Atmospheric Modelling
Climate change and associated hazards such as tropical cyclones, drought, extreme heat and bushfires are serious problems faced by Australia.
The insufficient density of ground-based meteorological observation stations (especially in the Southern Hemisphere) and the lack of accurate data over the World’s oceans and Polar Regions significantly limits the accuracy and reliability of current climate models. As such it is important to develop and evaluate new observational techniques to gain an improved understanding of climate change in the Australian region. Satellite-based remote sensing provides a low-cost, powerful means of precisely measuring characteristics of the Earth’s environment on a global scale. Our mission is to explore the acquisition, data processing and models that the new generation GNSS and new geo-environmental satellite programs offer for space, atmosphere and climate research, particularly in an Australian context.
This research will serve as a catalyst for the development of future Australian LEO satellite(s) and understanding of space weather and climate change. This initiative is an important step in providing Australia with space-based technology platforms and a data portal suitable for generating a world class high-resolution analysis of climate conditions. This will be of great benefit in understanding the current status and trends in climate and potential environmental hazards and will be of assistance in planning for mitigation of climate change impact on Australia.
The SPACE Research Centre is currently researching the following topics in atmospheric modelling:
- Precise positioning
- Space weather/ solar activities, ionosphere
- Weather forecasting, climate monitoring and climatic hazards
- Environmental monitoring