This week, as part of its 60-year-anniversary, Scott Base will host an independent TedX event #TedxScottBase – the remotest venue for a TedX event ever.
TVOne News ran a full three minute segment highlighting the event in Antarctica and the connection to climate change. As the issues around climate change gain momentum in the kiwi psyche and conversation, it becomes more important for projects such as the Deep South Challenge to be part of the conversation to ensure that it’s not a doomsday story, but focusses on how New Zealand will adapt in a changing climate.
New Zealand rates well on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, due to a number of fortunate features: our position of the globe, away from the tropics that will experience the most extreme increases in temperature; our access to stable water supplies (although research shows New Zealand can expect some changes that will need addressing, especially in the Far North); and our status as an innovative first world country with the ability to adjust its economic platforms. However, our success will rely on understanding the climatic changes that are on the horizon, the potential risks to our current industry practices and allowing that to inform strategic planning at many levels of society including city infrastructure and primary industry. To this end, New Zealand has made a considerable investment by way of the Deep South National Science Challenge that brings together some of New Zealand’s top climate expertise, to develop the first New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM) in order to provide the localised climate information and future projections. This will allow decision makers access to potential impacts and implications of climate change, particularly in terms of climate sensitive industries and infrastructure, that will affect all of us.
While the world watches Antarctica, and TedX that will be released online this Sunday, the Deep South National Science Challenge will continue working towards better decision making for all New Zealanders in the face of changing climate.
Successful airborne measurements of sea ice; preparation of data to inform the next IPCC report; and publication of a novel method that uses machine learning to classify satellite cloud data are some of the recent science highlights from the Deep South Challenge.
Antarctic Fieldwork – Airborne Measurements of Sea Ice
Deep South Challenge sea ice researchers from the Universities of Otago and Canterbury and ocean researchers from NIWA have successfully completed the deployment of an aircraft-towed electromagnetic induction instrument to measure sea ice thickness. Working from Scott Base in November 2016, the team was able to both deploy the airborne instrumentation and complete a three week validation programme of snow and sea ice thickness and structure measurements, in parallel with ocean structure measurements in McMurdo Sound. This research will be linked to a US-supported icebreaker cruise in 2017 and repeat measurements over McMurdo Sound and the Ross Sea in November 2017. The results will then be integrated within the Deep South Challenge into the New Zealand Earth System Model.
Dr. Mike Williams (Director, Deep South Challenge)
Prof. Pat Langhorne (Principle Investigator on DSC research)
Dr. Wolfang Rack (Principle Investigator on DSC research)
Researchers photograph the flight of the electromagnetic instrcument (EM-Bird) being towed under an airplane on an Antarctic ice plain
Contributions to the next IPCC report
As members of the Deep South National Science Challenge’s Earth System Modelling and Prediction programme (led by Dr Olaf Morgenstern) work on the full installation of the New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM), test simulations using precursor configurations have been under way on NIWA’s supercomputer, Fitzroy for more than 10 months. Meanwhile, the team is supporting the UK Met Office in their preparations for the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), by producing model input data for them. CMIP6 will lay the foundation for the planned 6th Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be released in 2020/2021. This is an example of how the Deep South National Science Challenge is enabling this international collaboration in climate modelling.
Dr Olaf Morgenstern (DSC Programme Leader – Earth System Modelling and Prediction)
Dr Johnny Williams (DSC funded modeller)
Dr Vidya Varma (DSC funded modeller)
Dr Erik Behrens (DSC funded modeller)
The New Zealand Earth System Model programme is boosting New Zealand’s contribution to international climate modelling efforts
Classifying cloud data – journal article
In October 2016, Associate Professor Adrian McDonald and co-authors published an article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, which is a high impact international journal. The article describes a study which explores the application of machine learning methods to classify satellite cloud data, and is the first to apply this technique. This work effectively demonstrates that this technique can identify physically meaningful cloud regimes automatically, by analysing model data and the satellite cloud classes. Efforts are already underway to compare the results of this satellite classification with New Zealand Earth System Model output in order to test the quality of the representation of clouds in this new model.
Project pages:
This work was funded as part of two Deep South Challenge funded projects, which are both ongoing:
Associate Professor Adrian McDonald (DSC Programme Leader – Processes & Observations)
Dr. Simon Parsons (DSC funded scientist)
McDonald, A. J., J. J. Cassano, B. Jolly, S. Parsons, and A. Schuddeboom (2016), An automated satellite cloud classification scheme using self-organizing maps: Alternative ISCCP weather states, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 121, 13,009–13,030, doi:10.1002/2016JD025199.
Sound representation of cloud data is important for accurate Earth System Modelling output.
The mission of the Deep South National Science Challenge is to enable New Zealanders to adapt, manage risk, and thrive in a changing climate.
Working with communities and industry we will bring together new research approaches to determine the impacts of a changing climate on our climate-sensitive economic sectors, infrastructure and natural resources to guide planning and policy. This will be underpinned by improved knowledge and observations of climate processes in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica – our Deep South – and will include development of a world-class earth systems model to predict Aotearoa New Zealand’s climate.
Contestable funding – request for proposals (RFP) documents
The mission of the Deep South Challenge will be achieved through a framework that connects society with scientists through five inter-linked programmes. The three core inter-connected research Programmes (see figure 1 below) will be guided by and incorporate the research and related activities from within the Vision Mātauranga and Engagement Programmes.
Fig 1. The Deep South National Science Challenge Programme Structure.
To date, the Challenge has funded research projects that will help achieve the objectives of specific programmes including principally Vision Mātauranga (VM), Processes & Observations (P&O), and Earth Systems Modelling & Prediction (ESMP). In our first year of Contestable Funding, we funded seven projects that will enhance our knowledge of P&O, strengthen the development of the ESMP, widen our portfolio of VM research and initiate our explorations onto the field of climate change Impacts and Implications in New Zealand.
The Deep South Challenge has now opened its second Contestable Funding round. The Challenge invites proposals that will help deliver the overall Mission and contribute to the success of the Challenge. It is vital that applicants understand this core requirement when drafting proposals. Applicants are encouraged to contact the relevant Deep South Science Leadership Team (SLT) member to discuss their proposal ideas to ensure that it is Deep South Challenge Mission-relevant. Applicants are able to submit proposals that span two or more programmes, where appropriate.
While applications will be considered that cover any of our Programmes, we would like to encourage applications that fall into the Impacts and Implications and Engagement Programmes. These are areas that are currently under significant development, and are essential to the achievement of our Mission.
This round of Contestable funding could also be an opportunity for applicants to request funds that will support Antarctic fieldwork on the RV Tangaroa (2018/19), provided that:
The research is focused on achieving the Deep South Challenge mission
The research team have already submitted an EOI to the Tangaroa Antarctic Voyages Working Group and it is accepted (and evidence is submitted in support of this RfP).
Available funding
Total Value – Up to $1,500,000 (excl. GST) – for years 4 & 5 of the Deep South Challenge
Project Value – Up to $300,000 (excl. GST) total for up to two years
Reviewers – Independent Science Panel (ISP), Kāhui Māori, Technical Advisory Committee on Engagement, and Deep South Science Leadership Team (SLT) members.
Timeline
Early notice of pending Contestable Round – 23 November
RfP released – 20 December 2016
RfP closes – 2 March 2017
Review by SLT and recommendations to the ISP – 2 March to 22 March 2017
ISP review and recommendations – 22 March to 24 April 2017
Board approve recommended projects – 4 May 2017
Disseminate results and set up subcontracts – 4 May – 30 June 2017
Do you have an idea for Engagement about the Deep South Challenge (DSC)?
Can you think of innovative ways to help New Zealanders to make more informed decisions about climate change research?
Are there new ideas that you’d like to test about climate change engagement?
Watch the video below, or read the following guidance, on ways to connect with the Engagement Programme through the Contestable funding process.
Overview of funding opportunities in the DSC Engagement Programme – with a focus on the 2017 Contestable Funding round.
How to get involved with the Engagement programme
The goal of the DSC Engagement programme is to contribute to improving New Zealanders’ ability and capacity to make decisions informed by DSC-related research. This will be delivered by focusing on six engagement objectives, which are outlined in more depth in the DSC Engagement Strategy and Executive Summary.
People can help us to deliver on these Engagement Objectives by:
partnering with the Engagement Programme on delivery of its core programme, for example through work as a designer, writer, videographer, event facilitator etc
Webinars about Engagement in the contestable process
Two webinars specifically focused on development of Engagement projects for the Contestable Round will be held on Thursday January 26th, 11am, and Monday, February 13th, 2pm. To register for these please email [email protected].
Engagement funding through the contestable process
There are three ways in which engagement can be included, and will be considered, in a Contestable proposal:
Proposals for research into engagement about climate change, especially related to decision-making and adaptation. These proposals will be assessed on research excellence as well as contribution to the Engagement Programme objectives.
Proposals that focus exclusively on engagement activities without an intention to contribute to academic research. These projects will be assessed on their ability to enable the Engagement Programme to meet its objectives.
Proposals that focus primarily on research related to one or more of the other four DSC programmes and also include an engagement component. In this case, the research component will be assessed on science excellence and he engagement component will be assessed on its contribution to the Engagement Programme objectives.
We strongly encourage prospective applicants to read the DSC Engagement Strategy to ensure their proposal delivers on at least one of the Engagement Objectives. In many cases, a single proposal might deliver on more than one objective. Examples of the kinds of projects that would deliver on the objectives are below; they are intended only as illustrations.
Development and testing of new mechanisms to enable informed decision-making for key sectors
We would love to see proposals for new ideas that will enable informed decision-making about climate change and its impacts and implications. We are especially interested in projects that help the user to better understand the role of an Earth System Model and/ or the data that it produces, the impacts and implications of climate change that are projected by models, and decision options related to adaptation.
We are also specifically interested in engaging with sectors most affected by extreme weather; drought; sea level rise; and shifts in typical weather patterns. This includes, for example, finance, infrastructure and natural resources; marginalised or low-income communities; and sectors where New Zealand’s competitive advantage may be eroded by these impacts. We would also like to support efforts that lead to a broad geographic reach.
Examples of this kind of project include games, interactive websites, data visualisation tools, use of new technologies for decision-making, new approaches to workshopping and decision-making, or events targeted at a key sector that is currently under-served by DSC activities. We expect research projects into new mechanisms like this to involve some component of active engagement, and to therefore be assessed on both its research excellence and ability to deliver on the engagement objectives.
Major new public engagement projects
We strongly encourage science communication and public engagement professionals to consider submitting a proposal for a bold, innovative and exciting climate change engagement project – especially ones that enable the audience to better understand climate models, the connections between climate science and decision-making, or consideration of adaptation options.
We are especially interested in engaging members of the public who make decisions that could be influenced by an understanding about (DSC-relevant) climate change research. This is a wide scale, which spans individuals who may not currently take climate into consideration in any decisions, to individuals who might use climate data to make a specific decision. This definition encourages activities focused on young adults or families, but not those explicitly focused on school-children or curriculum development.
Examples of this kind of project include exhibitions, data visualisation projects that help to explain how models work, digitised representations that help users interrogate real climate data in a useable form, new and accessible approaches for conceptualising models, and trialling of innovative public engagement approaches to facilitate greater dialogue, co-creation, and empowerment in decision-making related to the impacts of climate change.
Building capability in climate change engagement
We are very interested in opportunities for training and support for a range of intermediaries and leaders to enable them to communicate more accurately and effectively, and facilitate climate change engagement events and activities across New Zealand. This includes both improving scientists’ ability to communicate effectively to various audiences and improving others’ (e.g., media, educators, arts community, community and sector leaders) understanding of climate change science and how it interfaces with decision-making.
While much of this work will be funded by the core Engagement programme, examples of projects that would complement this work include new mechanisms for up-skilling in facilitation and climate change science and the development of new products or processes that would make engagement easier for these climate “champions”. This would include projects to make modeling and the NZESM more understandable to key audiences (including its strengths, limitations, scientific-ness, understanding projections, variability). Such a project would deliver on a number of Engagement programme objectives.
What next?
If you have an idea that you think might help the Engagement Programme to deliver on its objectives, please get in touch!
Two webinars specifically focused on development of Engagement projects for the Contestable Round will be held on Thursday January 26th, 11am, and Monday, February 13th, 2pm. To register for these please email [email protected].
For more details, please contact the Engagement Team.
The Impacts and Implications programme is funding research that will help New Zealanders manage risk, adapt and thrive in a changing climate.
Part of that funding follows a fairly traditional process, with scientists applying for money to fund research they consider valuable – that funding will be allocated by the end of this summer. However, a second part of the Impacts and Implications funding follows a more collaborative process, with scientists and stakeholders engaging in a facilitated dialogue event to identify tractable research questions that are relevant to important decisions in New Zealand society. From this process, the Deep South Challenge will then fund research to answer those questions, ideally supported by stakeholders with either in-kind contributions or co-funding. Wilbur Townsend outlines the year ahead.
Insurance dialogue – exploring possibilities
The first dialogue event will ask how insurance can better inform and ameliorate climate change-related risk. Our focus will be on risks for coastal property, though similar issues exist for other flood-prone and wind-prone properties.
The effects of climate change are already evident in coastal property and will do so increasingly. The existing 20cm of anthropogenic sea-level rise increased Superstorm Sandy’s storm surge losses in New York by 30%, because a small amount of sea-level rise can substantially exacerbate flooding. Under the most optimistic scenario studied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global average sea levels are likely to further rise by between 26cm and 55cm by 2100. Across Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Napier, roughly 27900 houses are within 1.5m of the average spring tide and 5100 are within 0.5m.
Conversation around risk
One of the key social functions of insurance is to communicate risk. However home insurers’ policies last for just one year. This means that home insurance premiums reflect current risks but do not reflect future risks. In particular home owners and home buyers cannot currently use insurance premiums to assess the risk that their home will be destroyed by sea level rise. Longer terms on insurance policies would ensure that insurance policies signal future risk – if the difficult actuarial challenges of designing such policies could be resolved.
Insurance policies cover many risks but they don’t cover everything. For example, the terminally ill are unlikely to be offered a life insurance policy. Similarly, a coastal property may be too risky for an insurance firm to be willing to offer insurance. This means the property becomes un-insurable, and as a result worth little.
Insurance firms could suddenly decide that many houses are un-insurable. For example, if a bad flood in Thames convinces insurance firms that the flood risk all over New Zealand is greater than they had previously thought, home owners in Dunedin might find they cannot renew their insurance. This will impose social risks because in the event of a flood many people will be unprotected. These social risks can also impose fiscal risks on government.
Impacts on banking
Banks could also be threatened because mortgage lenders often require that mortgagees be insured. A property may become un-insurable after a mortgage has been issued; an uninsurable property won’t easily be sold because buyers can’t get a mortgage. Lack of insurance could lead to financial instability as bank assets and the housing market are affected.
By facilitating conversations between researchers, insurers, banks and government the Deep South Challenge will develop a better understanding of these phenomena and identify research that can help New Zealanders adapt to a changing climate.
The Engagement Strategy for the Deep South Challenge (DSC) outlines the goal and objectives of the Engagement Programme and describes background research, practical workstreams and example activities for delivery of these objectives. This strategy was approved by the DSC Board in December 2015 and further updated and approved in December 2016 to reflect greater clarity around intra-Challenge linkages.
Climate change will impact New Zealand and New Zealanders in many ways. Good decision-making, from an individual to a national scale, will require knowledge of these expected impacts. Research supported by the Deep South Challenge (DSC) will improve our understanding of climate change science and its impacts on, and implications for, New Zealand over the next 100 years. It will also enhance our ability to make decisions informed by climate change research.
Engagement goals and objectives
The goal of the DSC Engagement programme is to contribute to improving New Zealanders’ ability and capacity to make decisions informed by DSC-related research.
This will be delivered by focusing on six engagement objectives:
Ensuring that DSC research responds to the needs of New Zealanders;
Strengthening channels with key audiences and sectors with regard to DSC-related climate change research to build sector-specific interest in, and capacity to understand and use, this information to enable more informed decision-making;
Establishing broad public communication and two-way engagement about DSC-related climate change research to increase New Zealanders’ awareness of, and ability to access and use, DSC research outcomes such that they inform climate-related decisions;
Maintaining communication of DSC progress (to the public, key stakeholders, and funders, DSC researchers and committees);
Building capability for engagement about climate change among experts and intermediaries (especially related to modelling, impacts and implications, and adaptation), and contributing expertise to engagement led by external partners, to ensure effective communication and dialogue through and beyond the duration of the DSC;
Evaluating the DSC engagement programme to ensure that the programme delivers on its goal and contributing to academic literature through research on factors enhancing the effectiveness of climate-change engagement.
Four workstreams have been established to deliver the Engagement objectives:
Target Audience: People who can drive improvements in decision making in key climate-sensitive sectors, including finance, infrastructure and natural resources; marginalised or low-income communities; and sectors where New Zealand’s competitive advantage may be eroded.
Workstream 2: Broad public and internal Engagement (Objectives 3 & 4)
Target Audience: Members of the public who make decisions that could be influenced by an understanding about climate change research. This is a wide scale, which spans individuals who may not currently take climate into consideration in any decisions, to individuals who might use climate data to make a specific decision. (This does not include school-children as a primary target audience but does include family-focused engagement and young adults.)
Workstream 3: Capacity-building for engagement (Objective 5)
Target audience: DSC researchers and other professionals with climate information expertise; stakeholders and thought-leaders who can act as facilitators of engagement and information-sharing with key sectors; and engagement and communication professionals.
Workstream 4: Evaluation and Research (Objective 6)
Target audience: DSC leadership, including Science Leadership Team, Independent Science Panel, and Board; DSC funders, particularly MBIE; and the international research community in public engagement with science and climate change communication. Implementation of the engagement strategy is the responsibility of the Science Lead (Engagement), in close cooperation with the Science Leadership Team (SLT), the Technical Advisory Committee for Engagement (TACE) and a Representative User Group (RUG).
Key messages
Key messages of the Deep South Challenge follow. These are aligned with each programme. The selection of these messages, and their framing, will vary for different events, activities, and audiences. Information provided in parentheses is supplementary.
Climate change is happening
People need reliable climate information in order to be able to make important decisions about their future [Engagement]
The main areas of change will be related to more extreme weather events, droughts, shifts in typical weather patterns, and sea level rise [Impacts & Implications]
Given diverse living arrangements and climate-sensitivities across Māori society, there is a growing need to know more about the specific implications (includes opportunities and risks) of a changing climate for iwi/hapū/whānau and Māori business. [Vision Matauranga]
In order to make more accurate predictions of future climate in New Zealand, we need to develop the New Zealand Earth System Model [Earth System Modelling and Prediction]
Research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is important to better understand key (high-latitude) processes (and to represent them appropriately) in the New Zealand Earth System Model [Processes and Observations]
Funding
Funding for projects and activities that deliver on the Engagement Programme Goal and Objectives is available through three channels:
commissioned work funded directly by the Engagement Programme;
projects proposed by external partners that are funded by the Engagement programme following an application process
through the DSC Contestable funding process (open for projects that deliver on any or several DSC programmes, including Engagement).
Funding from the Engagement Programme can be used to support time and costs for development, coordination and reporting/evaluation of an activity.
Welcome to Associate Professor Adrian McDonald who joined the Deep South Challenge Science Leadership Team (SLT) for the Processes and Observations Programme on 1 November.
Associate Professor Adrian McDonald, Canterbury University
Adrian has been involved in the Deep South Challenge since its inception and brings a broad expertise in physical climate processes, essential for overseeing the range of projects involved in the programme. Adrian continues his teaching and research in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Canterbury, where his research focuses on climate processes that are important in polar regions and their influence on the Southern Hemisphere.
Adrian was one of the first researchers to be supported in the initial steps of the Challenge, and currently leads two Challenge projects. One of these core projects is focussed on the accurate representation of Southern-Ocean clouds and aerosols in the New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM). The other is a satellite simulator project that aims to facilitate comparisons of satellite data and model output from the NZESM via the use of software simulation tools.
Adrian’s appointment strengthens both the observational and modelling skills of the Deep South Science Leadership Team, and we look forward to hearing more about Adrian’s work in the future.
The development of a New Zealand-based Earth System Model represents a significant investment to better predict New Zealand’s climate, and therefore to make more informed decisions for the future. We asked Dr Olaf Morgenstern, who leads both the Earth System Model and Prediction Programme and the “Capability” project within the Deep South Challenge, how the project has been developing.
What does the Capability project involve?
The Capability project is about coordinating, supporting, maintaining, and to some extent operating the New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM). As such, it occupies a central role in the Earth System Modelling & Prediction (ESMP) programme of the Deep South National Science Challenge. Thus far, the project has focussed on two roles:
The first is to bring in, install, and test versions of the Hadley Centre Global Environment Model (HadGEM) which the NZESM will be based on.
The other role is to support users. In the future, as the other, more scientifically oriented projects gain momentum, the project will also coordinate code contributions from these projects.
What will this enable us in New Zealand to do that we can’t do now?
In the future we will have an Earth System Model of our own which we will use to produce simulations of past, present, and future climate. We have never had such a capability before and have had to rely solely on international modelling efforts for global climate projections. These are subject to some well-documented weaknesses, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. A desire to get involved in model development to tackle these deficiencies, tapping into local expertise in high-latitude (i.e. Southern-Ocean and Antarctic) climate physics, was a motivating factor for the New Zealand Government to give the Deep South Challenge the remit that it now has.
You’ve been overseas to meet with international counterparts and collaborators – how will we work with them in the future?
Our lead overseas partner is the UK Met Office. The Met Office is a world-leading climate modelling centre, having contributed to all five Assessment Reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1990. NIWA has an established relationship with the Met Office, having used their weather and climate models since the 1990s. Hence the Deep South Challenge decided to base the NZESM on the UK Earth System Model (UKESM). Development of this model is now shared between the Met Office and several partners, including the Deep South Challenge. Jonny Williams, Olaf Morgenstern, and Vidya Varma visited the Met Office in November 2015 and April 2016, to meet with Met Office colleagues and learn about the model, their plans, and current projects.
You have a new person in the team where are they from, and what is their role?
The new team member is Fraser Dennison who is in the final assessment stage of completing his PhD in climate model evaluation at the University of Canterbury. He is originally from Timaru; his background is in engineering and physics. As a PhD student, he was jointly supervised by Adrian McDonald, the newly appointed Processes & Observations programme leader, and myself. Fraser’s topic was the influence of ozone depletion and other factors on Southern-Hemisphere climate. In his current project for the Deep South Challenge, he is further developing stratospheric chemistry in the NZESM, with the hope to improve the simulation of ozone in the model. Such an improved simulation may result in better representation of the role of ozone depletion on the climate of our region.
Are we on track? What are the challenges?
Yes, we are generally on track regarding the technology of hosting and availability of the model. Over the course of the last year, the NZESM user group has been established; it is set to grow further, particularly outside NIWA. A challenge is that our supercomputer is quite small; we are looking forward to seeing it replaced over the course of 2017. We have not yet contributed any substantial code changes to the UKESM/NZESM – it takes time to get established, to understand the details of the model formulation, and then to devise ways to improve it.
What do you hope we will achieve with the NZESM? What are the implications for NZ decision makers?
Our hope is to develop a leading internationally used climate modelling tool, improving climate information available in New Zealand, both at the global and the regional scale. For NZ decision makers this will hopefully mean access to more reliable climate projections. There is a lot of regional detail in these projections. We anticipate that we will to provide localised climate projections to a range of decision makers, e.g. a kiwifruit grower in Tauranga deciding on future fruit varieties, or a council investing in drainage in a low lying coastal town. They will also have access to experts with hands-on experience in producing these simulations who can give them advice on the assumptions and uncertainties associated with these projections. Also quite generally, this activity will considerably raise NZ’s profile in the international climate modelling scene.
We talked to Dr Mike Williams about his new role as the Deep South Challenge Director, the challenges and opportunities and his recent research trip to Antarctica.
You’ve been in the Director’s sea now, for three months – what attracted you to the Deep South Challenge?
I have been involved with the about the Deep South Challenge since its earliest days as the leader of the Processes and Observations Programme and part of the Science Leadership Team. I’m passionate about this issue because it’s going to affect our children, our grandchildren and New Zealand society for generations to come. The Deep South Challenge is about starting now, understanding what changes are likely to happen and in what time-frames so all New Zealanders can make better decisions around things like land-use and infrastructure, and other things that we need to plan for. It’s a privilege to lead such an important science project and to ensure it delivers for all New Zealanders.
What have been some great things? And some challenges?
The best thing so far is seeing the Challenge established and moving forward. Over the last few years we have been slowly building the Challenge components, and next year we will see the final aspects of the core Challenge programme coming together. The biggest challenge for me is getting to grips with all the other programmes in the Challenge, and ensuring that they work together so together they can be more than the sum of the parts. What’s exciting is that are not only building on the traditional science expertise in New Zealand, we are also drawing new research communities together to build new integrative research programmes. This of course is a challenge but we’re trying to reach out to communities, businesses and other stakeholders so they can use the full spectrum of New Zealand’s climate research knowledge to understand how climate change will impact on New Zealand, what the financial risks and implications are, but also where the opportunities might be.
What are some of the projects that you’re really excited about?
I’m still really excited about the physical science where we are observing and understanding processes and linking this understanding to building and establishing an earth system model that utilizes New Zealand’s strong heritage with ocean, sea-ice and atmospheric physics and Antarctica. But I’m proud of the strong scientific research that we have built in all our programmes. It’s an ambitious Challenge as it tackles a variety of disciplines from ocean physics to decision making, and needs us to understand the range of impacts changing climate will have across industry and communities.
The new work I’m excited about is the series of dialogues that we are developing in the Impacts and Implications programme supported by the Engagement programme. I think these will give us a real opportunity to listen to various sectors, hear what makes their decisions complex and open up ideas for the research that is needed to help these sectors make decisions in a changing climate. They also have the potential to include various communities into the conversation so enabling also bring the consequences of climate change to the public. In this way we can make the new technology and research relevant to New Zealanders and the decisions they make.
Tell us about your research in Antarctica, and how it’s connected to the Deep South Challenge
We were doing field work on the sea ice of McMurdo Sound, near New Zealand’s Scott Base, to validate remote sensing measurements observed with airborne equipment. We do this by comparing the airborne measurements to direct physical measurements of sea ice. I was leading the ocean component of the programme while my colleagues were taking ice and snow thickness and structure measurements. But the key part of our project was to test fly an electromagnetic induction bird (EM-bird), new technology that that is towed about 100 metres under a plane. This is the first time this has been done in Antarctica, and is the key step for us in extending our measurements to a wider region of Antarctica as this equipment will be able to go further than scientists can on foot or by towing the EM-bird under a helicopter.
This work is a vital component of the Deep South National Science Challenge because Antarctic sea ice has not been well modelled in global climate models. Typically climate models have expected sea ice to retreat over the last few decades, the opposite trend to that seen in the observations. Sea ice is a key controller of climate processes in the Deep South region, so getting sea ice right in climate and earth system models is really important, and something we can only do with wider observations of sea ice. These observations underpin a new understanding of processes that we can incorporate into the New Zealand Earth System Model (NZESM) to better represent sea ice. This will be a potentially be major contribution to the international modelling effort.
This is part of a research programme with the Universities of Otago and Canterbury and also with Canadian and German collaborators. Find out more about the Deep South Challenge sea-ice modelling project.
It’s been a year since climate scientist Dr Jonny Williams ventured to New Zealand to join the Deep South Challenge as part of the Earth System Modelling & Prediction team. We asked him about his work, his background and his first year in New Zealand.
I’m climate scientist – my role, which is funded by the Deep South Challenge and hosted at the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) is to develop and document the New Zealand Earth System Model or NZESM. I also support other users of the model and act as a liaison between New Zealand and the international members of our modelling consortium, which includes the weather and climate agencies of the UK, Australia, South Korea and South Africa.
I come from England, originally, and after my PhD studies in solar energy conversion at Bath University, I worked at the Met Office in Exeter (the UK equivalent of the weather and climate work of New Zealand’s MetService and NIWA) as part of the climate model development team. After this I worked for an environmental consultancy firm in Bristol where I worked on everything from carbon footprint analysis, the effects of marine planning law on birds and tourism to the environmental impacts of landfill and product reuse. After this I moved to Bristol University where I spent five years working on paleo-climate simulations of the extreme warm climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods using climate models; when dinosaurs ruled the Earth!
The role with the Deep South Challenge appealed in many ways. Simply the ability to experience life in New Zealand was a factor due to the incredible beauty and natural spectacle of the country but two other factors outweighed this. The first one was the knowledge that I would be working in small teams compared to many of those that I was used to. This presents challenges, for sure, but it also provides opportunities to ‘muck in’ and be involved with a much more varied day-to-day workflow. The second was the opportunity to work in an oceanic region which, geographically speaking, has a huge influence on global climate but which is relatively poorly understood compared to, say, the North Atlantic. The Southern Ocean, which is one of our main focal areas, presents huge challenges for climate scientists due to the difficulty in taking measurements in such a vast, unforgiving area of open ocean. However, the opportunity to work with a group of modellers, observationalists and Antarctic explorers was too good to pass up.
I have been fortunate in my time at NIWA, that I have travelled from my base in Wellington to Auckland and Queenstown in order to present at conferences and to Melbourne to meet new collaborators at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. I have also engaged with new colleagues at GNS and the MetService and will be doing so, for example, at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council in the coming few months to discuss future effects of climate change and weather extremes on a local level. I’m enjoying working in a greater variety of professional situations compared to my previous roles; although I am primarily employed to develop the NZESM, I am able to engage to communities outside of my academic ‘comfort zone’. This can be challenging but it makes for a varied and interesting role in the Deep South Challenge.
