The role of anthropogenic climate change in recent Australian climate extremes

Abstract:

In this talk I will discuss studies our group has conducted to investigate the role of anthropogenic climate change in the heavy rains of 2010-2012 and the heat and drought of 2013. Using a range of methodologies based on coupled climate models from the CMIP5 archive and very large atmosphere-only ensembles from the Weather@Home Australia-New Zealand ensemble we have found increases in the likelihood of hot extremes, such as the summer of 2012/13 and individual record-breaking hot days within that summer. In contrast, studies of the precipitation extremes that occurred in the summer of 2011/12 found limited evidence for a substantial anthropogenic role in these events.

I will also present briefly on avenues of research we are currently pursuing in the Australian community. These include investigating whether anthropogenic climate change has altered the likelihood of weather associated with bushfires and the implementation of perturbed physics in the Weather@Home ensemble to allow us to study the potential role of human-induced climate change on extreme rainfall events.