on sea ice and the oceans. Later in the day, Tim Cowan somehow managed to introduce a 1990s Toyota Corolla into his well-received Uwe Radok award lecture. Uwe was my uncle, so it’s always moving for me to catch up with the recipient.
That evening, the National Arboretum hosted the conference dinner. AMOS president Mary Voice presented AMOS awards to John Church, Jeff Callaghan, Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Tim Cowan and Ian Simmonds. The winners made their acceptance speeches as behind them the sun set on the 94 forests of rare, endangered and symbolic trees from across Australia and the world.
Then things began to heat up. On a day that would reach 36 °C, Gordon McBean, President of the International Council for Science, called for "all sciences — social, political, and physical sciences — to work together to address interconnected global issues such as poverty, food security, health, water, oceans, climate change, and sustainability". Mary Voice and Clem Davis organised a strenuous round of high-level meetings for Professor McBean during his visit, allowing him to share his important insights.
"Every recent heatwave has been made more severe by global warming", was the message from Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, University of New South Wales, during her plenary. "Canberra has had a doubling in the number of heatwave days in recent years."
Hundreds braved the day’s extreme weather to attend the AMOS public event "Extreme weather events: How prepared are we?". Showing that newspaper advertisements still work, more than half the audience were members of the public.
Canberra hit 41 °C on Friday, coinciding with eastern Australia being the hottest place on the planet on that day. So, it was fitting for John Church in the final plenary to observe that due to ongoing warming, our descendants will be measuring sea level rise in metres, not centimetres.
A table of honour at the AMOS/MSNZ conference dinner, featuring a number of award winners, new Fellows and National Council members. L–R: Andrew Marshall, Jim Renwick, Tim Cowan, Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Todd Lane, Kathy McInnes, Michael Reeder, Neville Nicholls and Gordon McBean. Image: Linden Ashcroft.