Extract from ABC News
Meet
the scientists on board the CSIRO research ship the RV Investigator.
The scientists reveal their passions, fears, and all you need to know
about climate science.
Updated
Bonnie Laverock
Bonnie is a Microbial Oceanographer and Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
Bonnie Laverock is a microbial oceanographer and post-doctoral
research associate at the University of Technology Sydney.
(ABC News)
What drew you to this field of climate science?
"I was always drawn to the marine environment and I was specifically in interested in microbial function in the marine environment because they're invisible, we don't' know what they're doing on the micro-scale but we know they're important and it's a mystery that I'm interested in."
"It's
always interesting to see how things are going to change in future
oceans and hopefully be able to make a difference by studying that."
What do you like about the work?
"I just really love being at sea, I really love the marine environment. It's a real privilege to be able to study that as part of my job."
What is the outlook for the climate?
"I think we all try to remain optimistic about the future. I think there's areas that are at more immediate concern than others, such as the Great Barrier Reef and the health of the corals. But, I wouldn't like to call the future bleak."
"I think there's plenty of people trying to study those environments and make a difference in the world, so I'm optimistic."
Eva Fernandez
Eva is a geochemist and PhD student at UTS. She is originally from Barcelona, Spain, and is studying in Australia.
Why is climate science an important field and why did you choose it?
"I believe in it. We live on the planet Earth, it's our home. If we don't take care of it, if we pollute the planet, it comes back to us. For example, new diseases can appear if the ice at the poles disappears. There will be bacteria frozen in there that may reappear. Every bad thing we do to the environment comes back to us."
What do you think you'll see across your career, in terms of the environment?
"I would like everybody [to be] more environmentally friendly. I think a lot of damage has been done but I believe in the education of people and I think the more people educated on environmental topics, we are more conscious of the problem."
"I
believe in people and I believe education is the key. We don't need
everybody [to be] a scientist, we just need everybody to act responsibly
with the environment."
Tomasso Villa
Tomasso is an atmospheric scientist and PhD student at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is originally from Bergamo, Italy, and is studying in Australia.
What drew you to climate science?
"I've always been conscious about the environment. It's critical and fundamental for life on earth, the quality of the air, something that affects everyone. But it's not easy to see and people don't think too much about it, so I was curious to further my knowledge in this field."
Why is climate science an important field?
"It's critical, people really need to think about the quality of the air. I've done an internship in Shanghai for two months and I really experienced the quality of the air, how much it can affect your life and probably that was one of the triggers for myself, saying I would like to do something."
"Contributing
to the future, protecting, respecting the environment and especially in
Australia. I love this country and the environment here is one of the
biggest heritage, so protecting and understanding how to protect and to
limit the impact of the anthropogenic emissions is really important.
"I'm worried for the environment and for our life on this planet. People need to be aware about the impact we have on the planet and if we still have a chance to save this planet, we need to act now I think."
"I'm worried for the environment and for our life on this planet. People need to be aware about the impact we have on the planet and if we still have a chance to save this planet, we need to act now I think."
What changes do you think you'll see across your career?
"Even in the last three to five years the technology is growing and it is super fast. Sensors are getting smaller and smaller, so we're talking about Volatile Organic Compound Sensors that can be installed into a phone or watches so the technology of the future will encompass all these kind of senses on wearable objects like watches and phones, for example."
Luke Cravigan
Luke is an atmospheric scientist and PhD student at QUT.
What is the outlook for the climate?
"I don't really know. It could be anything, more extreme rainfall events, definitely more extreme drought events, higher temperatures, higher sea levels, it's all definitely on the cards."
How important do you think this field of science is?
"I think it's really important, particularly for Australia. We have some quite unique climatic systems in climatic areas and to have Australian researchers doing that research I think is really important."
Why is climate science important to you? Why do you do this?
"I guess, the dream is to come up with good models that can predict things like rainfall accurately that will help populations and help us to manage populations and agriculture and those sort of things into the future."
The
applications vary from rainfall, flooding, drought to even sea level
rise and those sorts of things. Just the radiative balance of the earth
has an influence on almost everything.
What do you think you'll see throughout your career?
"I think the models will get better and better, they will get better at resolving smaller scale systems which will allow a more regional impacts approach."
What's the funding climate like for climate scientists?
"It is difficult. I used to work for the Queensland Government actually and there were big funding cuts there when I was there and a lot of the climate research division there was axed, so yeah, it is difficult in Australia at times."
Yuko Omori
Yuko is a biogeochemist from the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
Why is climate science important to you? Why do you do this?
We humans are changing the climate and the environment and that affects the microbial activities in the ocean so we have to understand how to our activities and practices. Understanding the environment is very important to understanding what we should do on the Earth."
Chiemeriwo Osuagwu
Chiemeriwo is an atmospheric chemist and PhD Student at QUT. He is originally from Nigeria.
Chiemeriwo Osuagwu is an atmospheric chemist and PhD student at QUT. He's originally from Nigeria.
(ABC News)
What drew you to this area of science?
"I was interested in environment and making it a better place, so with the issue of global warming at stake and pollution, we have to beautify the air and make it even better air for me and my generation, generations to come. That's what drives me to do this. So I can make a better environment for the society in which I live and my community as well."
What is the outlook for the climate?
"We know the Earth is in trouble, with the technology at stake we can save it."
What are the environmental concerns in Nigeria?
"Nigeria has more problems on the waste management, we have no management of the waste there. We need that done. For the atmospheric aerosols it won't be easy because the equipment is so expensive. I'm here to be able to combine both so I can go back and tell them we need to invest this money because it's wanted and we can get this done. But it's still about government policy."
What would you like to see through your career?
"When I go back I'm likely going to recruit other people and teach them about atmospheric aerosols and get them interested in it and get the university to invest at putting more people to study about this. That would be an improvement not just for Nigeria but for other parts of Africa as well. Expand my tentacles, it will be nice!"
How important is it to collaborate internationally on climate science?
"When we all combine together, we can make the world a better place."
Stephen Archer
Stephen is a biogeochemist and Research Fellow at Auckland University of Technology.
Stephen Archer is a biogeochemist and research fellow from the Auckland University of Technology.
(Supplied)
What drew you to climate science?
"I love being a scientist because it is that incredibly fast-paced constantly something new to learn and we're always improving, picking apart this incredibly complex system around us. I've known I wanted to be some kind of scientist pretty much as far back as I can remember."
Do you have concerns for the climate in the future?
"I worry as much as anyone could without going completely insane but thankfully, I'm very hopeful. I see so much positive movement toward trying to make our impact on this world a little bit smaller every day. Every step in the right direction is the right one and hopefully our kids and our kids, kids can get it a little bit more right each time."
What do you think you'll see throughout your career?
"My field in particular is unimaginable growth. You've heard of Moore's law? Computer processing power goes up two-fold every year? Well, DNA sequencing technology absolutely blows that out of the water. I can only imagine just another 5, 10, 15 years … we're making leaps and bounds in understanding the microbiology in every environment."
"We're
always improving, picking apart this incredibly complex system around
us. The detail of what we will be able to understand of our own world is
going to be completely unimaginable to what we know today."
Matthew Boyd
Matthew is a CSIRO hydrographer and RV Investigator.
What draws you to this area of science?
"I feel privileged to be involved. There's so many different facets of science going on on board and I'm just a small part of one particular breed of that. So, I find it quite inspiring to see all the other scientists and all differing varieties of science and finding out about what they're looking at outside of the context of mapping. It's awesome to be a part of all of the different science that goes on, on the Investigator, it's an amazing thing to be a part of."
"It's
a privilege to be out here and be running these sort of systems, these
amazing systems that have the ability to map the sea floor or have the
ability to look throughout the water column and see what biomass is
doing. It's exciting stuff its interesting stuff and yep, it's pretty
awesome."
What will you see in throughout your career?
"People used to throw a lead line out to get a depth … a bit of lead on a rope. Nowadays we've got sounders that are putting out 400 beams of sound down to the seafloor covering depths up to 11,000 metres with coverage of the sea floor. It's pretty mind-blowing stuff. Going forward, we're going to be able piece together more and more."
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