Jennifer Marohasy

The Climate Modelling Laboratory · Quality Control

Much of Australia regularly experiences extremes of drought and flooding, with high variability in rainfall in many regions of the continent. Development of reliable and accurate medium-term rainfall forecasts is important, particularly for agriculture. Monthly rainfall forecasts 12 months in advance were made with artificial neural networks (ANNs)...

Extreme rainfall in Queensland during December 2010 and January 2011 resulted in catastrophic flooding, causing loss of life, extensive property damage and major disruption of economic activity. Official medium-Term rainfall forecasts failed to warn of the impending heavy rainfall. Since the flooding, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has change...

Time-series profiles derived from temperature proxies such as tree rings can provide information about past climate. Signal analysis was undertaken of six such datasets, and the resulting component sine waves used as input to an artificial neural network (ANN), a form of machine learning. By optimizing spectral features of the component sine waves,...

Accurate medium-term rainfall forecasts are a significant constraint to dry land cropping. In Australia, official monthly forecasts for the Western Australian wheat-belt are currently based on output from the Bureau of Meteorology’s general circulation model, the Predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA). These forecasts are provided...

For three decades there has been a significant global effort to improve El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasts with the focus on using fully physical ocean-atmospheric coupled general circulation models (GCMs). Despite increasing sophistication of these models and the computational power of the computers that drive them, their predictive ski...

Surface air temperatures as measured at weather stations around the world are routinely homogenized before they are used to report anthropogenic global warming. The adjustment methodology relies on algorithms that determine homogeneity relative to other locations, and typically results in significant remodeling of individual temperature series. We...

In 2003, the Australian government launched The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Basin 2003– 2013 with the objective of restoring native fish populations in the Murray Darling Basin to 60% of their of pre-European (before 1788) settlement levels. Ten years on, there is no evidence that native fish populations show any sign of recovery, d...

Official medium-term rainfall forecasts failed to warn of the impending heavy rainfall in the Brisbane catchment during the summer of 2010–2011 with resulting catastrophic flooding causing loss of life, extensive property damage and disruption of economic activity in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. Since the flooding, the Australia Bureau of M...

The Murray Darling Basin accounts for nearly 40% of the value of agricultural production in Australia, and 65% of the irrigated land. We use an artificial neural network (ANN), a form of machine learning, to show the potential for more reliable monthly rainfall forecasts with a lead time of 3 months, and the potential skill of the same model for 6,...

The decline in populations of the Mountain Yellow-legged frogs, Rana sierrae and Rana muscosa, in the Sierra Nevada in California is consistent with a worldwide trend in frog decline that has resulted in nine species extinctions, four of these in Australia. Spray drift from pesticides applied to agricultural crops in California’s Central Valley was...

Water policy reform in Australia has been driven by a requirement to increase freshwater flows to Lake Alexandrina, part of a terminal near-coastal system at the end of Australia’s longest river, the Murray. This water policy is based on the lake’s listing in 1985 under The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance as freshwater, and analy...

There is a need for more skilful medium-term rainfall forecasts for the Bowen Basin, a key coal-mining region in Queensland, Australia. Prolonged heavy rainfall during the 2010–2011 summer was not forecasted and it severely affected industry operations. Official forecasts are currently based on general circulation models (GCMs) and indicate there w...

Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia, has flooded periodically and catastrophically, most recently in January 2011. Official seasonal rainfall forecasts failed to predict the floods. Since winter 2013, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology uses a general circulation model, the Predictive Ocean Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA), to mak...

The grey mangrove, Avicennia marina, grows in intertidal habitat that is under pressure from expanding human settlement and industry along coastlines in the tropics and subtropics. Inappropriate clearing, and also the dieback of large stands of A. marina associated with pollution, have created an interest in methods for revegetation and also the ne...

Concurrent relationships between climate indices and Australian spring rainfall have been used extensively to explain weather events. In order for climate indices to be useful for rainfall forecasting there must be relationships between their lagged values and rainfall. The methods currently used by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for seasonal...

The Murray is Australia’s longest river and drains a catchment of over 1 million square kilometres. Before sea dykes were built across the five channels that converge on the Murray’s sea mouth in the 1930s, mulloway, Agyrosomus japonicas, were a mainstay of the local fishery. Back then, Lake Alexandrina was the central basin of a barrier estuary. N...

The Bowen Basin contains the largest coal reserves in Australia. Prolonged heavy rainfall during the 2010-2011 wet-season severely affected industry operations with an estimated economic loss of A$5.7 billion (£3.8 billion). There was no explicit warning of the exceptionally wet conditions in the seasonal forecast from the Australian Bureau of Mete...

In this study, the application of artificial intelligence to monthly and seasonal rainfall forecasting in Queensland, Australia, was assessed by inputting recognized climate indices, monthly historical rainfall data, and atmospheric temperatures into a prototype stand-alone, dynamic, recurrent, time-delay, artificial neural network. Outputs, as mon...

Through the provisions of the Australian Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) 1982, government documents should be freely available to the ordinary citizen on request, unless strict requirements for at least one of a limited number of exemptions are demonstrated. Our case study, however, shows reluctance by the Australian Department of Climate Change...

Through the provisions of the Australian Freedom of Information Act (FolA) 1982, government documents should be freely available to the ordinary citizen on request, unless strict requirements for at least one of a limited number of exemptions are demonstrated. Our case study, however, shows reluctance by the Australian Department of Climate Change...

The claim that the herbicide Diuron in agricultural runoff caused dieback of the grey mangrove (Avicennia marina) in Central Queensland, Australia, has influenced government policies including programs to save the Great Barrier Reef. Several investigations on mangrove dieback in Central Queensland river estuaries have been published during the past...

Queen's University Belfast holds an extensive database on tree rings, particularly Irish oaks; information that may be used in the reconstruction of past climate conditions. A request for this information under the United Kingdom's new Freedom of Information legislation was disputed on the basis of intellectual property rights, compliance costs and...

The United Kingdom's Freedom of Information Act (FolA) and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) are intended to provide a mechanism whereby information held by public authorities can be accessed by the public. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recently considered the disclosure of information from the Climatic Resear...

The Murray river is Australia's longest river, and together with its tributary, the Darling river, drains an area known as the Murray Darling basin. The region has historically received only 6 per cent of Australia's annual rainfall but produced 40 per cent of Australia's food. for years it was feared that the region would be lost to salt from risi...

ABSTRACTA new species of gall midge, Schizomyia cryptostegiae Gagné, that forms leaf and bud galls on Cryptostegia grandiflora in Madagascar is described and its biology summarised. the gall midge is a candidate for the biological control of C. grandiflora in northern Queensland, Australia.

In his new book Collapse Jared Diamond contends that the Australian environment is generally unproductive and has been irreversibly damaged by European farming, forestry and fisheries practices. Diamond reflects a popular view that is continually reinforced by environmental campaigning in Australia. The reality is more complex. Many Australian farm...

THE Queensland sugar industry has recently implemented a comprehensive integrated pest management (IPM) system to minimise crop losses from two native rodent species, Rattus sordidus (canefield rat) and Melomys burtoni (climbing rat). These species inflicted approximately $25 M of damage in a major outbreak in the 1999–2000 seasons. Both of these r...

In Australia there is a clear legislative process controlling the deliberate introduction of insects as biological control agents. The current system has been reviewed in (1992) and described for weeds in (1998). We will describe how the biological control introduction process currently runs in Australia, and demonstrate how the system provides an...

Abstract Survival, development and fecundity of cohorts of the mealybug Phenacoccus parvus Morrison were measured over one generation on seven plant species representing four plant families. Survival, development and fecundity were not significantly higher on the mealybug's principal field host, the weed Lantana camara L. (Verbenaceae), than on oth...

Eggs of Weiseana barkeri, a potential biological control agent for Acacia nilotica, are laid in batches covered in frass. an experiment measuring embryonic development in eggs with and without a frass covering indicated the presence of frass is necessary for the termination of diapause and the initiation of development in egg batches.

Prickly acacia in Queensland is generally accepted to be Acacia nilotica subspecies indica. Scattered populations are found throughout Queensland but its major distribution is across at least 6.6 M ha of the northern Mitchell grass downs. Bioclimatic modelling suggests much of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia is climatically...

Many biologists perceive organisms as constantly evolving and therefore consider the host plant ranges of biological control agents as labile. Host plant ranges are thus likely to undergo adaptive change should environmental conditions change, for example following successful biological control. As a consequence, the introduction of biological cont...

The characteristics, origin, spread and current distribution, ecology, weed status and control options for exotic woody weeds in NW Queensland are discussed, including prickly acacia (Acacia nilotica), rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora), mimosa bush (Acacia farnesiana), mesquite (Prosopis spp.), Parkinsonia aculeata, chinee apple (Ziziphus mauri...

The leaf-feeding beetleWeiseana barkeri Jacoby feeds onAcacia nilotica (L.) Willdenow ex Delile in Kenya. Host specificity tests show it is host specific toA. nilotica and approval has been given for its field release in northwest Queensland. A novel rearing and host specificity-testing technique is reported whereA. nilotica foliage stimulates ovip...

The genus Cvptostegia R. Br. comprises two species, both of which are endemic to Madagascar. One species, C. grandiflora Roxb. ex R. Br., is widely naturalised in tropical regions of the world. The other species, C. madagascariensis Bojer ex Decne., comprises three varieties, of which C. madagascariensis var. glaberrima (Hochreutiner) J. Marohasy &...

The soft scale,Steatococcus new species, occurs onCryptostegia grandiflora R. Br. in Madagascar. Studies on its biology and host plant range showed colonies could survive for up to 6 months on some genera in theApocynaceae and indefinitely on many genera in the familyAsclepiadaceae. The species was therefore rejected as a biological control agent f...

In Madagascar, the leaf feeding Pyralid,Euclasta whalleyi Popescu-Gorj & Constantinescu, occurs onCryptostegia grandiflora R. Br. and other genera in the subfamilyPeriplocoideae of the familyAsclepiadaceae. Studies on its biology and host plant specificity have shown it is restricted to this subfamily. The Australian native,Gymnanthera nitida R. Br...

Save the Murray, remove the barrages The release of a new Murray Darling Basin plan on October 8, 2010, is likely to reignite debate over how best to solve the problems of the Murray River. It will further pit some environmentalists and some South Australians against upstream irrigators as a debate over how to fix the two very large freshwater lake...

We have all heard about the declining health of the Murray River, including poor water quality, dying red gums and threats to the continued survival of the Murray cod—this is the popular view in urban Australia. Along the river, communities believe that the end of commercial fishing, a substantial restocking effort, improvements in on-farm practice...