Climate science

The Climate Change Research Centre offers a wide range of thesis-driven honours projects in many climate-related research areas. Please check directly with your potential supervisor about their availability for developing a project with you, or directly with the honour's coordinator.

Assessing spatial variability in urban climate & air quality

The project will contribute to the development of the SWAQ network and assess the influences of spatial variability in urban climate and air quality. Supervisor: Dr Melissa Hart

How do large bushfires impact subsequent local climate?

This project will analyse regional climate model simulations to quantify the lasting effect of bushfire on the local climate. Supervisor: Prof Jason Evans

Is climate change making Australia’s rainfall more variable?

This project aims to improve our understanding of rainfall variability changes, which is crucial for projecting hydrological extremes including floods and drought with more confidence.

Impact of climate change on Southern Hemispheric westerlies

Assess the impact of changes in oceanic circulation on the position and strength of Southern Hemispheric westerlies using atmospheric models. Supervisors: A/Prof. Laurie Menviel and Dr. Martin Jucker

What is the likelihood that a drought will end?

This project will analyse precipitation data to determine the probability of a given drought ending. Supervisor: Professor Jason P. Evans

Indo-Pacific climate variability and extremes in CMIP6 models

The Indo-Pacific climates are greatly influenced by the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Supervisor: Dr Agus Santoso

Looking below marine heatwaves

In this project we will use a combination of subsurface observations, ocean reanalysis and ocean model experiments to understand the subsurface evolution of marine heatwaves. Supervisor: A/Prof. Alex Sen Gupta

Understanding how precipitation extremes scale in future climates

This project will assess how precipitation projections for Australia from global and regional models scale using the latest start-of-the-art GCMs and RCMs. Supervisor: A/Prof Lisa Alexander and Dr Margot Bador (UNSW Sydney)

Evaluating clouds in climate models

This project will examine how cloud formation in climate models is affected by El Nino - La Nina cycles and use this to try to evaluate model predictions of future cloudiness and global warming rates. Supervisor: Steven Sherwood

Remote influences on seasonal weather in Australia

This project will use simplified yet fully nonlinear atmospheric model experiments to learn more about the individual contributions of some of these influences. Supervisor: Martin Jucker

Ocean warming of ice melt at the Antarctic margin

This project aims to use high-resolution global and/or regional ocean/sea-ice models to examine mechanisms for rapid warming of Antarctic continental shelf waters via both large-scale drivers and fine-scale processes. Supervisor: Prof. Matt England

Understanding the impact of Indo-Pacific sea surface temperature trends

This study aims at understanding whether the recent Pacific cooling has influenced other ocean basins and impacted climate in the tropics and remote regions. Supervisor: Andrea Taschetto and Agus Santoso

Reconstructing deep ocean circulation through the past

This project will use climate model outputs to reconstruct geochemical tracers such as Neodymium, Oxygen, and Carbon and through the deep past.

Global ocean oxygen loss in warm(er) climates

The aim of this project is to learn from past warm greenhouse climates to improve our climate modelling capacity, in order to reliably predict and explain the loss of oxygen in our oceans.

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