Kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā!

Hei ngā maunga, hei ngā reo, hei ngā iwi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Tēnā koutou i ō tātou aituā maha e hinga atu nā, e takoto mai rā i ō tātou marae. Koutou te hunga para i te huarahi, haere koutou. Hoki atu ki te okiokinga mō te tangata i te wāhi ngaro. Tātou e takatū tonu nei hei urupā mō rātou, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

Tēnei mātou a Taihoro Nukurangi, a NIWA e korihi nei, e mihi kau atu ki ngā tōpito e whā, ki ngā tini kārangatanga maha, ki ngā whare wānanga otiiā ngā wāhi mahi rangahau puta noa i te motu. 

Nau mai, haere mai ki tō tātou kaupapa, e kiiā nei ko te `Komata o te tonga’, me kī `Deep South’, tētehi o Ngā Wero Pūtaiao-ā-motu. Ko tōna kaupapa matua, ko te wāhanga Pūnaha Hihiko e hāngai pū tonu ki ngā rerekētanga o te āhuarangi me ōna tikanga katoa. Heoti anō rā, he pānui tēnei ki a koutou, he pūtea e wātea ana mō te hunga mātanga rangahau Māori. Nō reira pānuihia mai ngā whakamārama e whai ake nei.

Request for proposals – second funding round

The Vision Mātauranga science programme, as part of the Deep South National Science Challenge, is pleased to announce the opening of its second funding round. Research projects are sought that will contribute substantive and transformative outcomes for Māori and wider Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

This science programme gives effect to the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Vision Mātauranga Policy through strategic planning and research. Project proposals will be built around the four research themes identified in the Deep South Challenge Research and Business Plan.

The four research themes are:

Theme 1: Understanding climate change – linkages, pressure points and potential responses 

Theme 2: Exploring adaptation options for Māori communities (rural and urban)

Theme 3: Assistance to Māori businesses to aid decision-making and long-term sustainability

Theme 4: Products, services and systems derived from mātauranga Māori*

* Includes: Te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and new technologies

Funding and duration

Potential projects will be funded up to a maximum of $250k. It is anticipated that successful applicants will commence their projects on 1 July 2017 or as soon as practicable thereafter, for a period of up to 24 months.

Applications will need to complete the first three documents as listed below. The fourth document is provided to demonstrate how projects will be assessed. Please pass on this information to other investigators involved in your project. For information on previously funded Vision Mātauranga science projects round please refer Vision Mātauranga science projects.

Timeframe

Proposals are due by Thursday 30 March 2017 at 5.00pm. 

Please submit your proposal to the Deep South Challenge Manager – Lucy Jacob ([email protected]).

Proposals received after the closing date will not be accepted.

All proposals will be reviewed by the Kāhui Māori, the Science Leadership Team and the Independent Science Panel prior to the Deep South Challenge Director recommending projects for funding to the Deep South Board for approval. 

The following information sets out these indicative processes and timelines. Note these times are New Zealand Standard Time. We reserve the right to alter the timeline if required.

• 1 February – Board approves Vision Mātauranga Timeline
• 8 February – Vision Mātauranga RfP released
• 30 March – Project Proposals Due
• 3 – 6  April – Project Reviews by Kāhui Maori
• 10 – 13 April – Project Reviews by Science Leadership Team
• 17 – 21 April – Project Reviews by the Independent Science Panel
• 24 – 28 April – Director provides funding recommendations to Governance Board
• 4 May – Board considers project recommendations and approves funding
• 10 May – Director informs Project Leaders and contracting commences
• 1 July –  Projects commence

For more information

For more information pertaining to this RfP please contact the Science Leader Vision Mātauranga Darren-Ngaru King ([email protected] 09 375 2050) or the Challenge Director Mike Williams ([email protected] 04 386 0389).

University of Canterbury glaciologist Dr Wolfgang Rack is leading the world’s first EM-bird measurement of sea-ice thickness, towed by a 75-year-old fixed-wing aircraft in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.  

The Icetronauts project is being conducted as part of the New Zealand Government’s Deep South National Science Challenge for targeted observations of earth system variables. Our aim is to explore how much sea water is freezing in the Southern ocean every year and how important it is to the global climate, Dr Rack says.

“Sea-ice thickness is the biggest unknown in cryosphere research, because it is so hard to measure. It amazes me how little we know about it, despite its significance for global climate,” he says. “The EM-bird is the only instrument which can measure the thickness of sea ice remotely.”

The ‘EM’ stands for ElectroMagnetic induction. It is a state-of-the-art technology to remotely measure ice thickness, and it works similar to an induction cook top, Dr Rack says.

“Because sea ice is salty, conventional radar cannot measure thickness, but the EM instrument can, although it needs to be operated close to the surface.”

For the measurements, the research team, called The Icetronauts, used a converted 1942-built DC-3 aeroplane to tow the EM-bird at a height of 15 metres above the Antarctic sea ice.

“We are happy to be the first researchers who have shown that the EM-bird can be operated in Antarctica safely from an aeroplane.”

Field measurements of sea-ice thickness and ocean properties were also made. The data is being used to verify aircraft and satellite measurements to derive ice thickness maps in the Southern Ocean, as part of a PhD study at Gateway Antarctica by UC student Gemma Brett.

“For my PhD, I am using an instrument which is very similar to the EM-bird except it is ground-based – it is sled-mounted and I towed it behind a skidoo across the sea ice,” she says.

Dr Rack is a senior lecturer in Glaciology and Remote Sensing at Gateway Antarctica Centre for Antarctic Studies and Research, at the University of Canterbury. From November 2016 to January 2017 there were six icetronauts working on the ice; two on sea ice and four on the Ross Ice Shelf. There are currently eight icetronauts working at Gateway Antarctica.

“Sea-ice science requires a multidisciplinary approach as it involves glaciology, meteorology, oceanography, and biology,” Dr Rack says.

Project partners include NIWA, York University Toronto, the University of Otago and Antarctica New Zealand.

Story courtesy of University of Canterbury.

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.

TVOne feature – Influential visitors share their passion in Ted talk

Stay connected to the #TedXScottBase event

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.

Project page:

• Targeted observation and process-informed modelling of Antarctic sea ice

Researchers:

• Dr. Mike Williams (Director, Deep South Challenge)
• Prof. Pat Langhorne (Principle Investigator on DSC research)
• Dr. Wolfang Rack (Principle Investigator on DSC research)

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.

Project page:

• Establishing a New Zealand Earth System Modelling (NZESM) capability

Researchers:

• 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)

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:

• Reducing biases in the representation of clouds and aerosols in the NZESM
• Climate model evaluation using satellite simulators: A like for like methodology

Researchers:

• 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.

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 Deep South Challenge contestable funding

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.

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.  

Details of all our projects can be found on the website.

Contestable funding scope

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.  

Engagement proposals will be assessed by additional criteria which align with the Engagement Objectives of the Challenge. 

Potential for RV Tangaroa voyage alignment

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
• Projects commence – 1 July 2017 
• Projects completed – 30 June 2019

For further information

Contact Challenge Manager, Lucy Jacob: [email protected]

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.

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:

• submitting a proposal through the Expression of Intent process, for projects that will cost up to about $10k
• partnering with the Engagement Programme on delivery of its core programme, for example through work as a designer, writer, videographer, event facilitator etc
• applying for funding for a major project through the 2017 Contestable Funding Round.

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.

More information about the criteria and process can be found under the 2017 Contestable Funding Round.

What kinds of projects might get funded?

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.

Generic contact: [email protected]

Engagement Programme Lead: [email protected]

About 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.

For more information and contact details see the Impacts and Implications Programme page

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.

Engagement Strategy: Executive Summary

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:

1. Ensuring that DSC research responds to the needs of New Zealanders;
2. 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; 
3. 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;
4. Maintaining communication of DSC progress (to the public, key stakeholders, and funders, DSC researchers and committees);
5. 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;
6. 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:

Workstream 1: Tailored Engagement (Objectives 1 & 2)

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.

More information on Engagement Programme funding

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.

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.

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