Research Scholarships
This summer, there are many opportunities for undergraduate students to work at the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) through a summer research scholarship. If you're interested in any of the following projects, visit the UNSW Science Summer Vacation Research Scholarships page and contact the supervisor(s) for more information.
In addition to the science vacation research scholarships, there is also the opportunity to apply for scholarships through the 21st Century Weather has projects available at its five universities and partner organisations, including at the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology and Department of Environment. Explore additional information on undergraduate scholarships.
UNSW science projects in the CCRC
We aim to understand climatic processes by investigating questions of global importance and issues directly affecting Australia’s climate. Our projects cover diverse areas, from the physics of storms to atmospheric extremes such as heatwaves. View our research projects below.
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Australia’s most hail-prone regions are on the east coast from north of Brisbane to south of Sydney. However, the largest hailstone ever recorded in Australia fell in the sub-tropics, just north of Mackay, and the possibility of hail occurrence extends well into the tropics. In particular, a region around Burketown in Queensland shows as a hotspot of hail probability in radar, satellite, and hail-proxy records. In this project, we will investigate hail occurrence in convection-resolving simulations of the atmosphere around Burketown. The student will gain experience in analysing the output from high-resolution weather models, in atmospheric science, and in scientific programming. The project will increase our understanding of the atmospheric conditions leading to hail formation in the (sub-)tropics, a region in which hail occurrence is not well understood.
Experience: To complete this project experience with python is essential and experience with analysing large datasets is a plus.
Supervisors: Dr Tim Raupach
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The characteristics of numerically simulated clouds and convection depend on the resolution of weather and climate models. Subgrid clouds are parameterized in coarse-resolution models but are often resolved at higher resolutions. Such clouds are essential in understanding shallow convection and can significantly affect the radiation budget if unaccounted for in our current models. This project aims to quantify the characteristics of subgrid clouds by comparing several associated cloud and radiation fields simulated at different resolutions from a numerical weather prediction model to ground-based and available satellite observations. The main objective of the project is to understand how well sub-cloud variability is captured to varying resolutions in model simulations.
Experience: The project requires Python programming skills in analysing data.
Supervisors: Dr Abhnil Prasad, Prof Steven Sherwood
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Marine extreme events have a significant impact on marine ecosystems and are predicted to intensify as the ocean warms. However, our understanding of the impacts and nature of marine extremes is mostly limited to studying temperature at the surface, due to a lack of observations. Insights into the response of the ocean to marine extremes can only be gained by examining and contrasting the specific sites which have sufficient long-term observations.
The student will participate in taking a global inventory of long-term observational sites, identifying marine extremes, and exploring the differences between the ocean’s response to extremes in different locations. This project will contribute to our understanding of global subsurface ocean extremes and their impacts on marine ecosystems.
Experience: None
Supervisor: Dr Neil Malan