Climate Variability and Change
The Climate Variability and Change research group is active in researching past, present and future climates.
We use observations and climate models to explore climate variability, such as El Niño–Southern Oscillation. We also use climate models to investigate future climate change under a range of scenarios, including net-zero pathways as well as modelling past climates.
Group members run climate models such as ACCESS-ESM1.5, and we work closely with:
- National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub
- Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century
- ACCESS NRI
Ask the Bureau: Why do we have different climates across Australia?
If you're travelling across Australia, you'll notice a huge variety in our terrain. This is because Australia covers a large range of climate zones. These are regions of the world that experience similar temperature and rainfall. This video explains the different climate zone.
Dr Andrew King abstract of climate change paper
Dr Andrew King explains the research findings from his paper, "The drivers of nonlinear local temperature change under global warming".
Contact
For enquiries, please email A/Prof Josephine Brown - josephine.brown@unimelb.edu.au
Meet the academics and researchers in the Climate Variability and Change research group.
Academic staff
Dr Linden Ashcroft
Dr Navid Constantinou
Graduate researchers
Alex Borowiak
Liam Cassidy
Aditya Sengupta
Rida Kiani
Yanxuan Du
Paul Gravis
Alanah Chapman
Anna Zehrung
Juliana Neild
Luke Burgess
Spencer Clark
Sian Chilcott
Nayan Tamale
Ruchit Kulkarni
Recent publications
Alastrué de Asenjo, E., King, A. D., & Ziehn, T. (2025). European heat extremes under net-zero emissions. Environmental Research Letters, 20, 074029, https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/addee4
Biswas, S., Chand, S.S., Dowdy, A.J. and Sharma, K. (2025). Australian fire weather variability using calibrated long-term reanalysis data. Discover Environment, 3(1), pp.1-23, https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-025-00215-9.
Borowiak, A., King, A. D., Brown, J. R., Jones, C. D., & Grose, M. (2025). Climate Stabilisation Under Net Zero CO2 Emissions. Earth’s Future, 13(3), e2024EF005678. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF005678
Cassidy, L. J., King, A. D., Brown, J. R., Ziehn, T., & Borowiak, A. (2025). Evolution of Heat Extremes Under Net-Zero CO2 Emissions. Earth’s Future, 13(5). https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF005399
Dowdy, A. and King, A. (2025). Novel climate analysis methods applied to the Australian ESCI projections data. Frontiers in Climate, 6, p.1492228, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2024.1492228.
Dowdy, A. and Brown, A., (2025). Broadscale thunderstorm environment dataset intended for climate analysis. Frontiers in Climate, 7, p.1539873, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2025.1539873.
Du, Y., Brown, J. R., Menviel, L., Saini, H., & Drysdale, R. N. (2025). The impacts of an AMOC slowdown on Southern Hemisphere and Australian climates at 8.2 ka in ACCESS‐ESM1.5 model. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130, e2024JD042432. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD042432
Fensham, R.J., Dowdy, A., Grice, Z.C. and Laffineur, B., (2025). The fire environment of five Australian cities. Natural Hazards, 121(5), 5185-5205, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06975-6.
Heidemann, H., S. Narsey and J.R. Brown (2025), What drives variability of the Australian summer monsoon? Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130, e2024JD043016. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD043016.
Reid, K. J., and Coauthors (2025). A Multiscale Evaluation of the Wet 2022 in Eastern Australia. Journal of Climate, 38, 909–929, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-24-0224.1.
Reid, K. J., Allen, S., & Tolgambayev, E. (2025). Sensitivity of future projections of atmospheric rivers over Australia to the choice of thresholding method. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130, e2024JD043010. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD043010
Saini, H., Pontes, G., Brown, J. R., Drysdale, R. N., Du, Y., & Menviel, L. (2025). Australasian hydroclimate response to the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under pre-industrial and last interglacial climates. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 40, e2024PA004967. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024PA004967
Sengupta, A., King, A. D., & Brown, J. R. (2025). Do CMIP6 models capture seasonal and regional differences in the asymmetry of ENSO-precipitation teleconnections? Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130, e2024JD041031. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD041031