10
BAMOS
Jun 2020
Nerilie Abram on Paleoclimate Perspectives of the IOD brilliantly
summarised what we know about the frequency and intensity
of past IOD events reconstructed from corals. The message that
the 2019 positive IOD event is likely not the strongest on record
was poignant. Our distinguished IOD experts contributed to an
ABC news article on the topic.
Land surface models, the hydrological cycle
and event attribution
In addition to a focus on the Indian Ocean, AMOS 2020 also
included a series of plenary talks on drought and the water
cycle. Given the ongoing drought in southeast Australia, which
has resulted in towns shipping in water, and the trend towards
decreasing rains in southwestern Australia, understanding
our water cycle and how we manage water has never been a
more pressing issue. We were honoured to have two esteemed
international visitors who both gave superb presentations on
different aspects of the hydrological cycle. Dr. Celine Bonfils
from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory presented on
her topical work of finding a climate change signal in droughts
around the world. Dr. Angie Pendergrass from NCAR is an expert
in understanding rainfall processes and she gave an excellent
explanation of not only how the water cycle works, but how it is
changing as we warm the planet. On the theme of drought, Prof.
Andy Pitman, head of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate
Extremes, explained how we still have so much to understand
with drought processes and he particularly highlighted the
issues of climate model deficiencies which hamper our efforts to
make confident drought projections. Dr. Ben Henley closed out
our series of presentations on drought by expertly summarising
what we do and don’t know—all without the aid of any slides.
Ben’s speech drew on the presentations from Celine, Angie
and Andy, as well as his own research on hydrological drought,
to discuss the path forward for drought research if we are to
be able to provide the information users need for planning
and building resilience to future drought. Last, but not least,
Dr. Fraser Lott from the Met Office presented on how we
contextualise extreme climate and weather events under global
warming. Fraser’s presentation demonstrated the potential for
rapid event attribution allowing for statements about the role
of climate change in extreme weather while the event is fresh in
the minds of the public.
Congratulations to the award winners
During the conference, AMOS outgoing president Dr. Andrew
Marshall, and incoming president, Dr. Angela Maharaj,
announced the AMOS awards and new AMOS Fellows.
Congratulations were given to Prof. Lisa Alexander and Dr.
Rachel Law for their election as new AMOS Fellows in 2019. Dr.
Rob Taggart was awarded the Christopher Taylor Award, which
recognises his long and distinguished service in operational
forecasting. The AMOS Science Outreach Award was presented
to Dr. Joelle Gergis for her book “Sunburnt Country: The History
and Future of Climate Change in Australia". The Uwe Radok
award went to Dr. Ariaan Purich (UNSW Sydney) for her thesis
titled “Understanding the drivers of recent Southern Ocean sea
ice and surface temperature trends”.
Dr. Adele Morrison was the Inaugural Meyer’s Medal winner
from 2018. She was presented her award by the late Gary’s
Myers’ family after a heartfelt speech by Gary’s wife Linda. Adele
presented her lecture on “Insights into changing ocean currents
around Antarctica from high resolution ocean modelling”. Prof.
Neville Nicholls, who won the inaugural Zillman Medal, couldn’t
be at the conference to receive his award but sent through a
speech which was read out at the conference and was printed
in the last edition of BAMOS.
The conference talks and posters were of extremely high quality.
Student presentation awards, now the Fellows Memorial
Awards, were given to Kimberley Reid (Uni Melb) for the best
ECR poster, “A Land of Drought, Flooding Rain and Northwest
Cloudbands…Simultaneously?” and Charuni Pathmeswaran
(UNSW Sydney) for the best ECR oral presentation “Investigation
of common drivers behind terrestrial and marine heatwaves
that are compounded by each other”. A once‐off prize was also
awarded to Emeritus Professor Tom Lyons as a career award
for long‐standing teaching and research in meteorology and
climatology in WA. The award was presented by one of his
previous PhD students, and the conference convenor, Dr. Jatin
Kala.