Media and Outreach

I am honoured to have received the 2020 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Outreach Award and be selected as a 2021 Victorian Tall Poppy for excellence in science research and engagement.

Public presentations

I give regular public presentations on climate science, science communication and historical climatology, including Pint of Science 2019 and Climate Conversations at the University of Melbourne. Please contact me if you would like me to speak at your event.

Television

I delivered regular videos on Australia’s climate as a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, and have been interviewed about climate science for national and international television, including ABC Breakfast, Weekend Sunrise, and PBS News Hour.

Radio

I regularly appear on the science show Einstein a Go Go on 3RRR in Melbourne, Australia’s largest community radio station. I am also interviewed regularly by local and national media, including the Voter’s Forum at ABC Melbourne.

Writing

I keep a semi-regular blog, have published several articles in The Conversation and have written for CSIRO’s Helix and Scientriffic Magazines and The Age. My article ‘letter to a weather station’ was selected for publication in the Best Australian Science Writing 2019.

Selected media

2025:

• How do climate scientists maintain their hope in a warming world?, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, February

2024:

• Taking a punt on Melbourne Cup weather, Pursuit, November
• ABC News Breakfast on record-breaking heat, August
• University of Melbourne Science Festival Mid-afternoon Masterclass: Hunting weather history to prepare for the future, August
• Climate Kids, A video series explaining climate for the kids who will live our positive climate future, May–December
• Stop the broken record: Bringing climate science to the COPs, Climate Talks podcast, May
• You won’t read this climate story. Let’s talk about why, Crikey, March
• Five tips for digitising handwritten data, Nature, March
• Australian Science Media Centre briefing on Australia’s ‘weird summer’, February
• Time to go? The costly impact of climate change on the housing hip pocket, Cosmos Magazine, February

2023:

• Bushfires have changed the way we holiday, Info360, December
• El Niño declared, interview with Channel 9, September
• Which Australian city has the best weather? Data interactive from The Guardian, May

2022:

• David Karoly ‘retires’, Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, June
• International Women’s Day conversation, Lost in Science on 3CR, 8 March
• La Nina and eastern Australian floods, Radio Marinara on 3RRR, 6 March
• One of the most extreme disasters in colonial Australian history’: climate scientists on the floods and our future risk,The Conversation, 2 March
• Damp, sticky, record-breaking: La Nina delivers a ‘classic’ summer, The Age, 24 Feb

2021:

• Climate emergency not slowed by COVID-19 pandemic and planet’s ‘vital signs’ worsening, scientists say, ABC News, 28 July
• What’s the difference between weather and climate, COSMOS Weekly
• What message can we read in the Australian Climate Stripes? A video series for Melbourne Museum
• Historic WA early settler weather journals set to help understand climate change, ABC News, 21 April

2020:

• We dug up Australian weather records back to 1838 and found snow is falling less often. The Conversation, 4 June
• This is how I feel. Part of the Is This How You Feel? project by Joe Duggan at Australian National University. 3 March.
• Mallacoota: this is what climate change looks like, The Age, 3 January
• Glimpse of Hell: could Australia’s bushfires bring a shift on climate change?, Yale Climate Connections, 17 January
• Could Australia’s bushfire disaster alter the conversation on climate change? PBS News Hour, 20 January

2019:

• Einstein A Go Go, 3RRR radio, fortnightly
• Weekend Sunrise interview, 28 July
• ABC Melbourne Voter’s Voice panel, 10 May
• Lessons learnt (and perhaps forgotten) from Australia’s ‘worst fires’ by Peter Hannam, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 January

2018:

• Ask BoM video and blog: Why do we have different climate zones across Australia?
• First look at the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate and Water outlook for autumn 2018 and winter 2018.
• Historical weather records collected by NSW farmer to be used in new climate modelling. ABC New England, 12 April 2018.
• Algernon Henry Belfield’s Weather Records: an update. Public lecture, Saumarez House, Armidale, 12 March 2018.
• Australia’s climate in 2017: a warm year, with a wet start and finish. The Conversation, 10 January 2018.
• Bureau of Meteorology’s Australian Climate Summary video, 9 January 2018.

2017:

• The hunt for Australia’s climate past. 3CR’s Lost In Science, 6 April 2017 (audio).
• Algernon Henry Belfield’s weather diaries given new life. The Armidale Express, 29 March 2017.
• Uncovering Australia’s climate history since European settlement. Public lecture, The University of Newcastle Cultural Collections, 22 March 2017.
• Delving through settlers’ diaries can reveal Australia’s colonial-era climate. The Conversation, 10 February 2017.

2016:

• First Fleet diaries to predict weather events, Herald Sun, 22 November 2016.
• The importance of climate data rescue in the Southern Hemisphere, two interviews with BBC World Radio. Interview 1, Interview 2, 21 November 2016.
• Current climate data rescue activities in Australia. Phys.org, 21 November 2016.
• Digitising sub-daily weather observations in Europe to improve climate reanalysis. Project overview, HistoricalClimatology.com, 23 July 2016.
• Historical climate data rescue activities in Australia. Project overview, HistoricalClimatology.com, 10 July 2016.
• 19th century weather data is helping climate scientists predict the future. The Conversation, 12 April 2016.
• Warming up down south: reviews of Mayewski et al. 2015 and Arblaster et al. 2011. The Winnower, 1 March 2016.
• Review of the paper “Urban warming in villages” by Lindén et al., 2015., The Winnower, 16 February 2016.
• Bridge the gap – Revision of the paper “Including the urban heat island in spatial heat health risk assessment strategies: a case study for Birmingham, UK” by Charlie J. Tomlinson et al., The Winnower, 16 February 2016.
• Review of Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry by Scott Huler, on Science Book a Day, 4 February 2016

2015:

• El C3 un centre líder d’àmbit international en l’estudi del clima. Setmanari L’Ebre, 11 December 2015 (in Catalan).
• Historical teleconnections changes in southeastern Australia, invited blog piece for the Australian Energy and Water Exchange Initiative, 19 October 2015.
• Extending the temperature record of southeastern Australia, invited blog piece for climatrecon.wordpress.com, 26 March 2015.
• La tercera planta del Campus (the third floor on campus). Setmanari L’Ebre, 5 June 2015 (in Catalan, but you can read a translation here).
• El C3 de la URV digitalitza 3,5 milions de dades climàtiques. Diari Ebre de Tarragona, 5 February 2015 (in Catalan).

2014

• Scientist unearth Australia’s early historical records of droughts and flooding rains. The Age, 13 October 2014.
• Australia’s early settlers weathered drought and flooding rains. The Age, 1 October 2014.
• 2014 University of New South Wales Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, Australian Museum, September 2014.
• ClimateWatch citizen scientist with ear our for early warbles add sound contribution to database. The Age, August 9 2014.
• Citizen science and mobile technologies evolve together. CSIRO’s ECOS Magazine, 21 July 2014.
• You can monitor plants and animals responding to changing climate. ABC Radio National’s The Science Show, 19 July 2014 (audio).
• Science snippets: Frequent fliers. The Helix Magazine 155, April–May 2014, page 4.
• Feature article: Yesterday’s weather, tomorrow’s climate. Scientriffic 90, March–April 2014, pages 22–23.
• News articles for the Earthwatch citizen science program ClimateWatch January–September 2014.

2013

• The University of Melbourne’s Three Minute Thesis competition, September 2013 (video).
• I wanna be a Doctor on Three RRR’s Detour program. 23 October 2013 (audio).
• A magical meteorological tour at the UK Science Museum Archive, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science blog, May 14 2013.
• Spot On: Postcards from Earth. Scientriffic 83, January–February 2013, page 5.

Pre-2013

• Science snippets: Coral reefs causing a storm. The Helix Magazine 132, June–July 2010, page 5.