Professor Andy Pitman - Research
I'm interested in the macroscale modelling of climate and climate change. I'm basically a modeller of large scale surface-atmospheric interactions. I am particularly interested in how to represent the Earth's surface in climate models (mainly GCMs), but I'm becoming increasingly interested in smaller scale processes as the issue of heterogeneity and sub-grid scale processes become higher on the list of importance. I am interested in the issue of land use change and whether any of the changes in the Earth's climate can be explained by the large scale changes in land cover which have occurred through Human activity. I have a series of research projects. Most of these fall into the Land-surface-atmosphere interactions. Specific projects include:
- modelling of the impact of land cover change on the global climate
- development of improved models of the land surface
- incorporation of carbon exchange into a land surface model
- the issue of complexity versus uncertainty in land surface modelling
- the role of complexity in land surface processes in influencing the sensitivity of the climate to increasing greenhouse gases
- the role of calibration in improving land surface models.
Of course, a fair proportion of the good research is being done by bright graduate students. I collaborate with a number of research groups around the world:
- Dr. Bryant McAvaney (The Climate Change Modelling group of the Bureau of Meteorology);
- Professor Henderson-Sellers (from ANSTO) on the (PILPS) project;
- Dr. Jan Polcher from LMD (Paris) on investigating uncertainty in land surface processes;
- Professor R Pielke (Colorado State University) and Dr Tom Chase (University of Colorado) on the impact of land cover change on climate (using RAMS).
Some other projects I'm involved in include:
- The ARC Research Network for Earth System Science http://www.arcness.mq.edu.au
- Research projects using RAMS
- I am the National Representative to the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme
- Lead author of Chapter 8 of the 2001 IPCC report;
- Member of the GLASS Science Panel
- Involved in the Global Soil Wetness Initiative