Author: Shane

Commonwealth PhD scholarships available for study in the UK

by Shane, posted in Education, Latest news

Commonwealth PhD Scholarships 2020 are for candidates from high income Commonwealth countries, for full-time doctoral study at a UK university commencing in January 2021

These scholarships are funded by the UK Department for Education in conjunction with UK universities to support world class research and to contribute to UK higher education and research to help sustain international recognition of the UK higher education system and for the benefit of wider society. The CSC does not offer scholarships to candidates from high income Commonwealth countries who have already started their PhD study in the UK.

How to apply

You must make your application directly to the CSC using the CSC’s online application system. The CSC will not accept any applications that are not submitted via the online application system. You are not required to apply via a nominating body for these scholarships.

Only one application per applicant for these scholarships will be accepted.

Application deadline: Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (BST) on 20 July 2020 at the latest.

You are advised to complete and submit your application as soon as possible, as the online application system will be very busy in the days leading up to the application deadline.

To find out more, visit the CSC homepage.

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Dynamics of a marine heatwave: what happens below the surface?

by Shane, posted in Climate, Ecology, Get involved, Honours/Masters projects, Oceans

Extreme temperatures in the ocean are getting more frequent and intense, impacting marine ecosystems and industries. However the subsurface signature of these marine heatwaves is still largely unknown, in particular in shallow coastal areas where most of the ecological damages occur.

In addition to sustained observations, the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) now aims at sampling the coastal ocean during marine heatwaves with real-time deployments of ocean gliders. Gliders are automated underwater vehicles which measure the water properties between the ocean floor and the surface for a few weeks. Two of such deployments were successfully finalised, sampling the eastern shelf of Tasmania during the latest marine heatwave event in the Tasman Sea in summer / spring 2019.

The project aims at understanding the extent and characteristics of marine heatwaves using glider measurements and complementary satellite and moored observations. Key questions include the temporal evolution, from the onset to the decline of the extreme event, and the influence of the local oceanography such as currents and wind-driven processes on the persistence and variability of these anomalous temperatures. The student will use programming language to analyse this unique dataset and compute the heat budget equations.

Basic knowledge of oceanography and experience in Matlab or Python are required. The project will be based at UNSW Sydney, co-supervised by Amandine Schaeffer (UNSW), Jessica Benthuysen (AIMS) and Neil Holbrook (UTAS).

Contact: a.schaeffer@unsw.edu.au

Understanding how precipitation extremes scale in future climates

by Shane, posted in Extreme weather, Get involved, Honours/Masters projects

While global climate models (GCMs) remain our best tool for investigating the Earth’s system response to anthropogenic forcings, their spatial resolution (generally hundreds of km) is much coarser than the scales of the key processes leading to precipitation extremes (e.g. intense convective rainfall events). Therefore, parametrizations are necessary and the simulation of precipitation is not explicitly resolved in models. Spatial resolution is finer in regional climate models (RCMs) (generally tens of km), which is expected to improve the simulation of precipitation extremes that are very sensitive to spatial contrasts and topography. However, even at the scales of regional models parametrizations are still required.

Global and regional models have advantages and disadvantages for studying precipitation extremes, but how their output scales with respect to the other is rarely compared. In particular, it is unclear how the future changes in precipitation extremes from large ensembles of regional climate models compare to those from global models. This project will assess how precipitation projections for Australia from global and regional models scale using the latest start-of-the-art GCMs and RCMs.

Requirements: Some prior programming and data visualisation experience (e.g. Python, NCL, MATLAB, R, etc.).

This project is supervised by A/Prof Lisa Alexander and Dr Margot Bador (UNSW Sydney). Please contact l.alexander@unsw.edu.au for more information.

 

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Inaugural event celebrates Women in Mathematics around the world

by Shane, posted in Latest news, Outreach

This year the world will celebrate the Inaugural International Women in Mathematics Day on May 12. The date was chosen in honour of the birthday of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the Fields Medal.

Events are being planned around the globe to celebrate the contribution of women to mathematics. Find your nearest events in this interactive map.
 
Three events taking place in Sydney for International Women in Mathematics Day: