Curious Climate Tasmania was led by Professor Gretta Pecl and Dr Jocelyn Nettlefold with supporting team members from partner organisations around Tasmania
Meet the rest of our team
Ingrid van Putten
CSIRO, Centre for Marine Socioecology
Research Areas:
Human behaviour modelling, behavioural economics, fisheries economics
Why I do what I do:
I like to understand how the world works and why people do (or don’t do) the things they do. I’m
simply curious. I also hope that by gaining some insights into climate related behaviours I can make a small contribution and keep this planet functioning and turning a bit longer and perhaps make it a better place
Clara R. Vives
Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX), Institute for Marine and Antarctic Science (IMAS), University of Tasmania
I am a marine biogeochemist and I am interested in understanding how the oceans regulate climate by biological processes. I study phytoplankton bloom dynamics in the Southern Ocean and how they are affected by future climate projections. Phytoplankton blooms are regions of intense primary production, where large concentrations of anthropogenic carbon dioxide are transferred from the atmosphere into the oceans. This carbon flux is known as the biological carbon pump, and it is the way by which ocean biology regulates climate. Phytoplankton growth is affected by environmental parameters such as temperature, nutrients, carbon dioxide and light. There are theories of how these factors will change in the future climate; temperatures are expected to rise, anthropogenic carbon dioxide is expected to increase, there will changes in water mixing and stratification which will affect nutrient input and light. Thus, understanding how phytoplankton growth will be affected by these changes is important to help us assess how the carbon flux and uptake will change with in the future climate.
Stuart Corney
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania
Research Areas:
Impacts of climate change on Tasmania and exploring the impacts of change on
Antarctic and Southern Ocean marine ecosystems. Untangling the interplay between the projected
physical changes that anthropogenic climate change is likely to bring and how these changes will
flow through to affect people and marine ecosystems.
Why I do what I do:
Basically I love to figure out what is going on around me. My research career started in quantum
physics and trying to understand the basic nature of the universe. These days the focus of my work is
less obscure, but the desire to understand what is driving the system of study is the same. We are
conducting a massive, global experiment that is reshaping our climate and pushing it to a place it has not been for a million years, at a much faster rate than at any time in the history of the Earth. What is the outcome of this experiment for our environment and, just as importantly, for the people, animals and ecosystems that are caught up in it? I want to know, and preferably know while we still have a chance to alter the outcome.
