Dr Doug Richardson

Dr Doug Richardson

Research Associate
  • PhD, Climate Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
  • BSc (Hons), Mathematics and Statistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Science
Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX)

Dr Doug Richardson specialises in extreme climate events that have societal impacts. Doug completed his PhD at in 2019 at Newcastle University in the UK, where he assessed the predictability of drought and the relationship between drought and large-scale weather patterns. In 2016, Doug collaborated with the UK Met Office to design an operational forecast tool that provides the national Flood Forecasting Centre with early warning of extreme rainfall events. Doug worked as a Research Fellow at CSIRO, Hobart between 2019 and 2022, and was part of the Australian Climate Service, a national, multi-agency climate resilience program. Doug joined the ARC Centre of Excellence in January 2023.

  • Journal articles | 2025
    Richardson D; Hobeichi S; Sweet LB; Rey-Costa E; Abramowitz G; Pitman AJ, 2025, 'Predicting Australian energy demand variability using weather data and machine learning', Environmental Research Letters, 20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad9b3b
    Journal articles | 2024
    Hobeichi S; Abramowitz G; Sen Gupta A; Taschetto AS; Richardson D; Rampal N; Ayat H; Alexander LV; Pitman AJ, 2024, 'How well do climate modes explain precipitation variability?', npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 7, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41612-024-00853-5
    Journal articles | 2024
    Tozer CR; Risbey JS; Pook MJ; Monselesan DP; Irving DB; Ramesh N; Richardson D, 2024, 'A Tale of Two Novembers: Confounding Influences on La Nina's a's Relationship with Rainfall in Australia', MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW, 152, pp. 1977 - 1996, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-23-0112.1
    Journal articles | 2023
    Richardson D; Pitman AJ; Ridder NN, 2023, 'Climate influence on compound solar and wind droughts in Australia', npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 6, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41612-023-00507-y

Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme (2023 - present)

Doug's main research focuses on climate extremes, particularly compound events. He is currently investigating the extent to which Australia's energy grid is exposed to widespread reductions in renewable energy resource, and the synoptic and large-scale drivers of these reductions. Doug is also interested in climate hazards such as drought and wildfire weather, and has expertise on how and why these hazards occur and co-occur for different regions globally. Other areas that Doug works in include climate prediction on subseasonal to decadal time scales, synoptic weather classification and trend analysis of climate hazards.