OVERVIEW OF THE CLIMATIC IMPACTS CENTRE

The CIC was established in 1991 as Australia's only fully-fledged interdisciplinary research centre focusing on climate change and its social and environmental impacts. Initially funded as a federal government centre of excellence through national greenhouse research funding, it was a joint venture between physical and human geographers within the former School of Earth Sciences. Under its full-time directors, Professor Ann Henderson Sellers and then Dr Roslyn Taplin, the CIC developed an Australian and international reputation in the fields of climate change modelling, impact assessment and policy analysis. During the last eight years, the CIC has maintained an active visitors program, a strong program of postgraduate research training, collaboration with bodies such as CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and the Bureau of Meteorology, and contract research for organisations such as Federal Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, the United Nations Environment Program, the Australian Coal Association, Suncorp Insurance and Finance and NRMA Ltd.

With the departure of Dr Taplin in 1998 and restructuring of the university, the CIC continued as a joint research centre of the Departments of Human Geography and Physical Geography. It acts as an overarching framework for on-going research into climate change in the two departments and maintains its unique role in postgraduate training. This report summarises research activities for 2000 including PhD completions and continuing postgraduate research.

MISSION STATEMENT

To contribute, through research and education, to better understanding of interactions between climate and society in Australia, the Asia-Pacific Region and globally.

To identify, understand and anticipate the impacts of climate variability and human-induced climate change.

To reduce vulnerability to and increase the advantages of such climatic impacts.

To foster research into climatic impacts and climate change policy by viewing interactions between people and the biophysical environment as transcending conventional natural science and socio-economic disciplinary boundaries.

RESEARCH DIRECTORS

Peter Curson, BA MA PhD, Co-Director
Professor Curson is an expert on international standing with respect to human health, population and medical geography. One of the original co-directors of CIC, his research interests embrace many aspects of environmental health in Australia especially the links between environmental changes and human health. Professor Curson has published widely on population and disaster, human behaviour and epidemics of infectious disease, the geography of asthma and climate change and human health. He is a professorial fellow in Human Geography and, in 1999, was first Head of the Division of Environmental and Life Sciences.

Bob Fagan, BA PhD, Co-Director
Professor Fagan is internationally known for his research into globalisation and the local impacts of industrial change. One of the original CIC co-directors, he has published widely on globalisation and Australian resource-based industries such as aluminium, steel and food processing. He has traced these global changes to employment impacts in the principal production regions. He has also carried out extensive work as a consultant on regional labour markets and has been an adviser to federal, state and local governments and trade unions on industrial change and employment. He retains strong research interests in the coal-fired electricity industries and urban implications of climate change policy. In 1999, he became head of the new Department of Human Geography and is Professor of Human Geography. In 1998 he became President of the Institute of Australian Geographers.

Andy Pitman, BSc PhD, Co-Director
Professor Pitman became a deputy director of CIC in 1996 and co-director in 1999. He is an atmospheric scientist with an international reputation in modelling the Earth's climate with a particular focus on how to represent vegetation, soils and snow at the macroscales of climate models. He is co-chair of the Project for the Intercomparison of Landsurface Parameterisation Schemes, Lead Author on Chapter 8 of the 2001 IPCC report, a member of the GLASS Science Panel and Vice Chair of the BAHC Science Steering Committee (an IGBP core project). He has published widely on land surface modelling and the impacts of land surface processes on climate. He is a professorial fellow in Physical Geography; in 1999, he became head of the Department of Physical Geography, and is currently Deputy Head of the Division of Environmental and Life Sciences.

Richard de Dear, BA PhD, Deputy Director
Dr de Dear's research interests are in the areas of human biometeorology and environmental bioengineering. He has worked in Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, North America and Australia on a wide variety of research projects but the common theme running through them is human thermal responses to the atmospheric environment, and their implications for energy consumption within the built environment. Apart from his research role within the CIC Dr de Dear is also a member of the atmospheric science teaching group within the Macquarie University Department of Physical Geography.

AFFILIATED ACADEMIC STAFF

Graeme Aplin BA DipEd MA PhD
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography: sustainable development and environmental management, international environmental conventions and treaties, heritage management and conservation in the built environment.

Paul Beggs BSc PhD
Lecturer in Physical Geography: climate change, human health and asthma; urban air quality. Dr Beggs completed his PhD in the Climatic Impacts Centre. He convenes a second year undergraduate unit titled Climatic Impacts and has recently contributed to the Australian Government Expert Review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II draft Third Assessment Report, particularly in the area of human health.

Neil Holbrook BSc PhD
Lecturer in Physical Geography: regional to large scale physical oceanography, large scale ocean dynamics, ocean-atmosphere interaction, interannual-decadal-secular scale climate variability, simple-intermediate complexity ocean modelling, tropical cyclones. Dr Holbrook joined Macquarie University as a research fellow in the Climatic Impacts Centre. Dr Holbrook was elected Chair of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) Sydney Centre between 1998-99 and has been an AMOS Sydney Centre committee member since 1996.

Richard Howitt BA PhD
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography; social impacts of resource-based development projects; social impact assessment; recognition of native title and indigenous rights; corporate culture in Australia's resource industries.

POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Nandini Banerjee BSc BEd MSc(Hons) (PhD)
Evaluation of Policy Options for Mitigating CO2 Emissions from Thermal Power Stations: Case Study of Calcutta, India.
(supervisor: Prof. R.H. Fagan)

Anne-Marie Graham BSc (PhD)
Communication of Climate Trends in Science: the Sunspot and ENSO Paradigms
(supervisor: Dr Neil Holbrook)

Paul Batten BSc (Hons) (PhD)
Using Landscape Information in Regional Biodiversity Strategies: Innovative Approaches to Creating and Providing Landscape Information.
(supervisor Dr Graeme Aplin)

AFFILIATED RESEARCH STUDENTS

Jacqueline Crawshaw BSc
Impacts of urbanisation on precipitation in Australia
(supervisor Dr Paul Beggs)

Sian Grigg BA(Hons)
Investigating physical and biogeochemical processes in the ocean over long time scales using coupled ocean atmosphere box models.

Angela Maharaj BSc(Hons)
Investigating upper Pacific Ocean variability using satellite altimeter observations.

Gemma Narisma BSc Applied Physics, MESc
High Resolution Modelling of Land Cover Change
(supervisor Professor Andrew Pitman)

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR

Ann Henderson-Sellers BSc, PhD,FRMetS, FRAS, D.Sc, FTSE
Professor Henderson Sellers was the founding director of the Climatic Impacts Centre in 1991, maintaining this position until February 1996. Professor Henderson-Sellers is currently Director, Environment in the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), at Lucas Heights..

HONORARY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Roslyn Taplin BSc, BA(Hons), MEnvStud, PhD. Director of the Climatic Impacts Centre 1996/1997; currently Senior Environmental Policy Consultant with Acil Consulting Pty Ltd, Sydney.

Michael Edwards, BSc(Hons), MSc(Dist), PhD. Research area "Threats in the Greenhouse: Climate Change and Secuity in the Southwest Pacific."

Charles Guest, BA, MB, BS, MPh, PhD, Senior Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health

Geoff Richards, BSc, MSc, DipEnvStud, Senior Policy Advisor, Environmental Health Branch, with the New South Wales Government Health Department

Kendal McGuffie, BSc, PhD, MAIP, PhD, Reader, Applied Physics, University of Technology, Sydney

George Wilkenfeld, BArch, Mphil, PhD, Director of George Wilkenfeld and Associates Pty Ltd

Bryant McAvaney, BSc(Hons), PhD, Leader, Climate Change Modelling Group, Bureau of Meterology

George Walker, BEng, ME, PhD, Executive Director Strategic Development, AON Group Australia.