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. Please contact me if you would like me to speak at your event.

Television

I appear regularly on national and international television, including a monthly slot on ABC Breakfast. Other examples of interviews include chats on Weekend Sunrise, and PBS News Hour.

Radio

I co-host Lost in Science, recorded for 3CR based in Naarm, Melbourne, and broadcast across Australia on the Community Radio Network. From 2017 to 2024 I regularly appeared 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 Pursuit, 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

2026:

• What’s a ‘super’ El Niño, and is Australia facing one? SBS News, 26 March

• Summer climate ‘whiplash’ hitting harder and faster, AAP, 17 March

• How much have our summers changed over three generations? ABC News, 12 March

2025:

• Our kids have questions about climate change. We are giving them answers, co-written with Dr Lily O’Neill, Pursuit, February

• 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.