The relationship between atmospheric pollution and 'acid' rain have been known of since the 1850s.
Investigating the potential interaction between monsoon systems in Australia and China
CSIRO researchers are working with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science to analyse the relationship between southern Australia’s winter rainy season and East Asia’s summer monsoon season.
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17 August 2009 | Updated 14 October 2011
Project summary
The objective of this project is to improve understanding of the interaction of the Australian and East Asian monsoon systems.
The team is investigating the potential interaction between the two monsoon systems, and the impact of changes in Australian climate on summer rainfall over northern China, through a two-year project set up under the Australia-China Climate Change Partnership.
Current activities
The East Asian summer monsoon carries moist air from the Indian and Pacific Oceans to East Asia. The monsoonal flow interacts with the Australian winter monsoon.
Both northern China and south-west Western Australia lie in mid-latitude climate zones, on the same degree of longitude (110º to 120º E), so they could be exposed to similar climatic processes.
This approach will help to reduce the uncertainty around projections, therefore improving decision-making for natural resource managers.
The project team is collecting observed and modelled rainfall data, and other climate- and weather-related data, from Australia, China and various global databases.
Using the data they will analyse possible relationships, develop and apply statistical models to assess the impact of the Australian monsoon on summer rainfall in China, and aim to understand and describe any physical interaction between the northern and southern hemisphere monsoons.
This project combines expertise in statistics and atmospheric science, enabling the researchers to develop methods to couple statistical models for observations with physical models of climate processes.
This approach will help to reduce the uncertainty around projections, therefore improving decision making for natural resource managers.
Partners
The project is being conducted under the auspices of the Australia-China Climate Change Partnership.
Funded through the then Australian Greenhouse Office’s Bilateral Climate Change Partnership Programme, it is one of 11 projects agreed and announced by the former Australian Minister for the Environment, Senator Ian Campbell, and China’s National Development Reform Commission Vice Chairman Jiang Weixin in Beijing in 2006.
Read more about this work in CSIRO's SOLVE magazine.
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