Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\nCSIRO management told a Senate inquiry in February that the impact of the cuts would be minimal as it had about 60 people working on the climate model. But Andy Hogg, a professor of ocean and climate modelling and the director of Access-NRI, which supports the software development that underpins the CSIRO projections, said that was not the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the team of people on the core capability it\u2019s 12 to 15, and we understand that it\u2019s about five that are going,\u201d he said. \u201cThese cuts will make us suboptimal in core climate science capability in atmospheric and oceanographic modelling, and in understanding the concepts that really drive our weather and climate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Jakob, a professor at Monash University\u2019s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment and leading climate modeller, agreed. \u201cIt is a relatively small number developing climate models. It\u2019s certainly not 60,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are making sure we have a better model in a year\u2019s time. That will go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Access is a computer-based model that draws on international and national data related to the atmosphere, oceans, land and ice to allow simulations of the future. Led by CSIRO, it provides high-level projections of how the country is likely to change under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.<\/p>\n
The model underpins climate information that scientists, governments, councils, industry, farmers and others use for more fine-grained analysis that can shape planning and investment decisions.<\/p>\n
Jakob said cutting CSIRO\u2019s climate modelling expertise would \u201cremove a basic foundational capability\u201d to prepare for the future. \u201cAustralia will no longer be seen as a credible contributor to international assessment of climate change. Full stop,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel angry. I have been a climate modeller for 30 years. It will mean I can\u2019t stand up in front of people and say we\u2019re giving the best information we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
A CSIRO spokesperson said its climate science capability would be retained.<\/p>\n
\u201cCSIRO will continue to provide climate data, models and scenarios to manage the impacts of climate change,\u201d they said. \u201cThe proposed changes sharpen our effort by reducing activity in selected areas including atmospheric chemistry modelling, Indo-Pacific ocean dynamics and some operational support so we can better align our climate portfolio with our future science priorities, and deliver the strongest possible outcomes for Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Hogg said there was a risk Australia may not be able to submit projections this year to inform the IPCC\u2019s seventh major assessment report, due out in 2028 and 2029.<\/p>\n
He said CSIRO had no plan for how it would continue to contribute meaningfully to future global climate projections beyond that despite Australia being the only country with modelling focused on the southern hemisphere. \u201cThat capacity will be difficult to rebuild. It would cost twice as much to get it back in later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jakob said the potential ramifications included Australia losing the ability to attract top international scientific talent, and having less capacity to understand issues such as what the melting of the giant Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would mean for the Australian coastline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to know how other countries\u2019 climates are changing because they will matter to us \u2026 and there is a question of whether we can rely on other countries for information as we used to,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a very foolish path to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n
While scientists were critical of the CSIRO decision, researchers \u2013 including some within CSIRO who spoke on the condition of anonymity \u2013 said the cuts were primarily a result of years of federal governments not increasing the agency\u2019s direct funding in line with rising costs.<\/p>\n
CSIRO managers are expected to secure 70% of funding from external sources, usually from industry or another government department agency, before a new research project is approved.<\/p>\n
The Albanese government says CSIRO receives about $1bn in recurrent annual funding and that it has provided an additional $278m in 2025 and $387m over four years in the latest budget. The science minister, Tim Ayres, did not respond to questions about cuts to climate modelling capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Job cuts at the national science agency mean Australia will no longer be able to submit climate projections…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-652903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}