South Eastern Australian Recent Climate History (SEARCH) final project meeting Dr Joëlle Gergis Australian Research Council Fellow, SEARCH project leader.

South Eastern Australian Recent Climate History (SEARCH) final project meeting

Dr Joëlle Gergis Australian Research Council Fellow, SEARCH project leader

School of Earth SciencesUniversity of Melbourne

South Eastern Australian Recent Climate History (SEARCH) Project: Sept 2009–Aug 2012

- Multi-disciplinary Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project

- Meteorologists, palaeoclimatologists hydrologists, historians, joined by a broad range of partner organisations

- Three research themes:

• Palaeoclimatology – APDI fellow Joelle Gergis

• Early weather records (pre Bureau of Meteorology) – PhD student Linden Ashcroft

• Historical documentary sources – PhD student Claire Fenby

- Looking at extending southeastern Australia’s climate record and assessing how climate variability has influenced society since 1788

The 1997–2009 ‘Big Dry’ in south-eastern Australia

Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

- Average surface temperatures over Australia have increased by 0.7°C since 1960, while mean temperatures have risen by ~1°C in SE Australia over the past 50 years

- Lowest 13-year rainfall period since instrumental records began in 1900, followed by very wet 2010-11.

- How does the 1997–2009 drought compare to events not recorded in 20th century weather records?

- Is SE Australia seeing the start of a similar drying trend found in SW Western Australia since 1970s?

Record low inflows to Melbourne catchments

• During 1997-2011, Melbourne catchments received inflows 30% below long term averages, even including the heavy rain in 2010 and 2011

• How much is natural decadal variability and how much is due to human-influenced increases in temperature?

Source: Melbourne Water

Is the recent drying in SEA extreme climate variability or unprecedented climate change?

“The further back you look, the further forward you can see” (Winston Churchill)

- Despite large climate variability and major societal impacts, we still don’t know how temperature and rainfall have fluctuated during pre-industrial times

- We can improve estimates of the range of natural climate variability by looking at pre-C20th records provided by palaeoclimate and historical sources

Dust storm Mildura, VIC 1940 Flood, Punt Rd, Melbourne 1891Source: Museum Victoria Source: Fairfax Publishers

Extending south-eastern Australia’s climate record back to 1788

AIM: To extend SE Australia climate record back to 1788 and investigate the influence of past climate variability on Australian societies:

1. Instrumental weather observations: Bureau of Meteorology holdings, weather/farm diaries, early observatories (1788–2012)

2. Documentary records: early settler accounts, newspapers, government records (1788–1900)

3. Palaeoclimate data: tree-rings, corals, cave records, ice cores (200–1000 years)

Project objectives

• Objectives:

1. Compile and quantify climate information from Australian documentary data (A.D. 1788–1900)

2. Retrieve, digitise and analyse weather station data for south-eastern Australia (A.D. 1788–1900)

3. Assemble annually-resolved palaeoclimate data for south-eastern Australia (A.D. 1500–2008)

4. Evaluate coherent variations in 20th century south-eastern Australian temperature, rainfall and atmospheric pressure and their expression in the proxy data obtained through Objectives 1–3

5. Develop annual multi-proxy rainfall, temperature and atmospheric pressure reconstructions for (i) A.D. 1788–1900 and (ii) A.D.1500–1900 periods

• Australia is extremely vulnerable to climate change: 58% of our population lives in SEA

• Urgent need to establish natural range of climate variability to distinguish the anthropogenic climate change signal: currently limited to C20th climate records

• The project was timely and seminal: first project of its kind in Australasia… we are breaking new ground here

• Policy relevant research that will help guide regional decision makers (e.g. our Natural Resource Management partners)

• This project is a showcase example of the humanities and science working together

Why we’re all here

• Discussion of project outcomes:

- Theme 1: palaeoclimatology

- Theme 2: early weather data

- Theme 3: documentary records

- Communications and outreach activities

• Discussion of future collaborative opportunities

• Partner organisation feedback

• Public lecture State Library of Victoria 5:30pm

Outline of the day’s events