2019-20 Honours project - Extending and understanding the South West Western Australian rainfall record using the Dome Summit South ice core, East Antarctica [THESIS]
The prolonged rainfall reduction in South West Western Australia (SWWA) in recent decades has previously been reported to be unprecedented in the past 750 years. This rainfall reduction has reduced the water supply for both residents and agriculture in SWWA. However, the cause of this rainfall reduction is unclear. The relatively short length of the SWWA instrumental rainfall record limits long term studies of SWWA rainfall. In this study, SWWA rainfall is reconstructed based on a statistically significant negative correlation between SWWA rainfall and snowfall at Dome Summit South (DSS), East Antarctica. The 2000-year DSS snow accumulation record is used to reconstruct SWWA rainfall from 22 BCE to 2015 CE. With Cumulative Summation (CUSUM) analysis applied to the rainfall reconstruction, it is found that SWWA rainfall started to reduce around 1971 CE. This prolonged rainfall reduction is unprecedented during the past 750 years, but there have been two prior droughts of similar duration and intensity during the past 2000 years. Applying statistical techniques to compare the rainfall reconstruction with climate model simulations, it is found that greenhouse gases are likely to be the dominant driver of the SWWA rainfall drying trend after 1971 CE.
This record describes the Honours Thesis [available for download in 'Online Resources' section of thsi record]. For the data generated by this project, see https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/d7d5ea56-f972-435d-b44b-44fea598150c
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2020-08-30
Principal investigator
Collaborator
Collaborator
Collaborator
- Credit
- Australian Research Council's Special Research Initiative for the Antarctic Gateway Partnership (Project ID SR140300001)
- Credit
- Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research, a joint research centre between QNLM and CSIRO, and (iii) the Australia’s Antarctic program (AAS 4061, 4062 and 4537)
- Credit
- IMAS Honours Student Program 2019-2020
- Status
- Completed
Point of contact
- Topic category
-
- Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2019-08-01 2020-06-22
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- NASA/GCMD Keywords, Version 8.5
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- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | ICE CORE RECORDS
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE FORCING
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE FORCING | CARBON DIOXIDE FORCING
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE FORCING | ORBITAL CHANGE FORCING
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE FORCING | SOLAR FORCING
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE FORCING | VOLCANIC FORCING
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS
- EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE INDICATORS | PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS | DROUGHT/PRECIPITATION RECONSTRUCTION
- EARTH SCIENCE | PALEOCLIMATE
- EARTH SCIENCE | PALEOCLIMATE | ICE CORE RECORDS
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC): Fields of Research
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The data described in this record are the intellectual property of the the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania (UTAS), and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
Resource constraints
- Linkage
-
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png
License Graphic
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Website
-
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License Text
- Other constraints
- The citation in a list of references is: citation author name/s (year metadata published), metadata title. Citation author organisation/s. File identifier and Data accessed at (add http link).
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
Resource lineage
- Statement
- An inverse relationship between rainfall in South West Western Australia (SWWA) and the snowfall recorded in the Dome Summit South (DSS) ice core, East Antarctica, was found by van Ommen and Morgan (2010). We test the statistical significance of this negative correlation and use a 2000-year DSS snow accumulation record to reconstruct SWWA rainfall from 22 BCE to 2015 CE. We also analysis 1500-year model simulations from CSIRO Mk3L climate model. Use statistical techniques to compare the rainfall reconstruction with climate model simulations to determine the drivers of the rainfall changes in SWWA.
- Hierarchy level
- publication
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
47848595-038b-46b3-ba75-6f52d5295a62
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Metadata linkage
-
https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/47848595-038b-46b3-ba75-6f52d5295a62
Point of truth URL of this metadata record
- Date info (Creation)
- 2020-09-04T12:51:06
- Date info (Revision)
- 2020-09-04T12:51:06
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-3:2018