BAMOS Dec 2024
6 News
Where climate and weather meet : 21st Century Weather officially launched
Iain Strachan , ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century
Official opening of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century at Monash University on the 16th of October . From left to right : Dr Richard Johnson ( Acting CEO of the Australian Research Council ), Prof Nerilie Abram ( The Australian National University & Deputy Director of 21st Century Weather ), Stephen Gray ( Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Weather ), Prof Sharon Pickering ( Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University ), Prof Christian Jakob ( Monash University & Director of 21st Century Weather ), Prof Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick ( The Australian National University & Deputy Director of 21st Century Weather ), Dr Helen Cleugh ( Chair of 21st Century Weather ' s Advisory Board ), Prof Mike Ryan ( Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor ( Research ), Monash University )
October 2024 marked the official launch of the first national research centre dedicated to unifying the fields of climate and weather science , and training the first generation of weatherchange scientists .
The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century ( 21st Century Weather ) formally commenced operations with an event at Monash University on Wednesday 16 October .
Announced in 2022 , and receiving AU $ 35 million in funding from the Australian Government , the Centre is headquartered at Monash University , with members also based at the University of Melbourne , the Australian National University , the University of New South Wales and the University of Tasmania .
The warming of the Earth ’ s climate is fundamentally changing our weather . 21st Century Weather is tasked with answering one of the toughest questions facing humanity in the decades ahead — will changes in the weather enhance or limit our ability to sustain life as we know it ?
Speaking at the launch event , Monash University ’ s Professor Christian Jakob , the Director of the Centre , said :“ After thousands of years of building a world that made humans less dependent on the weather , we have now consciously decided to make our entire economy fuelled by it . To succeed requires a fundamental advance in our understanding of how the weather will change in a warmer world .”
Supporting 21st Century Weather ’ s researchers are more than 20 research , industry and government partners , including the Australian Government ’ s Department of Climate Change , Energy , the Environment and Water ( DCCEEW ), Energy Australia , and AON . Around the world , the Centre has close relationships with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in the United States , the Met Office in the UK and the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Germany , to name just a few .
Together , this collective expertise constitutes the first research organisation dedicated to determining how Australia ’ s weather will change as the global climate warms . The Centre will be tasked with making breakthroughs in key areas at the nexus of weather and climate science .
A first profound question is how weather systems , such as lowpressure circulations and frontal regions , will change as the