10
BAMOS
Dec 2019
AMOS Awards 2019
Uwe Radok Award
The Uwe Radok Award is for the best PhD thesis in the AMOS
fields of oceanography, glaciology or climatology, awarded
in Australia. It honours the contributions of Dr Uwe Radok
who was one of Australia’s pioneers in meteorological and
glaciological research. He was Head of the Department of
Meteorology at the University of Melbourne from 1960 to 1977
and played a leading role in the development of Australian
Antarctic meteorology and glaciology. The Uwe Radok award
for best PhD thesis of 2018 has been awarded to Dr Ariaan
Purich from UNSW, Sydney for her thesis titled “Understanding
the drivers of recent Southern Ocean sea ice and surface
temperature trends”. Ariaan’s PhD explored the mechanisms
behind recent increases in total Antarctic sea ice coverage,
representing a fundamental challenge in the understanding
of high‑latitude climate processes in a warming world. Her
research found that the majority of CMIP5 models simulate a
decline, rather than increase, in sea ice over the same period due
to underestimation of the westerly wind jet. She also examined
the broad‑scale freshening the high‑latitude Southern Ocean
via ACCESS 1.0 simulations. Ariaan’s PhD resulted in three first
author publications, including one in Nature Communications,
and concluded that surface westerly‑wind trends during austral
summer, a strengthened Amundsen Sea Low associated with the
phase change of the IPO, and broad‑scale surface freshening all
made important contributions to Antarctic sea ice and Southern
Ocean surface temperature trends over 1979–2013. Ariaan was
supervised by Matthew England and Wenju Cai.
Zillman Medal
The Zillman Medal acknowledges scientists in their mature years
who have carried out most of their research in Australia and
have made a significant contribution with a record of innovative
and transformative research. The award is named in honour of
the distinguished contributions of Dr John Zillman to Australian
and international meteorology and science. Dr Zillman was the
Director of the Bureau of Meteorology from 1978 to 2003 and
President of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
from 1995 to 2003 and is now an honorary senior adviser at
The Bureau. The 2019 Zillman Medal is awarded to Professor
Neville Nicholls. Professor Nicholls, formerly of the Bureau of
Meteorology and Monash University, is the world’s foremost
expert on the nature, causes, predictability and impacts of
interannual climate variability in Australia. Over the course of five
decades of research, he has transformed our understanding of
predictability of climate variations and their impact on droughts,
crop yields, bushfire and tropical cyclone activity, as well as
human health impacts, both here in Australia and elsewhere. He
has initiated and led the development of high‑quality historical
climate databases for Australia and their use in understanding
the causes of climate variations and change, and led national
and international assessments of observed changes in climate,
focused on climate and weather extremes. Neville Nicholls is a
national living treasure of Australian climate research, and one
of the most illustrious and longest serving members of AMOS.
Awards