The Ocean’s Influence on the Hiatus and Water Cycle over Australia

• Research Theme
  Oceans & Cryosphere
• Cross-disciplinary Theme(s)
  Ocean-Earth System
• Funded By

  Proposed sub-project within NESP Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub (funded)

• Principal Investigator

  Professor Nathan Bindoff, Dr Helen Phillips

• Contributor(s)

• Project Summary

  The Indian Ocean is a major driver of Australian climate. This project examines the changing state of the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Ocean heat content change will be examined for its role in the Southern Hemisphere climate and its contribution to the observed hiatus and similar events found in CMIP5 simulations. Temporal variations in surface salinity will also be examined as a measure of P-E using surface flux observations and winds and used to understand the water balance over Australia.  This work fills the gap in knowledge, identified in IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, that we have between global scale climate change in the oceans and on sub-continental scales.

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