- Margot Bador ( email@example.com )
Global warming is expected to increase the amount of rainfall that falls during the most extreme events. Changes in precipitation extremes are among the most impact-relevant consequences of climate change over Australia, yet global climate models struggle to simulate them.
Models from phase 5 of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 models) indicate a large range of future changes over Australia, including different signs of the change at the seasonal and regional scales. This is partly explained because they do not get some of the main rainfall characteristics. For instance, some models do not correctly reproduce the annual cycle of precipitation.
Such important biases have significant consequences for the extremes and the student will look into these issues.
The primary goal of this project is to conduct an evaluation of the CMIP5 models for precipitation extremes over Australia. To that end, the student will assess how models simulate key precipitation metrics in comparison to observations.
The long-term goal will be to estimate if a minimal list of criteria can be identified for better simulation of precipitation extremes over Australia in order to improve our confidence in the future changes.
Requirements: Some prior programming and data visualisation experience (e.g. Python, MATLAB, R, etc.) or a willingness to learn.