From “CSIROscope” (AU) At CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization : “Torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse”

From “CSIROscope” (AU)

At

CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

3.30.23
Matthew England
Adele Morrison
Andy Hogg
Qian Li
Steve Rintoul

Australian scientists are warning that the Southern Ocean’s deep “overturning” circulation is slowing and headed for collapse.

Off the coast of Antarctica, trillions of tonnes of cold salty water sink to great depths. As the water sinks, it drives the deepest flows of the “overturning” circulation – a network of strong currents spanning the world’s oceans. The overturning circulation carries heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe, and fundamentally influences climate, sea level and the productivity of marine ecosystems.

But there are worrying signs these currents are slowing down. They may even collapse. If this happens, it would deprive the deep ocean of oxygen, limit the return of nutrients back to the sea surface, and potentially cause further melt back of ice as water near the ice shelves warms in response. There would be major global ramifications for ocean ecosystems, climate, and sea-level rise.

Schematic showing the pathways of flow in the upper, deep and bottom layers of the ocean.

Our new research, published today in the journal Nature [below], uses new ocean model projections to look at changes in the deep ocean out to the year 2050. Our projections show a slowing of the Antarctic overturning circulation and deep ocean warming over the next few decades. Physical measurements confirm these changes are already well underway.

Climate change is to blame. As Antarctica melts, more freshwater flows into the oceans. This disrupts the sinking of cold, salty, oxygen-rich water to the bottom of the ocean. From there this water normally spreads northwards to ventilate the far reaches of the deep Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. But that could all come to an end soon. In our lifetimes.

As part of this overturning, about 250 trillion tonnes [Progress in Oceanography (below)] of icy cold Antarctic surface water sinks to the ocean abyss each year. The sinking near Antarctica is balanced by upwelling at other latitudes. The resulting overturning circulation carries oxygen to the deep ocean and eventually returns nutrients to the sea surface, where they are available to support marine life.

If the Antarctic overturning slows down, nutrient-rich seawater will build up on the seafloor [Nature Climate Change (below)], five kilometres below the surface. These nutrients will be lost to marine ecosystems at or near the surface, damaging fisheries.

Changes in the overturning circulation could also mean more heat gets to the ice, particularly around West Antarctica, the area with the greatest rate of ice mass loss over the past few decades. This would accelerate global sea-level rise.

An overturning slowdown would also reduce the ocean’s ability to take up carbon dioxide [Nature Climate Change (below)], leaving more greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. And more greenhouse gases means more warming, making matters worse.

Meltwater-induced weakening of the Antarctic overturning circulation could also shift tropical rainfall bands [Nature (below)] around a thousand kilometres to the north.

Put simply, a slowing or collapse of the overturning circulation would change our climate and marine environment in profound and potentially irreversible ways.

Signs of worrying change

The remote reaches of the oceans that surround Antarctica are some of the toughest regions to plan and undertake field campaigns. Voyages are long, weather can be brutal, and sea ice limits access for much of the year.

This means there are few measurements to track how the Antarctic margin is changing. But where sufficient data exist, we can see clear signs of increased transport of warm waters toward Antarctica [Nature Climate Change (below)], which in turn causes ice melt at key locations.

Indeed, the signs of melting around the edges of Antarctica [Science (below)] are very clear, with increasingly large volumes of freshwater flowing into the ocean and making nearby waters less salty and therefore less dense. And that’s all that’s needed to slow the overturning circulation. Denser water sinks, lighter water does not.

Antarctic ice mass loss over the last few decades based on satellite data, showing that between 2002 and 2020, Antarctica shed an average of ~150 billion metric tonnes of ice per year, adding meltwater to the ocean and raising sea-levels (Source: NASA).

How did we find this out?

Apart from sparse measurements, incomplete models have limited our understanding of ocean circulation around Antarctica.

For example, the latest set of global coupled model projections analysed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exhibit biases in the region. This limits the ability of these models in projecting the future fate of the Antarctic overturning circulation.

To explore future changes, we took a high resolution global ocean model that realistically represents the formation and sinking of dense water near Antarctica.

We ran three different experiments, one where conditions remained unchanged from the 1990s; a second forced by projected changes in temperature and wind; and a third run also including projected changes in meltwater from Antarctica and Greenland.

In this way we could separate the effects of changes in winds and warming, from changes due to ice melt.

The findings were striking. The model projects the overturning circulation around Antarctica will slow by more than 40% over the next three decades, driven almost entirely by pulses of meltwater.

Over the same period, our modelling also predicts a 20% weakening of the famous North Atlantic overturning circulation which keeps Europe’s climate mild. Both changes would dramatically reduce the renewal and overturning of the ocean interior.

We’ve long known the North Atlantic overturning currents are vulnerable, with observations suggesting a slowdown is already well underway, and projections of a tipping point coming soon. Our results suggest Antarctica looks poised to match its northern hemisphere counterpart – and then some.

What next?

Much of the abyssal ocean has warmed in recent decades, with the most rapid trends detected near Antarctica, in a pattern very similar to our model simulations.

Our projections extend out only to 2050. Beyond 2050, in the absence of strong emissions reductions, the climate will continue to warm and the ice sheets will continue to melt. If so, we anticipate the Southern Ocean overturning will continue to slow to the end of the century and beyond.

The projected slowdown of Antarctic overturning is a direct response to input of freshwater from melting ice. Meltwater flows are directly linked to how much the planet warms, which in turn depends on the greenhouse gases we emit.

Our study shows continuing ice melt will not only raise sea-levels, but also change the massive overturning circulation currents which can drive further ice melt and hence more sea level rise, and damage climate and ecosystems worldwide. It’s yet another reason to address the climate crisis – and fast.

Nature
Progress in Oceanography 1999
Nature Climate Change 2022
Nature 2018
Nature Climate Change 2022
Science 2013

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

CSIRO (AU)-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization , is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

CSIRO works with leading organizations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO maintains more than 50 sites across Australia and in France, Chile and the United States, employing about 5,500 people.

Federally funded scientific research began in Australia 104 years ago. The Advisory Council of Science and Industry was established in 1916 but was hampered by insufficient available finance. In 1926 the research effort was reinvigorated by establishment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which strengthened national science leadership and increased research funding. CSIR grew rapidly and achieved significant early successes. In 1949 further legislated changes included renaming the organization as CSIRO.

Notable developments by CSIRO have included the invention of atomic absorption spectroscopy; essential components of Wi-Fi technology; development of the first commercially successful polymer banknote; the invention of the insect repellent in Aerogard and the introduction of a series of biological controls into Australia, such as the introduction of myxomatosis and rabbit calicivirus for the control of rabbit populations.

Research and focus areas

Research Business Units

As at 2019, CSIRO’s research areas are identified as “Impact science” and organized into the following Business Units:

Agriculture and Food
Health and Biosecurity
Data 61
Energy
Land and Water
Manufacturing
Mineral Resources
Oceans and Atmosphere

National Facilities

CSIRO manages national research facilities and scientific infrastructure on behalf of the nation to assist with the delivery of research. The national facilities and specialized laboratories are available to both international and Australian users from industry and research. As at 2019, the following National Facilities are listed:

Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL)
Australia Telescope National Facility – radio telescopes in the Facility include the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes Observatory, Mopra Radio Telescope Observatory and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

CSIRO Australia Compact Array (AU), six radio telescopes at the Paul Wild Observatory, is an array of six 22-m antennas located about twenty five kilometres (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in Australia.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (AU) Parkes Observatory [Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name], located 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, 414.80m above sea level.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (AU) Mopra Radio Telescope

NASA Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, AU, Deep Space Network. Credit: The National Aeronautics and Space Agency

CSIRO Canberra campus

ESA DSA 1, hosts a 35-metre deep-space antenna with transmission and reception in both S- and X-band and is located 140 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia, near the town of New Norcia

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (AU)CSIRO R/V Investigator.

UK Space NovaSAR-1 satellite (UK) synthetic aperture radar satellite.

CSIRO Pawsey Supercomputing Centre AU)

Magnus Cray XC40 supercomputer at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia

Galaxy Cray XC30 Series Supercomputer at at Pawsey Supercomputer Centre Perth Australia

Pausey Supercomputer CSIRO Zeus SGI Linux cluster

Pawsey Cray EX Supercomputer – Setonix

Others not shown

SKA

SKA- Square Kilometer Array

Australia Telescope National Facility – radio telescopes included in the Facility include the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes Observatory, Mopra Radio Telescope Observatory and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

SKA ASKAP Pathfinder Radio Telescope at the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

SKA Murchison Widefield Array (AU), Boolardy station in outback Western Australia, at the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

SKA Square Kilometre Array low frequency at the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

Testing EDGES at MIT Haystack Observatory

Haystack Observatory EDGES telescope in a radio quiet zone at the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), on the traditional lands of the Wajarri peoples.

From CSIROscope: “Healthcare, minerals, energy, food: how adopting new tech could drive Australia’s economic recovery”

From CSIROscope

22 September 2020
Katherine Wynn
James Deverell
Max Temminghoff
Mingji Liu

We examined how the pandemic has created or intensified opportunities for economic growth across six sectors benefiting from science and technology.

Over the next few years, science and technology will have a vital role in supporting Australia’s economy as it strives to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

At Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, we’ve identified opportunities that can help businesses drive economic recovery.

We examined how the pandemic has created or intensified opportunities for economic growth across six sectors benefiting from science and technology. These are food and agribusiness, energy, health, mineral resources, digital and manufacturing.

Advanced healthcare

While some aspects of Australian healthcare are currently digitised, system-wide digital health integration could improve the quality of care and save money.

Doctors caring for patients with chronic diseases or complex conditions could digitally coordinate care routines. This could streamline patient care by avoiding consultation double-ups and providing a more holistic view of patient health.

We also see potential for more efficient healthcare delivery through medical diagnostic tests that are more portable and non-invasive. Such tests, supported by artificial intelligence and smart data storage approaches, would allow faster disease detection and monitoring.

There’s also opportunity for developing specialised components such as 3D-printed prosthetics, dental and bone implants.

Green energy

Despite a short-term plateau in energy consumption caused by COVID-19 globally, the demand for energy will continue to grow.

Through clean energy exports and energy initiatives aligned with decarbonisation goals, Australia can help meet global energy demands. Energy-efficient technologies offer immediate reduced energy costs, reduced carbon emissions and less demand on the energy grid. They also create local jobs.

Australia could earn revenue from the local production and export of more sustainable proteins like farmed prawns. Image credit: Dwayne Klinkhamer.

Innovating with food and agribusiness

The food and agribusiness sector is a prominent contributor to Australia’s economy and supports regional and rural prosperity.

Global population growth is driving an increased demand for protein. At the same time, consumers want more products that are sustainable and ethically sourced.

Australia could earn revenue from the local production and export of more sustainable proteins. This might include plant-based proteins such as pea and lupins, or aquaculture products such as farmed prawns and seaweed.

We could also offer more high-value health and well-being foods. Examples include fortified foods and products free from gluten, lactose and other allergens.

Automating minerals processes

Even before COVID-19 struck, the mineral resources sector was facing rising costs and declining ore grades. It’s also dealing with climate change impacts such as droughts, bushfires, floods, and social pressures to reduce environmental harm.

Several innovative solutions could help make the sector more productive and sustainable. For instance, increasing automation and remote mining (which Australia already excels in) could achieve improved safety for workers, more productivity and business continuity.

Also, investing in advanced technologies that can generate higher quality data on mineral character and composition could improve yields and minimise environmental harm.

High-tech manufacturing

COVID-19 has escalated concerns around Australia’s supply chain fragility – take the toilet paper shortages earlier in the pandemic. Expanding local manufacturing efforts could create jobs and increase Australia’s earning potential.

This is especially true for mineral processing and manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, space technology and defence. Our local manufacturing will need to adapt quickly to changes in supply needs, ideally through the use of advanced designs and technology.

Digital solutions

In April and May this year, Australian businesses made huge strides in adopting consumer and business digital technologies. One study estimated five years’ worth of progress occurred in those eight weeks. Hundreds of thousands of businesses moved their work online.

Over the next two years, Australian businesses could become more efficient and adaptable by further monetising the data they already collect. For example, applying mobile sensors, robotics and machine learning techniques could help us make better resource decisions in agriculture.

Similarly, businesses could share more data throughout the supply chain, including with customers and competitors. For instance, increased data sharing among renewable energy providers and customers could improve the monitoring, forecasting and reliability of energy supply.

Making the right plans and investments now will determine Australia’s recovery and resilience in the future.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “Earth may temporarily pass dangerous 1.5°C warming limit by 2024, major new report says”

From CSIROscope

10 September 2020
Pep Canadell
Rob Jackson

The Paris climate agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century. A new report by the World Meteorological Organisation warns this limit may be exceeded by 2024 – and the risk is growing.

This first overshoot beyond 1.5℃ would be temporary, likely aided by a major climate anomaly such as an El Niño weather pattern. However, it casts new doubt on whether Earth’s climate can be permanently stabilised at 1.5℃ warming.

This finding is among those just published in a report titled United in Science. We contributed to the report, which was prepared by six leading science agencies, including the Global Carbon Project.

The report also found while greenhouse gas emissions declined slightly in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they remained very high – which meant atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have continued to rise.

The world may exceed the 1.5℃ warming threshold sooner than we expected. Credit: Erik Anderson/AAP.

Greenhouse gases rise as CO₂ emissions slow.

Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), have all increased over the past decade. Current concentrations in the atmosphere are, respectively, 147%, 259% and 123% of those present before the industrial era began in 1750.

Concentrations measured at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory and at Australia’s Cape Grim station in Tasmania show concentrations continued to increase in 2019 and 2020. In particular, CO₂ concentrations reached 414.38 and 410.04 parts per million in July this year, respectively, at each station.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂0) from WMO Global Atmosphere Watch.

Growth in CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use slowed to around 1% per year in the past decade, down from 3% during the 2000s. An unprecedented decline is expected in 2020, due to the COVID-19 economic slowdown. Daily CO₂ fossil fuel emissions declined by 17% in early April at the peak of global confinement policies, compared with the previous year. But by early June they had recovered to a 5% decline.

We estimate a decline for 2020 of about 4-7% compared to 2019 levels, depending on how the pandemic plays out.

Although emissions will fall slightly, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will still reach another record high this year. This is because we’re still adding large amounts of CO₂ to the atmosphere.

Global daily fossil CO₂ emissions to June 2020. Updated from Le Quéré et al. 2020, Nature Climate Change.

Warmest five years on record.

The global average surface temperature from 2016 to 2020 will be among the warmest of any equivalent period on record, and about 0.24℃ warmer than the previous five years.

This five-year period is on the way to creating a new temperature record across much of the world, including Australia, southern Africa, much of Europe, the Middle East and northern Asia, areas of South America and parts of the United States.

Sea levels rose by 3.2 millimetres per year on average over the past 27 years. The growth is accelerating – sea level rose 4.8 millimetres annually over the past five years, compared to 4.1 millimetres annually for the five years before that.

The past five years have also seen many extreme events. These include record-breaking heatwaves in Europe, Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, major bushfires in Australia and elsewhere, prolonged drought in southern Africa and three North Atlantic hurricanes in 2017.

Left: Global average temperature anomalies (relative to pre-industrial) from 1854 to 2020 for five data sets. UK-MetOffice. Right: Average sea level for the period from 1993 to July 16, 2020. European Space Agency and Copernicus Marine Service.

1 in 4 chance of exceeding 1.5°C warming.

Our report predicts a continuing warming trend. There is a high probability that, everywhere on the planet, average temperatures in the next five years will be above the 1981-2010 average. Arctic warming is expected to be more than twice that the global average.

There’s a one-in-four chance the global annual average temperature will exceed 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels for at least one year over the next five years. The chance is relatively small, but still significant and growing. If a major climate anomaly, such as a strong El Niño, occurs in that period, the 1.5℃ threshold is more likely to be crossed. El Niño events generally bring warmer global temperatures.

Under the Paris Agreement, crossing the 1.5℃ threshold is measured over a 30-year average, not just one year. But every year above 1.5℃ warming would take us closer to exceeding the limit.

Global average model prediction of near surface air temperature relative to 1981–2010. Black line = observations, green = modelled, blue = forecast. Probability of global temperature exceeding 1.5℃ for a single month or year shown in brown insert and right axis. UK Met Office.

Arctic Ocean sea-ice disappearing.

Satellite records between 1979 and 2019 show sea ice in the Arctic summer declined at about 13% per decade, and this year reached its lowest July levels on record.

In Antarctica, summer sea ice reached its lowest and second-lowest extent in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and 2018 was also the second-lowest winter extent.

Most simulations show that by 2050, the Arctic Ocean will practically be free of sea ice for the first time. The fate of Antarctic sea ice is less certain.

Summer sea ice in the Arctic is expected to virtually disappear by 2050. Credit: Zaruba Ondrej/AP.

Urgent action can change trends.

Human activities emitted 42 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2019 alone. Under the Paris Agreement, nations committed to reducing emissions by 2030.

But our report shows a shortfall of about 15 billion tonnes of CO₂ between these commitments, and pathways consistent with limiting warming to well below 2℃ (the less ambitious end of the Paris target). The gap increases to 32 billion tonnes for the more ambitious 1.5℃ goal.

Our report models a range of climate outcomes based on various socioeconomic and policy scenarios. It shows if emission reductions are large and sustained, we can still meet the Paris goals and avoid the most severe damage to the natural world, the economy and people. But worryingly, we also have time to make it far worse.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “El Niño-Southern Oscillation: five things to know about this climate phenomenon”

From CSIROscope

4 September 2020
Sophie Schmidt

The La Niña phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation usually means more rain is on the way. But there are some caveats.

Forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology suggest we should get ready for a La Niña event in 2020.

But what exactly is a La Niña event? And how does it differ to El Niño? How do these big climate giants influence our day-to-day weather? And is climate change having an impact on these naturally occurring events?

If you tuned out in high school or need a quick refresher, we’re here to help with five things you need to know.

1. Together La Niña and El Niño create the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Both El Niño and La Niña are known as climate phenomena. The oceans switch between these states roughly every two to seven years, depending on the wind and ocean conditions across the Pacific Ocean between Australia and South America. El Niño is known as the warm phase and La Niña the cold phase, but it’s also possible to be in a neutral ENSO phase, i.e neither.

They’re kind of a big deal. They play a major role in our day-to-day weather, influence our seasons and year-to-year climate. But it’s important to remember there are other factors that influence our climate as well.

Cheat sheet:

La Niña: cooler and wetter.
El Niño: hotter and drier.

In El Niño years (top), trade winds weaken from the west (the Americas) to east (Australia) which means warm waters which begin to gather in the Americas don’t make it to Australia. Cooler than usual ocean waters results in less rainfall for Australia. In La Niña years (bottom), stronger trade winds blow from west to east across the Pacific ocean, bringing warmer than usual waters with them. An increase humidity and rainfall usually follows. Illustration: Credit: Leigh Rigozzi .

2. La Niña means higher rainfall

… but for certain parts of Australia only. La Niña typically means higher rainfall for central, eastern and northern regions of Australia.

La Niña is also linked to warmer than usual ocean waters around Australia (toward Indonesia). This can mean increased likelihood of floods (which could be a real challenge for areas that have recently been in drought) and tropical cyclones.

However, a La Niña forecast doesn’t always mean more rain is on the way. It’s confusing, we know! Currently there is a 70 per cent chance of La Niña developing this year. But the extent of rainfall really depends on the strength of the La Niña event.

Both La Niña and El Niño events are modulated by the strength of another climate giant – the Indian Ocean Dipole. For us to receive heavy and prolonged rainfall, particularly in south eastern Australia, we’d need a negative Indian Ocean Dipole to also occur.

3. Climatologists forecast the Indian Ocean Dipole and ENSO using climate models

Like we mentioned, there are lots of factors at work that influence Australia’s climate. These include East Coast Lows, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, and Southern Annular Mode. These factors dictate what is called Australia’s ‘natural variability’.

It’s possible for scientists to monitor ENSO over a long period of time (as in decades). But it requires complex earth system models, including some of our own at CSIRO, which run on supercomputers.

Fujistu Lenovo GADI supercomputer at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) at the Australian National University (ANU).

To project future states of ENSO, scientists run these models many times – involving many terabytes of data crunching – to make sure they can get a clear reading above that natural variability.

The models are so complex that they can simulate future conditions based on the most minute changes. For example, they can tweak the model to run with a change of one in a hundred trillionth of a degree Celsius (10^14) to ocean surface temperature and observe all of the possible future climate scenarios.

4. These models reveal important insights into ENSO over the coming decades

Although currently all signs are pointing to a 70 per cent likelihood of La Niña this year, it looks like we are ‘locked in’ for more El Niño activity over the next 20 years.

In a recent paper published in Nature, our scientists examined how El Niño activity is connected over multi-century lifespans. When they simulated lower El Niño activity using models over the first 50 years, it led to a greater increase in El Niño activity 150 years later. And vice versa.

This strong link between past and future El Niño activity suggests we can expect more frequent and stronger El Niño activity in the coming decades – up to 35 per cent more activity than previously thought.

Remember how we said we rotate between the two ENSO phases? A strong El Niño is usually followed by a strong La Niña. So, we need to be prepared for strong future ENSO activity.

5. ENSO responds to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere

Our research has shown a direct relationship between increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and ENSO. Specifically, higher greenhouse gas concentrations cause more frequent and stronger ENSO events.

We also know that climate change is impacting on the ENSO cycle and is causing it to behave more energetically. This is a challenge for climate models, which may not be able to capture the full range of chaotic nature of ENSO under greenhouse warming. This is because the model system oscillates on a very different trajectory each time it is run.

This can be a challenge for seasonal forecasts and for those who need to understand the climate years out – like farmers and other primary producers. But refining and validating models using observations is an area of active research.

Previous projections have indicated that maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (which will require us to decrease global greenhouse gas emissions) will eventually help to stabilise the frequency of extreme ENSO events.

However, because some greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide remain in our atmosphere for several hundred years it may take a long time (up to a century) for us to reach this point of stabilisation.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “What shapes our science? Our people”

From CSIROscope

24 August 2020
Louise Jeckells

CSIRO people drive our amazing science.

It’s fair to say 2020 has been rough. This year, we’ve faced hailstorms, bushfires and a pandemic and CSIRO people have been at the centre of it all. From our front line scientists working on a COVID-19 vaccine to our support people helping us all get setup to work remotely. So, there’s no better time than National Science Week to say thanks to our people. Get ready for a humble brag!

Our national science agenda

Last week at the National Press Club, our Chief Executive, Dr Larry Marshall made an important announcement. He announced how we will play a role in driving our nation’s recovery and resilience. He called for a Team Australia approach to solving some big challenges.

“COVID-19 and the devastating bushfires of last season have brought into sharp focus the role of science in national preparedness, and in our ability to weather future crises,” Larry said.

He also spoke about the outstanding science we’ve been part of over the last year. We hit the ground running with COVID-19 research and partnered with some of the best infectious disease experts. We invested in data modelling and artificial intelligence to reinvent the way we do our genetics research. And we’ve been investigating ways to track the virus through wastewater.

We’re working with global and domestic partners on a vaccine. And we opened up a manufacturing facility to tackle the shortage of crucial safety products. Last week, that pilot facility became Australia’s first accredited face mask testing facility. This means local manufacturers can test critical medical supplies here rather than sending them overseas.

We also looked at the threat of a warmer, dryer climate and invested in adapting our bushfire planning to incorporate climate change projections.

And, although our science is outstanding, none of this would have been possible without our CSIRO people.

Our CSIRO people working on producing and scaling-up The University of Queensland’s (UQ) vaccine candidate for COVID-19.

Moments shaped by CSIRO people

“Preparation of our facilities and our research was, and continues to be, critical – but the moments that really mattered were shaped by people,” Larry said.

“Like the researchers who have attended every major fire event in Australia since Ash Wednesday in 1983 to better predict fire behaviour and help keep our fire fighters and residents safe. The textile manufacturers who worked with scientists to repurpose their factories to fill the desperate need for personal protection equipment against COVID-19.

“Like the environmental scientists who transferred their expertise in water pollution to start testing wastewater to locate virus hotspots.

“And in Geelong, a city where streets are quiet today with residents back in lockdown, at our ACDP, the CSIRO people who returned from retirement to lend a hand as we work around the clock on a COVID-19 vaccine.

“I want to thank the CSIRO team who have been working tirelessly on this since January, the bushfires team who have been working tirelessly since September, and all the other 5000 people in CSIRO who back them up,” he said.

Shout out to all our CSIRO people!

Thank you Team CSIRO

During National Science Week, we encouraged our people to reach out to their colleagues to show their appreciation. We want to share some of that love.

People thanked their colleagues for stepping up and leading during uncertain moments. Others thanked for throwing their efforts behind a crucial project. But the majority were thanked for being there and providing extra support. If you want to thank our people too, give us a shout out in the comments below.

To see Larry’s National Press Club speech, read it on our website or watch it on ABC iview.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “RV Investigator specifications: in with the new and the old”

From CSIROscope

18 August 2020
Huw Morgan

Our RV Investigator specifications are cutting edge, but with a sprinkling of traditional.

Our Research Vessel (RV) Investigator is one smart ship. It’s 94 metres of science-enabling steel, packed with instruments, equipment and sensors that are a data collectors dream! At first glance, the ship is a symbol of nautical modernity. But this contemporary ship is full of contradictions. And many traditions and customs remain.

To understand how such opposites can work together in perfect harmony, I’ll go through the RV Investigator specifications from my time on board last year.

RV Investigator specifications: a modern marvel

RV Investigator normally goes on about a dozen research voyages a year. So, to deliver cutting-edge research, it needs to have the latest tech on board.

Here’s one example. You can pick a spot on the ocean and tell the ship to stay there. As a result, RV Investigator’s Dynamic Positioning System will automatically use the ship’s two main propellers and its (retractable!) bow thruster to hold that position – to within a metre or less.

All despite high winds and rough seas. Keeping the ship stable is thanks to the auto stabilising system. It uses ballast water in giant U-shaped tanks combined with air valves to control the flow of water from one side of the ship to the other depending on the sea conditions. The system, as well as the trim of the ship, means the likelihood of the ship capsizing due to strong waves and winds is zero.

So we’ve touched on some of the aspects that make the RV Investigator specifications so advanced. But where does the tradition come into it? It’s not in what runs the ship, but how.

The bridge is just one aspect of the advanced equipment on board.

Old and new methods

RV Investigator can take you anywhere in the world. Pick any spot in any ocean in the world and the ship’s autopilot can take you there. The ship has incredibly accurate navigational controls.

It has a sophisticated bridge – the place where they drive the ship from – with three independent but duplicated navigation consoles and controls. It’s so sophisticated that not one single paper sea chart is required. The vessel is a paperless ship because of the sophisticated chart plotting system known as an ECDIS (electronic chart display and information system). Well, almost. There is one chart. But that is under glass on a table and is for decoration – not direction.

While there are no written charts, there is a sextant. This is an old instrument used for navigating by the stars! Ships like these are still required to lug about a navigation instrument that harks back to Isaac Newton and others in the 16th and 17th centuries.

So why do we have such an old scientific tool on such a modern research vessel?

If navigation systems fail, all the GPS go down and the radars go on the blink. But don’t worry. Just grab the sextant. All you need to do is hope the skies are clear so you can see some celestial object to ‘shoot’ a bearing. That essentially means the ship’s crew measure the angles between objects in the sky and the ship to work out where in (or on) the world the ship is.

Then jot down some figures and crunch the trigonometry. If you’re a maths whiz, you may get your position down to within a few nautical miles. Just in time to shout: “Land Ho!” as you bump into Circular Quay in Sydney.

Even on a paperless ship, it’s important all the ship’s crew know how to use a sextant so they can safely complete the voyage in the event of a navigation system failure.

At an absolute pinch, RV Investigator’s sextant is useful in the deep Southern Ocean near Antarctica for measuring the height of icebergs. And sometimes communications down south can be quite choppy. So having a sextant in hand will always help everyone get safely back to shore!

Not just for ye olde sailors! The sextant is an important back-up navigational tool for the ship’s team.

Treasure Island

Right at the top of the ship is a huge ‘golf ball’ which houses an advanced weather radar. It’s the only ship-based one of such capabilities in Australia.

The weather radar can detect a slight rain drizzle at 80km and tell you which way the wind will be blowing at Portsea in Victoria next Tuesday. Yet just outside the bridge on both port and starboard are rather weather-worn wooden boxes, which are known as Stevenson Screens. Inside those Stevenson Screens are wet-and-dry-bulb thermometers for measuring relative humidity. Why are they still there when a mobile mini-Bureau of Meteorology hovers over it just metres away? Like the sextant, it’s a required piece of equipment to have on board. If the ship loses power, the team can still observe weather patterns. But ships, including our one, have always had them.

And right above the bridge on Monkey Island, away from the GPS systems and satellite tracking and radars, lies a magnetic compass. Its position means it’s ready to, literally, swing into action if needed. After all, the team calibrate and certify the magnetic compass every year.

Talking ship

CSIRO RV Investigator. CSIRO Australia

It’s not just the tools on board that are reminiscent of times past. Ships have always had language and ways of doing things that is their own. That language and those systems have developed over hundreds of years and continue today.

Distances are measured in nautical miles and cables. These are units of measurement that were created for simplified navigation. Essentially, a nautical mile is one 60th of a degree of latitude. Or, to be exact, 1852m.

Now, a cable is one-tenth of a nautical mile or 185.2m. And it’s named after the length of a ship’s anchor chain – which despite appearances is not called a chain, but a cable.

The anchor cable is divided into lengths of 27.5m by shackles. Oddly, considering chain is not a chain at sea, the lengths of anchor cable are called shackles. There are 15 fathoms in a shackle. A fathom is 1.82m, or about six feet in imperial measurement, which was the span of an adult’s outstretched arms.

But the language of the sea doesn’t stop there. You can hear select terms like these: The head (toilet) is inside the brasco (bathroom). Which if you are lucky is just a short walk across the deck (floor) from your rack (bed) in your shed (cabin). Mind you, don’t trip over the rosie (rubbish bin) on the way to doing your dhobi (laundry). Or you will have to fill a bucket with sougee (mopping mix) to washdown the deckhead (ceiling) and bulkheads (walls).

Back to the future

We’ve shown you how the past and present intertwine with RV Investigator specifications. But what can we expect for the future?

RV Investigator has pressed pause on its research voyages for the time being. But we’re hoping to set sail to explore the deep ocean again shortly. Our Marine National Facility (MNF) News page has all the latest information. So you can keep up-to-date like the equipment on board RV Investigator.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “Travel to Mars with Perseverance, Ingenuity and Hope”

From CSIROscope

27 July 2020
Glen Nagle

It’s time to travel to Mars again! Every 26 months, the orbits of Earth and Mars line up in such a way that spacecraft can take the most energy efficient path between these two worlds.

Miss that window and you must wait another two years before you can try again.

So, it takes mission engineers, scientists and planners a lot of perseverance, ingenuity and hope to achieve that tight goal.

Appropriately, these three human traits are also the names of three robots heading for the Red Planet. All three missions will be supported by the antennas at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which we manage for NASA.

NASA Canberra, AU, Deep Space Network

NASA Deep Space Network Canberra, Australia, radio telescopes on watch.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which we manage for NASA, supports over 35 spacecraft from dozens of nations exploring the Solar System and beyond.

Perseverance

NASA’s latest ambitious mission is the Perseverance rover. It’s due to launch on 30 July. Perseverance is a cousin to the Curiosity rover which has been exploring Mars since 2012. It will return samples of Martian rock and soil to Earth for examination in the hunt for clues to ancient life.

The planned landing site is Jezero Crater. It features a winding river channel that has deposited sediments fanning into a wide, but now dry, river delta system.

Mission scientists believe this location offers some of the best opportunities to look for signs of past life. So, it’s where the rover will collect and store materials for later return to Earth.

One of the instruments on the rover’s robot arm is PIXL, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry. PIXL is an x-ray spectrometer and camera. It is built to identify the chemical signature and features of rocks and soil as small as a grain of salt.

PIXL’s lead scientist is geologist and astrobiologist Abigail Allwood. Abigail now works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California and she is the first woman and Australian to be a Principal Investigator on a NASA mission to Mars.

NASA Perseverence Mars Rover annotated

NASA Perseverance Mars Rover

Ingenuity

Perseverance won’t travel to Mars alone. Tucked beneath the belly of the rover, to be deployed soon after landing, is the first helicopter designed to operate on another planet.

NASA Mars Ingenuity helicopter traveling with Perseverance rover

Ingenuity is a 1.8 kg vehicle with twin-blade rotors. It will fly through the thin Martian atmosphere and investigate the terrain near the rover. Ingenuity’s photos will be relayed back to Earth through a wi-fi link with the rover. The images will help identify areas beyond the rover’s ground view that could be of interest for further investigation.

Hope

The dreams and aspirations of all explorers are, in one way or another, built on hope.

Nations like the United States have led the way in successful Mars’ missions over the last four decades. Now, new players like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made their own bold entry into the exploration of Mars with a vehicle called ‘Al Amal’ or ‘Hope’.

UAE Mars spacecraft Hope

A Japanese rocket launched Hope on 20 July 2020. The UAE’s first interplanetary mission will enter orbit at Mars in February 2021. This is around the same time Perseverance and Ingenuity are due to arrive.

Hope will examine the Martian atmosphere, detailing the climate and daily weather patterns. If successful it will join eight other missions that will be active in orbit or on the surface of Mars.

Further travel to Mars

Future visitors to Mars include China’s Tianwen-1 mission and the European Space Agency’s ExoMars ‘Rosalind Franklin’ rover.

Chinese Tiawen-1 Mars rover

ESA/Roscosmos Exomars 2020 Rosalind Franklin rover depiction

None of these missions just happen. And Mars has proven to be a hard destination to reach. Over fifty percent of missions have failed.

To make it to the Red Planet you must beat seemingly impossible odds. But with perseverance, ingenuity and hope you can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and reach for the stars.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “Winning the war on Great Barrier Reef crown-of-thorns starfish”

From CSIROscope

21 July 2020
Amy Edwards

Crown of thorns starfish on coral at Rib Reef near Townsville. Credit: David Westcott.

It’s taken a well-coordinated army, but researchers and reef managers are finally toppling the crown.

The crown-of-thorns starfish that is.

These hungry critters have been a long-time predator of coral. Their tasty battle ground is the beautiful Great Barrier Reef.

They feed by extruding their stomach out of their bodies and onto the coral reef. Then they use enzymes to digest the coral polyps.

Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are a native coral predator. But when populations reach outbreak status (about 15 starfish per hectare), they eat hard corals faster than they can grow. During an outbreak, crown-of-thorns starfish can eat 90 per cent of live coral tissue on a reef. This puts added pressure on the reef on top of threats like bleaching and climate change.

Scientists don’t know what causes outbreaks of COTS. But they think ocean ‘stressors’ play a part. This includes spikes in ocean nutrients caused by coastal and agricultural run-off into the ocean as well as a loss of predators due to overfishing.

Now for the good news. An adaptive approach to managing the coral-eating starfish has reduced their numbers at key reefs. So much so they can no longer consume coral faster than it can grow back.

You and what army?

A diver collects a starfish for research. Credit: David Westcott.

The Great Barrier Reef is currently in the midst of its fourth major COTS outbreak since the 1960s.

This current outbreak has been underway since 2010. Researchers, working with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, have been testing their new management strategy on more than 160 priority reefs across the Great Barrier Reef. Professional COTS divers (including Indigenous and youth trainees) and control vessel operators have culled more than 700,000 starfish.

The new process means the team can adapt quickly based on up-to-date information. It also considers research on the starfish’s biology and reef ecology.

The secret weapon against crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef

Crown of thorns starfish surrounded by the white dead coral it has eaten. Credit: David Westcott.

And what does this army use to slay the crown? Vinegar. Yep, the same trusty condiment found in your kitchen cupboard.

Divers inject the starfish with either vinegar or bile salt solution and leave them in place on the reef. These techniques kill quickly and effectively with no negative impacts on the marine environment. Within 24 hours there’s basically nothing left of the starfish, who go into an autoimmune self-destructive process.

Victory for the taking

The Expanded Crown-of-Thorns Starfish Control Program’s success marks a huge milestone for scientists, managers and on-water control teams. They have shown their approach to culling is effective at reef and regional scales.

As a result, the Federal Government has awarded contracts worth $28.6 million to help win the war against COTS.

The government has committed five, fully-crewed boats over the next two years. This will address what remains one of the most significant threats to the reef.

More information on the crown of thorns starfish great barrier reef research is in the recently published technical report.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “ASKAP searches for afterglow of gravitational wave”

From CSIROscope

24 June 2020
Annabelle Young

Scientists have made a new gravitational waves discovery. Image credit: C. Knox/ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav).

Scientists are puzzled by a new gravitational waves discovery. Have they discovered the heaviest neutron star or the lightest black hole ever observed?

More than a century ago, Albert Einstein predicted massive objects like neutron stars and black holes produce ripples in space as they orbit one another and eventually merge in a violent clash.

Gravitational waves from a black hole merger were first detected in 2015. Two years later researchers found not only gravitational waves but gamma-rays, light and radio waves from the merger of a pair of neutron stars.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) discovered these gravitational waves or ‘ripples’ in space.

Caltech/MIT Advanced aLigo Hanford, WA, USA installation

Caltech/MIT Advanced aLigo detector installation Livingston, LA, USA

Cornell SXS, the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project

Gravitational waves. Credit: MPI for Gravitational Physics/W.Benger-Zib

ESA/eLISA the future of gravitational wave research

It bagged three of its founders the 2017 Nobel prize in physics.

LIGO’s system of lasers, mirrors and vacuum tubes make it the most precise ‘ruler’ on Earth. It’s capable of detecting these previously invisible ripples in space, which are smaller than the diameter of a proton.

In August 2019, astronomers received an alert that LIGO had detected gravitational waves from a new type of event. The long-awaited merger of a suspected neutron star and a black hole!

ASKAP [below] on patrol for a gravitational waves discovery

Within minutes of receiving the alert, a team led by Professor Tara Murphy at The University of Sydney activated plans to use our ASKAP radio telescope. They were searching for the afterglow produced by the merger.

Because gravitational waves are so hard to detect, LIGO can’t pinpoint where these mergers occur. So, they send the astronomy community a ‘sky map’ indicating a region where the event happened. Often these maps cover as much as a quarter of the sky. This takes hundreds of hours to search using a regular telescope.

ASKAP is equipped with novel receivers that give it a wide-angle lens on the sky. In one pointing, ASKAP can view an area of sky about the size of the Southern Cross.

Coincidentally, the sky map sent by LIGO for the detection of this merger was about the same size as ASKAP’s field of view. This allowed Tara’s team to observe almost the whole area of the map at once.

Nine days after the merger, the ASKAP team found a source known as AT2019osy that had nearly doubled in brightness over the course of a week. The smoking gun of a radio afterglow?

“We immediately alerted thousands of astronomers involved in the gravitational wave follow-up effort, and telescopes across the world, and in space, began slewing to observe our candidate,” team member Dougal Dobie, a co-supervised PhD student at The University of Sydney and CSIRO said.

False start but the tide’s rising

“Unfortunately, these observations suggested AT2019osy was produced by normal activity from the black hole at the centre of a galaxy and unrelated to the merger,” Dougal said.

Continued ASKAP searches didn’t find any other candidates. This might seem disappointing but the ASKAP team say the effort was not wasted. A non-detection rules out several scenarios and helps place limits on the energy released during the merger.

Hints of a deeper mystery

Ongoing analysis of the LIGO data has shown the lack of a radio counterpart may even support the idea something unexpected is happening. The signal received by LIGO when a merger occurs depends on the mass of the two objects involved. Initial analysis suggested the merger of a neutron star and a black hole. But a recent announcement suggests this may not be the entire story.

https://sciencesprings.wordpress.com/2020/06/23/from-northwestern-university-ligo-virgo-finds-mystery-astronomical-object-in-mass-gap/

“We may have discovered either the heaviest neutron star or the lightest black hole ever observed. If it really is a heavy neutron star, this will radically alter our understanding of nuclear matter in the densest, most extreme environments in the Universe,” Rory Smith from OzGrav-Monash University said.

The presence or absence of a radio counterpart may help tip the balance one way or another.

Catching the next wave

The era of gravitational wave research is still young. As the sensitivity of LIGO improves, it will detect more mergers at even greater distances.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. ASKAP’s fast survey capability will enable us to probe the sky deeper and wider than ever before, playing a key role in understanding these mergers,” Tara said.

We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Australian Mid West. ASKAP consists of 36 identical parabolic antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, working together as a single instrument with a total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres.

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

From CSIROscope: “Canyon deep, sea-mountain high: using echoes to map ocean depths”

From CSIROscope

25 June 2020
Chris Berry
Phil Vandenbossche
Chris Gerbing

The ocean depths hold many secrets. They’re also one of the planet’s final frontiers for discovery. Great undersea mountain ranges and enormous canyons hide clues about our planet, its history and how it works. The deep sea even holds clues to our own past through the time capsules of ancient shipwrecks.

We use our research vessel RV Investigator, with its array of specialised and sophisticated scientific equipment, to peer into the ocean depths and uncover these well-hidden secrets.

RV Investigator Australia. CSIRO

Echoes from the ocean depths

Aboard RV Investigator, the Geophysical Survey and Mapping (GSM) team go about uncovering the seafloor’s mysteries. They utilise highly specialised sonar equipment. The sonar equipment ‘pings’ sound into the depths. It then waits for these sounds to echo back from the seabed. It’s like how a bat uses sound waves and echoes to navigate in the dark – a natural skill called echolocation.

The different instruments and the different frequency of sounds shed light on an otherwise dark and silent world. You might have already learned about our machines that go ping from our RV Investigator voyage down the East Australian Current.

Inside the operations room onboard RV Investigator.

From ‘ping’ to product

The GSM team carefully monitor the ship’s sonar data throughout all its voyages. From the cold and windy Southern Ocean to the sweltering tropics and the Great Barrier Reef.

Our sonar gear is always on. So as RV Investigator covers vast tracts of ocean, huge amounts of data are gathered. This data needs to be stored and interpreted by the technical and research teams on the ship. But it is used in many ways. One of the most important is to create highly detailed 3D maps of the seabed.

Sea-mountaineering in the murky ocean depths

Ascending from 5000 metres below the ocean is the Zeehan Seamount. It was recently mapped by the RV Investigator and stands 2500 metres above the seabed. It’s also part of the Tasmantid Seamount chain in the northern part of the Tasman Sea.

There are more than 14,200 seamounts scattered across the world’s oceans. Seamounts are known to form over mantle plumes, or ‘hotspots’. They are extra hot parts of the Earth’s inner layers (mantle). As a result, these ‘hotspots’ are sometimes able to push through the outer surface (crust) of the Earth where the molten rock accumulates. And, in some cases, form seamounts.

Chains of seamounts form when the Earth’s outer surface, or tectonic plates, move over these ‘hotspots’. And they create not just one, but a series of undersea mountains. To piece together the story of these seamounts and understand more about their formation, the GSM team use 3D maps. The team combines its maps with a host of other datasets. This includes what the seabed is made of and what lies beneath it.

This is a 3D view of Zeehan (left) and Heemskirk (right) Seamounts. Scientists on board RV Investigator in 2018 mapped them.

These datasets are like parts of a jigsaw, which help scientists piece together the mysteries of our planet and all its land and sea formations. By understanding these formations and the processes that formed them, we can better predict the future of our planet.

We go deep

We’ve pulled together some of the recent geophysical survey data collected from voyages around Australia to show you how we map the ocean floor. This web page highlights some fundamentals of seamounts, submarine canyons, ridges, seabed iceberg scouring and even shipwrecks. Here are a few of the great underwater visualisations that you can learn more about.

About three million shipwrecks litter the oceans across the globe. About 8000 of these are believed to lie around the shores of Australia. The SS Lake Illawarra (pictured) wreck is located in the Derwent River in Hobart and surveyed in detail.

You may have heard of the Hawaiian volcano chain. But what about our own Australian chain? The Tasmantid seamount chain consists of 16 extinct volcanoes, some with elevations of more than 4000 metres. The volcanoes are aged from six to 40 million years old. The seamount chain spans 2000 km across the Coral and Tasman Seas. Data sourced from GEBCO.

When an iceberg drifts into shallow waters, its base or keel can come into contact with the seabed. And this causes scours. We’ve mapped scours carved into the seabed by icebergs adrift in the Southern Ocean.

Bremer Canyon, off the coast of Bremer Bay in Western Australia, is one of Australia’s marine biodiversity hotspots. It starts atop the continental shelf in 100–200 metres of water before plunging to abyssal depths of more than 4000 metres. Background data sourced from GEBCO.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

SKA/ASKAP radio telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Mid West region of Western Australia

So what can we expect these new radio projects to discover? We have no idea, but history tells us that they are almost certain to deliver some major surprises.

Making these new discoveries may not be so simple. Gone are the days when astronomers could just notice something odd as they browse their tables and graphs.

Nowadays, astronomers are more likely to be distilling their answers from carefully-posed queries to databases containing petabytes of data. Human brains are just not up to the job of making unexpected discoveries in these circumstances, and instead we will need to develop “learning machines” to help us discover the unexpected.

With the right tools and careful insight, who knows what we might find.

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia’s national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.