PLEA Network

3 August 2017, The Conversation, Australia needs dozens more scientists to monitor climate properly, report says. Australia is falling short in its ability to monitor the climate, potentially leaving farmers and other groups unable to access crucial information about rainfall, droughts and floods, the Australian Academy of Science has warned. A review of Australia’s climate science capability, released today, recommends that Australia needs to recruit an extra 77 full-time climate science staff over the next four years, on top of the current 420, to meet the demand for detailed weather and climate information. Without these resources, Australia risks being unable to provide accurate information to those who need it, said UNSW oceanographer Trevor McDougall, who led the review. That could include being unable to predict accurately the changes to rainfall patterns in farming regions such as the Murray-Darling Basin – with potentially serious consequences for farmers, Professor McDougall said. Although the review says Australia is strong in some areas, such as studying extreme weather events, it identified several key shortcomings, particularly in climate modelling. Australia is not keeping pace with efforts in the United States and Europe, which are developing fine-scale climate models covering their own regions. “Other countries are not looking in detail at our country – we need to run those models ourselves,” Professor McDougall said. Read More here