- Good afternoon and welcome
to Monash University's
virtual open day.
In this talk, I would
like to introduce you
to a discipline of science
called Earth Science.
A branch of physical sciences,
the study of nonliving things.
Earth Science focuses on the
Earth and its nearby neighbors.
It's atmosphere, rocky composition,
it's environment and oceans.
My name is Ruth and I'm a
lecturer here at Monash.
I'm an Oceanographer and
Earth Scientist interested
in how (indistinct) storms
impact coastal habitats
and infrastructure.
That's fun to the fantastic endeavor.
Whether you are fascinated
by mountains, Earth shapes,
climate, rocks, fossils, oceans,
and life sustaining environment,
or are just seeking to
broaden your understanding
of how biology, chemistry and physics
are expressed on Earth template.
Many of humanity's greatest challenges
such as climate change,
pandemics, natural hazards,
mass extinction, resource
scarcity, drought,
and bushfires are rooted in Earth science.
As you'll see later in this presentation,
the scientific understanding
of our planet and these issues
enables us to better advocate for change
and to create solutions.
Earth science has
consistently provided a path
to meaningful employment in
environmental consultancy,
resources, weather
forecasting, risk analysis,
natural hazard management,
scientific research,
the list goes on.
You can find a link at our booth,
which is the Earth atmospheric,
environmental, geographical,
and climate science booth.
Some of the jobs are lucrative.
Most of them are better paying
than most in graduate roles.
But most importantly, for me
they make the world a better,
smaller, more sustainable place,
full of wonder and exploration.
So come on and explore the planet with us
in our first year sequence,
EAE1011 and EAE1022.
This first year sequence,
they invented to make majors.
One of which is the
Atmospheric Science major
and the other is the Earth Science major.
The Earth Science major is a broad major
and has a number of specializations,
including the Geosciences and the
Environmental and Climate Science.
If you take in Earth Science major,
you can keep it as broad as
you like by combining units
between these two disciplines.
If you're interested in geography,
at Monash, we teach geography
in two main pathways,
either as a major of science in the form
of Geographical Science.
Or as a major in the faculty of Arts,
which is the Human Geography component,
regardless of which pathway you choose,
you will take units
across the two faculties.
Starting from first year.
If you're doing a
Geographical Science major,
your first year sequence
will be ATS1310 and EAE1022.
So what do you study
in EAE1011 and EAE1022?
You'll study the scientific
background to climate change.
You'll learn about the weather extremes,
bushfires and other natural hazards.
You'll explore the makeup of
the Earth and how it evolved
over the past 4.5 billion years.
You'll get involved in global issues
like food and water security.
You'll expand your knowledge
of Australian environments,
oceans, geology, and climate.
You'll develop highly
sought skills in mapping,
mineral identification,
environmental management,
data analysis and
introductory research skills.
Maps are one of the most
common forms of communication
and we'll teach you how in EAE1022.
And you'll join a vibrant
network of hundreds
of other students through
participation in field camps,
the voluntary practicals and group work.
I will leave you with quotes
from our latest cohort
of EAE1011 students.
For more detail information on
these different disciplines,
please continue watching this video
where some of your lectures
will describe future careers,
your education at Monash university
and the research question
and local challenges.
They address an environmental
climate geological
and Antarctica science.
I look forward to seeing
you in our first year,
EAE1011 and EAE1022.
Myself and my colleague
Ian will be available
at the live Q&A at the
end of this presentation
and at the booth from 10
to two today and tomorrow.
Thank you.
- I'm Adam, I'm a Bio-Geo Chemist
in School Earth, Atmosphere
and Environment at Monash.
And that means that I
study how things cycle
through the environment.
My particular focus is
on water and sediment,
and how things cycle through water bodies,
such as lakes and streams and rivers.
This footage comes from
a recent field trip.
It's part of one of my
projects studying the fate
of nitrogen in Victoria's estuaries.
And the problem is this,
when too much nitrogen flows
into an estuary, it usually
leads to algal blooms.
You might've seen things
like this if you've been
to port Phillip Bay or the Gippsland lakes
during problem times
in the last few years.
Now fortunately the microbes that live
in the muddy sediments below our estuaries
are really good at reacting nitrogen.
But there are two main types of reaction,
a removal reaction that turns the nitrogen
into harmless nitrogen gas,
but also a recycling reaction,
which keeps the nitrogen in the estuary
and sometimes makes
the problem much worse.
And this project is working
with groups like the EPA,
Catchment Management Authorities
and the Department of Water
to understand what conditions
make the removal reaction
or the recycling reaction, more dominant.
And to do this, we need to
visit some beautiful estuaries
like this one and collect some sediment
and bring it back to Monash
to learn it's secrets.
Our estuaries are really
beautiful and I hope that
this research can help us
to understand how they work
so that we can keep them that way.
- Hi, my name's Kelly,
I'm an honor student in the School
of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.
I've just collected a whole
bunch of sediment course
like this one from this estuary here,
and I'm going to look at how the chemistry
of nitrogen changes within these course
when burnt bushfires
sediment is added to it.
- Hi, I'm Sarah Chussie and
I'm currently doing honors here
with Vanessa looking at
athlete from (indistinct)
of mountain sides.
I started studying in Soil
Science because I liked
the variety of stuff
that you could live with,
just a little bit soil.
- Hi, I'm Vanessa, I'm a Soil
Scientist and an academic
in the School of Earth,
Atmosphere and environment.
So what do environmental
scientists do in their
day to day job and where do they work?
Environmental scientists
work across a range
of different organizations
in the public, private
and not-for-profit sectors.
So that means environmental
scientists work
in government organizations,
private companies,
and nongovernment organizations.
Environmental scientists are
also multidisciplinary as well.
In terms of their day to
day tasks, they include
developing management plans
or policies to minimize
the impacts of industrial, agricultural,
or urban processes on the environment.
They also participate
in community education
and educate the community
on environmental issues.
They assess, investigate
and develop environmental
guidelines for regulatory bodies
and also undertake environmental research.
Environmental scientists also
develop sustainable practices
and incorporate them into an
organization's operations.
In terms of areas of expansion
for environmental scientists,
expanding areas include the
assessment of contaminated land
and contaminated water and the
remediation of these sites.
So environmental sciences look
at remediating mine sites,
such as the coal mines
in the La Trobe Valley,
industrial areas, such as
all petrol station sites
of which there are many around Melbourne.
And also on infrastructure
projects such as
the Metro tunnel and the Westgate tunnel.
But don't just take our word on this.
The Australian government
has produced a jobs outlook,
which looks at career prospects
and employment prospects
for a range of different careers.
They describe environmental
scientists as scientists
who develop, study, implement,
and advise on policies
and plans for managing and
protecting the environment,
flora, fauna, and other natural resources.
And they also project
strong future job growth
in this particular area.
A quick look online in
terms of what companies
and where environmental scientists work
include those in the private sector
or environmental consultancy sector
as contaminated land consultants.
In the private sector, working
as a sustainability manager,
so incorporating and developing
sustainable practices
within an organization.
Local councils also employ
saints sustainability officers
and environmental scientists.
As to water utilities companies.
So Southeast Waters of
Water Utilities company,
and they're also looking for
an environmental scientist.
And in terms of graduate level positions,
there are also a range of
graduate programs available
for environmental science
graduates as well.
So how do you become an
Environmental Scientist?
And what do you study in the
School of Earth, Atmosphere
and Environment to become
an environmental scientist?
Our school offers three majors
in the Bachelor of Science
and associated degrees.
We offer the Environmental
Science extended major,
the Earth Science major and
the Geographical Science major.
If you're really interested in
the multidisciplinary aspect
of environmental science,
then the Environmental Science
extended major is for you.
And that extended major
has the environmental
Earth sciences stream.
That stream will
incorporate aspects of Earth
and environmental science,
biology, and chemistry.
If you're really
interested in understanding
how the world works, and
want to delve into that
in more detail, then the Earth
Science major is for you.
And within that, there's a
physical environment stream.
The first year sequence
looks at an introduction
to Earth science, atmospheric science,
and environmental science.
On the other hand, if you love geography
and you want to understand how
humans and society interacts
with the natural environment,
then the Geographical Science
major is for you.
The first year sequence is a combination
of a human geography unit and
a physical geography unit.
These three majors will
provide you with a foundation
to allow you to explore in detail
what you're really interested
in as you delve into
the deeper details of
environmental science.
- [Lady] Come and join me on
a journey through Geoscience
to learn more about why
our discipline is crucial
for sustainable future.
We need critical metals for
the technologies required
to cut carbon emissions in
a sustainable energy future.
Geologists are the scientists
who will drive the discovery
of these important resources.
And they will contribute to
environmentally responsible ways
to extract them from the earth.
Working together with other industries
to find smarter solutions, which
need less of those minerals
is another important aspect of our work.
As long as human kind can remember,
natural hazards have
always been part of life.
But the more we learn and
understand about the mechanisms
within the Earth that drive
these natural hazards,
the more we can predict
when and where they happen.
This video, for example,
shows how geologists
are able to track earthquakes.
The Geoscience program at
Monash is strongly focused
on training problem solvers
with a broad range of skills,
central to geology, are
the tools and techniques
that we use to understand
and interpret the materials,
rocks, and minerals that make up the Earth
and other planets in our solar system.
You will learn how we study the processes
that shape our planet
and about Earth amazing
and complex history of the
past 4.5 billion years.
But geology is not just all about rocks,
minerals and fossils.
Modern geoscientists use
the latest state of the art
technologies and sophisticated methods
to see deep inside the Earth
and analyze the composition
of tiny amounts of Earth
and solar system materials
like this meteorite.
You will use the insights
gained from these tools
to understand how the Earth works,
how to explore for resources
we need in the future
and how to improve our environment.
As a geoscience student,
you will also learn
about how our planet's climate has changed
over billions of years and how we manage
other critical resources
like ground water.
(soft music plays)
- Hi everybody, my name
is Andrew Mackintosh,
and I'm the head of the
School of Earth, Atmosphere
and Environment at Monash university.
Today I'm excited to be talking with you
about Antarctica, a place
I'm passionate about.
And that I've had the privilege
of visiting many times.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest
and most remote continent on Earth.
It's probably best known
to you for its penguins,
but today I'm going to be
talking about the ice sheet,
which covers an area
larger than Australia.
And it's more than four
kilometers thick at its center.
If all of this ice was to
melt, it would fundamentally
transform our planet's
coastlines, flooding cities,
and in some cases, whole countries.
So the question is, what do we need to do
to better predict the future of Antarctica
and it's ice sheet?
Around 20 years ago when I
started out as a scientist,
we thought Antarctica
wasn't changing very much.
We thought there was
an approximate balance
between the snowfall that was coming in
and the ice loss at the margins.
But as the two thousands progressed,
things really started to heat up.
What we're focusing on here is the change
over a number of years.
The map to the right shows
the cumulative mass pattern,
reds are for areas of ice
loss and blue for areas
of ice gain over the
entire Antarctic ice sheet.
As time goes on, and in
particular, after 2007,
a huge red spot develops
over West Antarctica.
We also see areas of mass gain
due to increased snowfall,
but they're not nearly
enough to offset the loss.
It's this creeping growing giant red spot,
which is due to the rapid
acceleration of ice,
thinning of the ice sheet and retreat
of its major outlet glaciers.
And all of this has been
driven by warming of the ocean.
The intergovernmental
panel for climate change
of which I'm an author has
indicated the mass loss
in West Antarctica could be the start
of an unstoppable and
irreversible feedback.
This could result in the entire loss
of the West Antarctic ice
sheet, in coming centuries.
Lots of the East Antarctic
ice sheet directly
to the South of us here in Australia
are also potentially vulnerable.
And if the West and East
Antarctic ice sheets
together start to disintegrate,
then we could get meters of sea level rise
over coming centuries.
To learn if this is really
going to be the case,
we need to do a few critical things.
The first thing we need,
a longer observations
of the ice sheet, current
observations from satellites
only go back a few decades,
and this is not nearly
long enough to know whether the
current behavior is unusual.
The second thing we need,
a better observation
of the bedrock beneath Antarctica
and of the ocean surrounding it.
The oceans have been warming,
but is that the same everywhere?
How does that affect the ice sheet?
We don't really understand it yet.
The last thing we need, and
this is really critical.
A more accurate computer
models of the ice sheet.
Computer models are amazing, they allow us
to imagine the future and calculate
the sea level contribution
from Antarctica.
These models need to
take into consideration
our greenhouse gas
choices, because ultimately
it's going to be our
decision as humans that makes
the difference about how the
Antarctic ice sheet changes.
I'm now gonna pass over
to my awesome colleagues
who we'll talk about each
one of these topics in turn.
(soft music continues)
- The geological past
provides valuable insight
into how the Antarctic ice
sheet is changing today
and how it will change into the future.
Rocks and sediments record past times
when the ice sheet grew and retreated,
allowing us to better
understand how ice sheet respond
to changes in the climate.
We're you particularly
interested in when, where and how
the Antarctic ice sheet
retreated after the last ice age.
And to answer these questions,
takes us to Antarctica.
We fly South to the great
white continent of Antarctica.
We set up camp consisting of power tents
and unequally toilets in the mountains
alongside fast flowing
outlets of the ice sheets.
Our aim is to collect rock samples,
ice from bedrock surfaces,
and patch carbons
often using power tools,
hammer and chisel.
Each sample can tell us
when the ice surface lowered
to expose that rock status.
By collecting rocks at multiple elevations
above the modernized surface,
we can produce a timeline
of past ice sheet.
We then return with our rock samples,
which we then process in the lab.
- Modern observations tell
us about the current state
of Antarctica, including
how it's contributing
to sea level rise.
And they can also tell
us about the processes
that are driving change.
We know that the ocean
is the biggest driver
of current ice melting
and loss from Antarctica.
Ocean melting is therefore one
of the most crucial
measurements we collect
on the grid at the field.
As the ocean melts beneath
the floating ice shelves
in Antarctica, the ice that's
grounded on bedrock upstream
can actually speed up and
flow faster into the oceans.
These days we have satellite
records such as NASA's measures
data set that can show us
how fast the ice is flowing.
From these studies, you can
really see that the patterns
of ice flowing in Antarctica look a lot
like waterflow on land from small streams
into large tributaries
that flow into the ocean.
These patterns of ice
flow are strongly guided
by the bed's (indistinct) below.
Just another very important
quantity to measure.
Models of the tools that
we use to understand
the environment, the
processes that are operating
and how they might change in the future.
The ancient models that we use are made up
of the mathematical
formula that we translate
into computer code.
And that integrate real
well data such as ice speed
and thickness to build up a
picture of the current state
of Antarctica and how it
might change with time.
- Many people ask me, how do I become
an Antarctic scientist?
How do I become a glaciologist?
The answer is that there
are many different pathways,
but you can follow them all in our school.
If you're a geographer,
great, a geologist, fantastic.
A meteorologist, a
mathematician or physicist,
come and join our actually modeling team.
What about geochemistry?
We're building a new
lab for you right now.
So no matter what your
background or pathway,
there's a way that you can
get into Antarctic Science.
If you're passionate about it.
And I'd love to support you
and see you in our school.
- It's Kristin Jacob and
I'm here with Nigel Tipa
and Julie Alablaster.
And the three of us are all staff
at the School of Earth,
Atmosphere and Environment,
and our general background
areas, Atmospheric Science.
- How do we predict the future?
How does it work?
- Yeah, one of the fascinating things
we do in atmospheric science
is we look into the future.
Not many people have the
privilege of doing that.
And of course the running
joke is that the crystal ball
was a bit cloudy today,
and so the weather forecast
wasn't quite as good.
But actually we don't use crystal balls
to make these predictions.
We use modeling and
you hear a lot of model
about modeling right now, don't we?
We here COVID-19 modeling.
And before that, we often
hear about economic modeling
and what the growth rate is
and what the exchange rate would be.
Turns out the models
we use to make weather
and climate predictions
are quite different
from a model that predicts COVID.
In that rather than looking at past data
and extrapolating from that
past data into the future,
we actually start with what looks like
the Egyptian hieroglyphs
to most of you I presume.
A bunch of equations,
mathematical equations,
but they're actually quite
familiar things to all of you
who've done physics in high school.
There's Newton's second law.
And then there's the law of
energy conservation and so on.
What we do is we take those equations
and then we divide the
Earth up into boxes.
That's this picture in the middle.
So, and then we calculate the
temperature, the pressure,
all the things for each box.
Turns out to be one of
the most computationally
expensive things you can cook up.
And so to do it, we need a supercomputer,
not just a little computer or a computer.
No, we get super computers to do it.
Ours it's in camera, the
national computational
infrastructure, and it's
a very powerful computer
and all these things together,
we can produce a forecast
for the weather every day.
And so here's one for
tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.
Or we can also run this
models longer into the future.
And we can ask if the composition
of the atmosphere changed,
if we had more CO2 in the atmosphere,
how would things like the
global mean temperature change?
And here's a result of this.
And we have result from
two different assumptions.
The blue line is if we
don't change the CO2
in the atmosphere much further
than where we are right now.
The red one is if we
continue business as usual.
And while we can see in one scenario,
the Earth will be about
a degree warmer by 2100,
in the other one, it will
be four degrees warmer.
And it's quite an amazing thing to be able
to do this actually.
And you can see how atmospheric science
just in this little slide has
mathematics and physics in it
has computational science in it.
And then most importantly,
once we figured out,
it's gonna be four degrees warmer.
Then what happens, Nigel?
What impacts do we expect from,
a four degree warmer road.
- The work that we did, we'd be doing
in this broad area began back
about 10 or 15 years ago,
where we did some of the
early work for the department
of health in Victoria on
heat-health relationships.
And one of the things we did,
was we looked at a range of,
we looked at all of the mortality data
over about a 25 year
period on a daily basis.
And we looked at the
climate and the weather
characteristics of the days.
And we looked at what the
mortality anomalies were
on each day compared to what
we would normally expect.
And in the end, we found that
a very simple relationship
between temperature and
mortality actually described
a lot of what was going on
in Melbourne and Victoria.
And this has become the basis
of the Victorian heat warning system.
So just looking at this
diagram, we can see that
an average is not this
is mean daily temperature
so yesterday's maximum of
this morning's minimum.
So over here, we see that
if we have a 40 degree day
followed by a 20 degree
night, then we have
a mean daily temperature of 30 degrees.
And what we find is that
there's very little impact
of changing temperature all the way up
to about 28 or 30 degrees.
And then we have a threshold temperature,
above which people begin
to die at increasing rates.
And in fact, above that
temperature, the death rate
in this age group above 64 year
olds, which includes me now,
increases by about 17% overall.
But the critical thing to note
here is that just reducing
those temperatures by a
little bit can save lives.
And that's really provided
guidance for not only
for heat health warnings,
but it's also a target
for heat mitigation.
So a lot of the other
work that we've been doing
in the last 10 or 15 years,
and we've had the help
of postdocs and about
close to 20 PhD students,
is to look at what we can do
to reduce city temperatures,
so that we can save lives and provide
a lot more thermal comfort.
So we've been focusing
in particular on the role
of water and green infrastructure.
That is things like increased
tree cover and forest cover.
Green walls, green roofs,
trees on the landscape,
trees on the on road side, bioscales,
increased water bodies
and so on and so forth.
And what we've been able to do is look at
basically at two scales.
At the micro scale, we've
been looking at ways
of reducing air temperature
and radiant temperatures
to improve thermal comfort.
So this has been here at the micro scale,
and what we found is that we can reduce
things like temperatures
on the heat wave conditions
by as much as 10 degrees
by providing more shade
and providing cooling through evaporation
and evapotranspiration.
And then at the larger
city scale, we can provide
actual air temperature
cooling by one or two degrees.
And from the earlier work that we did
on the epidemiology of heat and health,
we know that one or two degrees cooling
on a 45 degree day or a 40 degree day
is actually going to save lives.
So that's pretty much
where our focus has been
in the last few years.
So I guess that really we
need to now think about
what the opportunities are for
our students to actually come
and join us to do some of
this really interesting
and we hope useful work
on extremes, on modeling
and on adaptation to climate change.
So perhaps I can throw the question over
to the other two of you.
What can we do here at Monash
to help people with this?
- So I think even this very
short tour through our work
has shown the breadth of the
sorts of things you can do
if you come and study weather
and climate at Monash,
you can do it in several ways.
You can do it by studying meteorology.
You can have a climate science degree,
or you can do geography and
all of these connect you
to these issues that
we've discussed today.
And I think for more information,
I would direct the
students to the brochures
and also to the open day booths,
which are online this year
as well, thanks to COVID.
And hopefully we'll see
many of them around,
what do you think Julie?
- Yeah, I think for those
really interested in the topic,
there's this, our major
in Atmospheric Science,
but in reality, I think
climate change is gonna affect
any job that people go into.
So even just getting a taste
for some of our courses,
you'll learn a lot about
how the climate is changing
and how it might change in the future.
And you'll learn skills that
I think are really useful
in many different careers.
So data analysis, big data that we use,
our climate models run on super computers.
So you learn lots of varied skills,
as well as learn about something fun.
- (indistinct)
- Sorry.
- (indistinct) Sorry, just
jump in there and say,
look, we've got
opportunities in the school
for people to come from
all sorts of backgrounds.
So I'm a physical geography.
So if you come more from
the geography background,
you know that there's
a place for you here.
If you come from computing
or mathematics or other areas
of the physical sciences,
it doesn't matter
there's usually a place for
you in atmospheric science.
- And if you're not sure
whether this is for you,
I recommend you take the first year units
that the school of Earth,
Atmosphere and Environment offers
and see how you like them.
In those units, you will
get a very broad overview
of all the topics that are
covered, including weather,
climate and its impacts.
And we even offer you a
first year elective unit
on climate change and
its impacts specifically.
And that's targeted at any
student because as Julie
quite rightly said, climate
change will affect all of you.
No matter what your job will be,
no matter where in the world, you will be.
Climate change will be with you.
So maybe on that note, we should sign off
and thank everybody for
watching this video.
Thank you.
- Thanks for listening.
- Thanks for listening.
- Goodbye.
- Thank you, bye bye.
