Welcome Rick Harris to SGES

Rick joined the Climate Group in GES in early September. He is working on a project titled “Responding to the urban heat island: optimising the implementation of green infrastructure” funded by the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research (VCCCAR). Rick has experience working in Universities in the UK and the USA. He has s Masters in GIS and Remote Sensing and will be applying his skills to the analysis of airborne thermal imagery in the assessment of urban heat island drivers.

Andrew Coutts Introducing Rick Harris

 

SGESs Newest Fieldwork Safety Toy

Showcasing out newest Fieldwork Safety toy a SPOT2 Satellite GPS messenger.
It can be used to check in remotely, ask for help, or call SOS…

This one is currently being used by Priya and Tom in the Kimberley.

Welcoming our new school manager Kathleen Grant

A big Welcome to Kathleen our new School manager…

Welcome Kathleen

130th anniversary of the first publication of a weather chart in a Melbourne newspaper

The first Melbourne newspaper weather chart and “prognostication”

This month is the 130th anniversary of the first publication of a weather chart in a Melbourne newspaper. On Monday 26 September 1881 The Argus published the chart below, with an accompanying article describing the process use in the preparation of the chart. The chart is available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page260381.

Of course this was not the first Australian weather chart published in a newspaper – the Sydney Morning Herald published the first chart on 5 February 1877. But the article accompanying the 1881 chart in The Argus is interesting, I think. The article commences with the comment:

The “Weather Bulletin” which we have hitherto published is replaced today by a Weather Chart, the facsimile of a chart prepared at the Observatory from telegraphic reports received from the principal meteorological stations in Australia and New Zealand.

The article concludes with:

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Blue-sky thinking – what’s on the horizon for weather forecasting?

Check out Neville Nicholls article published in The Conversation  “Blue-sky thinking – what’s on the horizon for weather forecasting?“

The world of weather forecasting is still dominated by government agencies and national weather services, but there’s now a steady drip-drip of private forecasters.While they’re not exactly flooding the market, opportunities are increasing all the time.Is this a storm in a teacup? Should we be concerned? And why did governments, not private companies, come to dominate weather forecasting in the first place?

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Climate change impacts for Gippsland

Gippsland is vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. Changes in rainfall patterns pose challenges for water supply and agriculture, while higher temperatures increase the risk of large and intense bushfires.

The conditions for large fires are likely to become more common by mid-century. This image shows bushfire recovery in Wilsons Promontory. Source: Xufang/Shutterstock.

There are serious consequences of rising sea levels for the Gippsland region. The Gippsland Lakes, including Ninety Mile Beach and Corner Inlet, represent one of the most vulnerable coastal areas in Australia. Within 50 years, parts of the Gippsland coast will be inundated to an extent requiring protection or relocation of houses and buildings.

The risks have never been clearer and the case for action has never been more urgent. This is the critical decade. Decisions that we make in the decade will determine the severity of climate change impacts our children and grandchildren suffer.

This report was released as the Climate Commission began a tour of the Gippsland region that included meetings with community, local government, business and industry leaders, as well as a community town hall forum in Churchill.

Find out more

• Download the full document, The Critical Decade: Impacts for Gippsland, Victoria.
• Read more about the Commission’s report on climate change science, The Critical Decade.
• Find out about the Climate Commission’s visit to the Gippsland region.

Inaugural AAHM Asia-Pacific regional conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Dr Mark Staniforth is the Chair of the Scientific Committee and currently working on organising the Inaugural AAHM Asia-Pacific regional conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage to be held at the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila, Philippines from 8 to 12 November 2011.

The Conference aims to raise the profile of Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific region and has UNESCO patronage. This conference will provide a great opportunity to engage with and build collaborations with maritime archaeologists and underwater cultural heritage managers as well as to provide a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas, approaches and the latest research about underwater cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Conference website is at:

http://www.apconf.org/

Underwater cultural heritage photos courtesy of the NOAA Office of Marine Sanctuaries

Ben Reid awarded runner-up position in the annual ‘best paper’ awards in the Journal of Contemporary Asia

Dr Ben Reid has been awarded runner-up position in the annual ‘best paper’ awards in the Journal of Contemporary Asia (ERA A-ranked). The awardees are selected by the Editorial Board.

Congratulations to Dr Peter Wheeler

Congratulations to Dr Peter Wheeler who was recently awarded the Faculty of Arts 2010 Postgraduate Publication Prize for his contribution to the journal article, “Long-term bathymetric effects of groyne array emplacement at Lakes Entrance, Victoria, Australia” published in the Journal of Applied Geography.

Peter’s article was chosen by the selection panel on the basis of originality, scholarship and contribution to knowledge.

Revitalise citizenship at the grassroots

Peter Cock believes the answer to many of society’s ills is greater community spirit.

Media organisations spend precious time and money polling voters. This implies people care a lot about politicians’ personal popularity.

But surely it is democracy per se, rather than the passing political parade, we value. Surely it is the substance, not the form, that truly concerns us. Surely we are interested in so much more than this week’s performance perceptions of Julia and Tony, of Wayne and Julie and the crossbench cowboys.

 

Dr Peter Cock, sociologist, environmentalist and community founder

Well, perhaps not. North Africa and the Middle East are convulsing with desire for the freedoms, rights and responsibilities many of us appear to take for granted.

Perhaps we ought to abandon, or at least reduce, the Canberra bloodlust, notwithstanding its perverse entertainment quotient. Sociologist and environmentalist Dr Peter Cock is in The Zone to argue, with the benefit of decades of experience, that apathy is debasing our democracy.

”We’re so pious and arrogant at our democracy. But in a sense we’ve also given up on it. We’ve stopped engaging in it. Part of it is because we’ve lost learning citizenship at a grass-roots level.

”We need to have aspirations for a better society. We in the West tend to think we’ve made it and we’ve arrived. Well, we haven’t arrived.”

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/all-together-now-20110227-1b9w3.html