Climate science expertise for local planning and adaptation

Climate Futures bridges the gap between fundamental climate science and the local adaptation needs of industry, government and communities.

What we do

The science of climate change is unequivocal. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that the earth is warming and that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases caused by human activity are contributing to our changing climate. Change is a feature of the 21st century global climate. The need to understand the consequences and impacts of climate change on Australia and to enable planning for adaptation and mitigation of climate change at a regional level is widely recognised across industry and government.

Natural Hazards Atlas Newsletter

July 1, 2025

Climate Futures has published a newsletter to update on the major Natural Hazards Atlas for Tasmania project. This newsletter shares insights from the project’s initial year.

Climate Futures team presents at AMOS 2025

June 25, 2025

Annabel Bowden, Krishneel Sharma, and Ben Weeding flew the flag for Climate Futures at the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) 2025 conference in Cairns. All three team members promoted the work we do at Climate Futures, and presented well received talks that have led to new collaborations and research opportunities. The three early career researchers returned to […]

A Natural Hazards Atlas for Tasmania: a major new project for Climate Futures

November 11, 2024

The Climate Futures team, working with researchers from the School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences at the University of Tasmania, has begun the stakeholder consultation for its new Natural Hazards for Tasmania project. Over the next few months, the Natural Hazards Atlas Team will be meeting with hazards managers across the state to consult […]

Tall Trees

Warra SuperSite tall eucalypts project

March 19, 2024

Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests are globally significant because of their exceptional growth rates, tree height and the quantity of carbon they store. These values were recognised in the listing of the Minor Extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 2013. Recent discoveries from monitoring of tall forest within the TWWHA, found the forest […]

Australia’s Wine Future: A Climate Atlas

Australia’s Wine Future

March 2, 2020

Climate Futures has been working closely with Wine Australia to produce a new, comprehensive ‘Climate Atlas’ which lays out climate change-induced effects on Australia’s wine growing regions, and identifies pathways to adaptation. A three-year project with the University of Tasmania brought together an extensive, multi-disciplinary research team to consider the impact of seasonal climate variability […]

Prescribed Burning project, stage 2

February 7, 2020

This project extended previous research to include greater understanding of potential vegetation change and consider the combined effects of extreme climate conditions associated with high fire danger, aspects identified by Tasmanian fire managers as being necessary to help them make decisions about the timing of prescribed burning in the future. The project assessed changes in […]

Reconstructing seasonal fire danger in southeastern Australia using tree rings

In this study we exploit the drought and temperature sensitivity of various tree-ring chronologies in southeastern Australia to test the potential for reconstructing past fire conditions in the region.

Rapid warming in the Australian Alps from observation and NARCliM simulations

The Australian Alps are the highest mountain range in Australia, which are important for biodiversity, energy generation and winter tourism. Significant increases in temperature in the past decades has had a huge impact on biodiversity and ecosystem in this region.

Impacts of climate change and extreme weather on food supply chains cascade across sectors and regions in Australia.

Disasters resulting from climate change and extreme weather events adversely impact crop and livestock production. While the direct impacts of these events on productivity are generally well known, the indirect supply-chain repercussions (spillovers) are still unclear.

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Changing compound rainfall events in Tasmania.

While extreme weather and climate events have been studied for several decades, analysis of compound events has only begun in recent years. In this burgeoning field there are still many open questions around the optimal methodology and analysis tools for analysis.

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Meet Our Team

Our team includes experts in diverse aspects of climate science and researchers who look at both human, physical and ecosystem impacts of climate change. We have expertise in: atmospheric physics and climate modelling, applied meteorology, physical oceanography, palaeoclimatology, vegetation ecology and fire science, climate adaptation and climate science communication. We also teach climate change at tertiary level and supervise PhD students.

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We acknowledge and pay our deep respects to the traditional custodians of all the unceded lands, skies and waterways on which we live and work and through which we travel.
© 2025 Climate Futures