4
BAMOS
Jun 2018
President’s report
Andrew Marshall, June 2018
The last few months have been busy, and thoroughly enjoyable,
in my new AMOS role! I am fortunate to work alongside a
wonderful group of very active and enthusiastic people in the
AMOS community—some examples of our activity since our
last edition of BAMOS include:
• AMOS signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the
Royal Meteorological Society in May. This is an agreement
outlining guidelines for mutually beneficial interaction,
including reciprocal membership arrangements.
• AMOS-ICTMO 2019 (the AMOS Annual Conference 2019
and the International Conference on Tropical Meteorology
and Oceanography) has now been officially announced
for Darwin, 11–15 June 2019! This will be the first time for
an AMOS national conference in the Top End and we’re
very excited about it. The call for sessions and workshops
is now open, with abstract submissions opening on 1
August (amos2019.org.au).
• AMOS is currently putting together a weather video
competition for National Science Week. This is a novel
education and outreach activity for school-aged children
to explore weather and climate in their local surroundings
and present it in a two-minute video. The competition
webpage will include access to resource kits on how to
interpret and understand weather and climate, to be
launched soon.
Our Education and Outreach committee has been working
hard over the last few months also running this year’s National
Art Competition with the theme of “weather-powered world”.
Entries are in and judging is underway!
We welcomed the 2018/19 Federal Budget announcement
in May, with some good news for our sciences including
investment in research facilities, women in STEM initiatives,
Antarctic science, and research to preserve the Great Barrier
Reef. To quote Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel, “Budget
2018 confirms the case for funding science is being heard in
Canberra”.
I recently met with the President of Science and Technology
Australia (STA), of which AMOS is a member organisation,
to discuss ways to further develop our mutual engagement.
STA has been working hard this year to strengthen science
advocacy through government on behalf of its members. STA is
currently building its policy on equity and diversity, which the
AMOS Equity and Diversity Committee will help with over the
next year, and we are also contributing to their How-To guides
and resources for individuals and organisations.
I also recently attended workplace events for National
Reconciliation Week (27 May–3 June) which highlighted some of
the lesser known aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
histories, cultures and achievements with the theme “Don’t
keep history a mystery”. Importantly, these events provided an
opportunity to reflect on how much I still had to learn about
our shared history and how we can help with the national effort
to achieve reconciliation. The Reconciliation Australia website
is a terrific resource for more information (www.reconciliation.
org.au).
Finally, we have seen some extreme weather around the
country recently. An autumn heatwave developed in north-
western Australia during late March, before being drawn south-
eastwards by north-westerly flow during April. This produced
record-breaking abnormal warmth that extended across the
continent during the first 10 days of the month and persisted in
parts of New South Wales and Victoria into early May. Then soon
after, during the night of 10–11 May, an intense rainfall and
flooding event in Hobart led to the closure of schools, shops,
and the CSIRO Battery Point site. Cars were sighted floating
down the road and trampolines jumped over fences along
my street in Blackmans Bay. I expect these events to become
research case studies for some of our professional members in
the years to come, towards improving our understanding of
extreme events and mitigating their impacts.
Other recent occurrences of extreme heat and rainfall include
the Tasman Sea marine heatwave and a heavy rainfall event
in Kenya. With their connection to global large-scale climate
drivers (a topic close to my heart) I’ll elaborate on these in the
next edition.
Stay warm during the winter / enjoy the dry season, wherever
you are around the country!