Environmental Futures

Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Dr Frédérik Saltré's seminar titled 'Trait-Space divergence and the use of non-native mammals in conservation strategies'

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Performance of a 179-year high-resolution climate simulation of Southern Alaska - Theoretical and Applied Climatology Alaska has one of the world's largest glaciated areas and is highly sensitive to climate change. Alaskan glaciers currently contribute about a third of the global sea level rise, with tidewater glaciers playing a significant role through rapid retreat. Meteorological observations in this region are insufficient to assess climatic influences on the tidewater glacier cycle, and existing model datasets are either too coarse or cover too short a period. This study reconstructs the regional climate of southern Alaska by downscaling the NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20th Century Reanalysis (20CRv3) from 1836–2015 using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) to produce a high-resolution 4-km dataset. The new downscaled dataset (20CRv3-WRF) was validated for 1981–2015 against observational records (GSOD) and the Parameter-elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) datasets and compared to European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis v5 (ERA5). Compared to the observational records, 20CRV3-WRF performed well for annual mean temperature (0.61 ≤ r ≤ 0.96) and moderately for annual precipitation (0.16 ≤ r ≤ 0.76). For temperature, 20CRv3 downscaling output was more consistent with PRISM than with the coarser resolution ERA5, suggesting a more accurate representation of temperature than the reanalysis. Precipitation was mostly overestimated in comparison to observations. The spatial variability of precipitation was better represented in 20CRv3-WRF than ERA5. The results demonstrate that 20CRv3-WRF provides a reliable high-resolution dataset to assess the influence of climate on southern Alaskan tidewater glaciers, enabling future studies requiring long-term atmospheric data.

EF member Sandra Koenigseder recently published captivating research around one of the world's largest glaciated areas in Southern Alaska.

She was awarded the EF Publication of the Month for June. Congratulations!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Dr Amy Way's seminar titled 'Australia’s oldest high-elevation occupation – new results from Dargan Shelter, Blue Mountains, NSW'

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Congratulations to Dr Nathan Jankowski and Dr Melinda Waterman who were awarded the Environmental Futures Publication of the Month Award this morning 👏

Come along to the EF member catch up held monthly at the White Cedar Courtyard

@inthedarklab.bsky.social @drmelwaterman.bsky.social

Seminar today at 12.30pm in 6-201 or online!

Join us for Dr Ali Kimbrough and Daniel Becker's seminar titled 'Comic books for education: South Sulawesi folklore and scientific discoveries'

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Seminar today at 2.00pm in 35-G20 or online!

Join us for Patrick Faulkner's seminar titled 'A Coastal Backwater? Investigations into the mid to late Holocene record of southern Sri Lanka'

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EF member and PhD student Ryan North recently published groundbreaking work from northeast Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula

Read more via the below.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Seminar today at 12.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Prof Tanya Smith's seminar titled 'Teeth as Proxies for Understanding Water Inputs and Past Seasonality'

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Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Dr Stuart Nielsen's seminar titled 'Party on Garthia!: A deep dive into an endemic Chilean gecko radiation'

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Congratulations to Prof Kerrylee Rogers and Dr Jeff Kelleway, finalists in the Australian Museum's Eureka Prizes!

They have brought a fresh perspective to the question: how will coastlines around the world and the ecosystems we depend on weather the rising tides?

@kerryleerogers.bsky.social

Seminar today at 12.30pm in 6-210 or online!

Join us for Paula Matos' seminar titled 'Mapping the hidden green in the great white: understanding Antarctic vegetation in a changing climate'

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NSW government and industry join UOW Environmental Futures to investigate past extreme floods and flood risk in Australia’s most at-risk catchment

Project began last week with fieldwork in Fairlight Gorge with NSW Reconstruction Authority, WaterTech & Dharawal Environment & Heritage

bit.ly/4o4MXg9

2025: Rare wooden tools from Stone Age China reveal plant-based lifestyle of ancient lakeside humans - University of Wollongong – UOW

Prof Bo Li and Dr Kieran O'Gorman's joint publication in Science highlights the role of wooden tools in hominin survival and adaptation in Middle Pleistocene East Asia.

Read more via the below UOW media release.

www.uow.edu.au/media/2025/r...

Congratulations to PhD student Angus Walton on receiving a Post Graduate Research Award!

His project aims to uncover the mechanisms driving the frequency and magnitude of episodic erosion events, primarily landslides, and their impact on cosmogenic 10Be inventories.

2025: Researchers receive $1 million to protect amphibians and power clean energy - University of Wollongong – UOW

Congratulations Prof Phillip Byrne, Dr Aimee Silla, Dr Chris Friesen, and Dr Damien Esquerre. An amazing achievement! We look forward to seeing the outcomes of your important research.

Read more via the below UOW media release. @cpictus.bsky.social

www.uow.edu.au/media/2025/r...

Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük Combining 131 paleogenomes with bioarchaeological and archaeological data, we studied social organization and gendered practices in Çatalhöyük East Mound (7100 to 5950 BCE), a major Neolithic settleme...

Dr. Eline Schotsmans recently published groundbreaking work using ancient DNA to reveal the malleable nature of social organisation in Neolithic villages

Read more via the below

@elineschotsmans.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Where do giant volcanic eruptions come from? New study finds missing link to ‘blobs’ deep within Earth Pillars of hot rock connect moving BLOBS in the deep Earth to giant volcanic eruptions at its surface.

Congratulations to PhD candidate Annalise Cucchiaro on her first paper published in @theconversation.com showing that giant volcanic eruptions are triggered by mantle plumes up to 3,000 km in length, which originate from moving continent-size 'BLOBS' deep within the Earth.

t.co/mAKJV78oPs

Ever wondered by dolphins jump out of the water? Dr Katharina Peters explains in her latest article in the Conversation 🐬

kjpeters.bsky.social

theconversation.com/curious-kids...

2025: Adrift in a warming world - University of Wollongong – UOW How disappearing habitats are sending marine mammals into uncharted waters

EF member Dr Katharina Peters has co-authored an interesting publication examining the rising number of marine mammals who in recent years have been found beyond their natural habitat 🐳

Read more via the below UOW media release.

kjpeters.bsky.social

www.uow.edu.au/the-stand/20...

Seminar today at 12.30pm in 6-210 or online!

Join us for Francis Nge's seminar titled 'Macroevolution and biogeography of the Australian flora'

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Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Brooke Conroy's seminar titled 'Organic matter production in Australian coastal wetlands'

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Just like polar bears in the Arctic, emperor penguins are the iconic species threatened by climate change in Antarctica 🐧

Read more on @danambergstrom.bsky.social article in @theconversation.com

Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online! Join us for Dr Michael Orr's seminar titled 'Much ado about global bee distribution'

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@mcorr.bsky.social

The Environmental Futures Paper of the Month was awarded this morning at the EF member catch up. Congratulations to Prof Bo Li and PhD student Lolita Trenchat 👏

@kerryleerogers.bsky.social

Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Ian Brennan's seminar titled 'How to make it in Australia: Lessons from our reptiles and amphibians'

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2025: Glaciers are melting faster than ever. The impact could be devastating - University of Wollongong – UOW

"Glaciers are one of the most valuable tools we have for understanding the health of our planet" says EF member Prof Sharon Robinson. Read more on her paper published in @natrevbiodiv.nature.com

@antarcticmoss.bsky.social

www.uow.edu.au/media/2025/g...

Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Jarrod Sopniewski's seminar titled 'Conserving species from an ecological niche perspective'

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Seminar today at 3.30pm in 32-G01 or online!

Join us for Dominique Bally Kpokro's seminar titled 'Mercury environmental contamination in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) areas: from science to policy action'

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Fossil teeth show extinct giant kangaroos spent their lives close to home – and perished when the climate changed Australia’s giant Protemnodon kangaroos didn’t die out everywhere at the same time. Instead, extinction proceeded one habitat at a time.

Dive in to see how Anthony Dosseto, Scott Hocknull, and Chris Laurikainen Gaete used isotope analysis to reveal the surprisingly local lifestyles of these marsupial giants and what their fate tells us about resilience (or the lack of it) in a warming world 🦘

theconversation.com/fossil-teeth...

Seminar today at 12.30pm in 6-210 or online!

Join us for Prof Sharon Robinson's seminar titled 'Islands in the Ice: Interpreting the future of Antarctic ecosystems'

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