Dr Kathleen Beyer is Director of the Climate Futures Research Group, and Senior Lecturer in Climate Impacts and Adaptation in the School of Geography and Spatial Sciences. She is passionate about delivering innovative, complex and integrated climate impacts and adaptation research. Kathleen’s research aims to improve our understanding of the past, present and future climate and the impacts of climate change on communities and the environment. Her broad research interests are in climate change impacts on human health, social systems, infrastructure, urban environments, energy efficiency, biosecurity, invasive species ecology, ecosystem resilience and biodiversity. Her recent work has centred around the design and development of regionally downscaled climate projections to deliver fit-for-purpose climate data, tools and products for climate-resilient planning. She led the delivered enhanced regionally downscaled climate projections (NARCliM), which are widely used by NSW government agencies and stakeholders to support climate-resilient planning and manage climate risk.
Nathan Bindoff is Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS). Professor Bindoff was the coordinating lead author for the ocean chapter in the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report and Fifth Assessment reports.
Professor Bindoff and his colleagues documented some of the first evidence for changes in the Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific and Southern Oceans and the first evidence of changes in the earth’s hydrological cycle from ocean salinity.
His most recent work is on documenting the decline in oxygen content of the oceans and dynamics of the Southern Ocean.
Dr Remenyi’s work is focused on converting leading-edge scientific research into relevant, useful, usable information for decision makers. His training in economics, analytical chemistry, marine biogeochemistry, data analysis and interpretation as well as field sampling and project management enable him to bring different skills to the various teams he works within and across a range of disciplines.
He dedicates significant time to stakeholder engagement, is a member of a number of committees and working groups and is a regular workshop facilitator. He also provides the technical expertise for services such as data provision, analysis, presentation and interpretation for stakeholders and within the Climate Futures team. See Dr. Remenyi’s profile and publications here.
Dr Love has a background in atmospheric physics (PhD, University of Adelaide). His research has focussed on small scale dynamic processes in the atmosphere including waves, tides and turbulence, and their relationship to large scale circulations. These studies have been conducted primarily using ground based radar remote sensing and weather balloon observations together with a range of computational modelling techniques.
Other research interests include El Niño Southern Oscillation and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in the tropical middle atmosphere. Having joined the ACE CRC Climate Futures program in 2016, Dr Love is currently analysing the impact of climate change on weather-related fire risk factors in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Dr Earl has a background in applied meteorology and climatology, completing his PhD in the UK at the University of East Anglia in 2013. He then moved down under to work as a post-doc at the University of Melbourne (2013-2017) and the University of Tasmania (2018-). His research background includes observational climatological analysis of mean wind and gust speeds, providing applications for the insurance and wind energy sectors. This work involved comparing the abilities of forecast models to predict damaging winds during extra-tropical cyclone events, while also conducting meso-scale numerical modelling of events for a better understanding of the sub-storm scale processes involved.
Nick is passionate about applying his knowledge to help reduce humanity’s vulnerability to future climates. His recent work includes anthropogenic impacts on the environment through examining weekly cycles in urban meteorological and other parameters. He also has a comprehensive background in remotely sensed fire analysis, examining trends in global and regional active fires, highlighting links with large-scale climate drivers (e.g. ENSO and IOD). Nick joined the Climate Futures team in 2018 and is currently focused on compound events and changes with climate change. See Dr Earl’s publications here.
Nick is an international marathon runner and is aiming to represent Great Britain at the Olympics in 2020 and England at the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Dr Mocatta is a former journalist, a Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University, and a media and communication researcher with a strong interest in science communication and environmental communication. She is currently a Research Fellow in Climate Change Communication with Climate Futures. Dr Mocatta studies media discourse and policy around energy transitions, climate change and environmental justice in a variety of national contexts. She is especially interested in the relationship between environmental harms and social inequality, and ways in which this relationship plays out in the media.
At Climate Futures, Dr Mocatta’s role includes both research translation and communicating climate science, and conducting new research on the interface between science and the media. Dr Mocatta is a Research Affiliate at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a collaborator in the MeCCO (Media and Climate Change Observatory) project at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Dr Mocatta is currently working on a book (together with Dr Erin Hawley) Environmental Communication in a Time of Crisis to be published by Routledge in 2024.
Kathryn Allen is a palaeoclimatologist and an ARC Future Fellow. Her work has involved reconstructing past climate in Australia based on tree-rings, assessing tree-ring response to climate, and the potential of tree species to new to dendrochronology for climatological work. She pioneered the development of some types wood properties chronologies and has significantly expanded the number and quality of tree-ring chronologies in Australia. Her work has included numerous international collaborations and she has worked with industry to produce hydrological reconstructions that can be incorporated into risk assessments and management planning. Dr Allen’s Future Fellowship will compile and analyse a global database of palaeoclimate proxies to assess changes in frequency, magnitude/intensity and clustering of climate extremes over time. This will not only help better contexturalise current changes in extremes in the observed record, it will also provide critical input into risk estimation for Australian infrastructure.
Sarah Boulter is Associate Professor of Climate Change and the Climate Adaptation Mission lead for the National Environmental Science Program (NESP). Sarah has spent the last decade building and supporting climate adaptation research and practice in Australia.
Sarah’s research focuses on the impacts of climate change and building capacity to adapt. She has worked with the health, biodiversity, defence and infrastructure sectors to support, develop and implement climate change adaptation strategies. Sarah was also part of the team that developed CoastAdapt, Australia’s first online climate adaptation decision-support and knowledge platform to support coastal local governments.
Ben’s PhD research aims to combine climate and urban radiation modelling to make predictions about future conditions and risks in Hobart, helping to guide mitigation efforts and decision making.
Haleh Nampak is a PhD student at the University of Tasmania with a background in physical geography and geospatial science. She has previously participated in projects aimed at solving environmental issues, while monitoring and assessing long-term feasibility. Her current research focuses on assessment of lightning climatology and environmental factors associated with wildland fire. Her research contributes to the understanding of climate change impacts on ignition efficiency across the landscape.
Karen Palmer is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania with a keen interest in sea-level rise. Her current research explores factors for extreme water levels and inundation within estuaries, the transition zone between river and sea. Karen is interested in how data from Australian environments can be used to better understand coastal vulnerability with climate change, helping communities to prepare and adapt.
Mitsuhiro Ozaki is a PhD student at the University of Tasmania and his academic background combines both Master of Information Technology and Master of Applied Science (Environmental Management and Spatial Sciences) at this university. Mitsuhiro researches bushfires in Australia. He recently published an article about prediction of bushfire models with his colleagues. Currently his research is focused on atypical terrain fires.
Nina researches municipal level climate change governance and decision-making. She studies perceptions of climate risk among local government executive and elected leaders, and the socio-institutional conditions supporting active management of climate risk. Nina is experienced in public policy and leadership. She was Principal Policy Advisor/Team Leader for the national Garnaut Climate Change Review (2007/2008) and in 2009, won a Churchill Fellowship to study local government climate change adaptation.