Dr Dietmar Dommenget - Researcher Profile

Dietmar Dommenget

Address

School of Mathematical Sciences
Building 28, Clayton

Biography

Dietmar works in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University as a Senior Lecturer.

Dietmar’s research areas of interest are:

• large scale circulation and climate variability
• causes of climate variability and change
• deconstructing the high-dimensional climate system into simplified modes or stochastic models of variability by statistical analysis of observations and a hierarchy of model simulations

 

If Dr Dietmar Dommenget has his way, we will all have the means to become much better informed about climate change.  Frustrated by the extent of ignorance on the subject – and not just in politicians, but in the science community as well – Dietmar is developing a climate model suitable for use on home computers, so that ordinary people will be able to find answers to questions about everything from emissions to rainfall changes.

Despite an early and enduring interest in astrophysics, Dietmar was drawn to climate science because it was a relatively new field with developing ideas, a great deal happening in it and immediate relevance to the everyday world. He finds the high level of public interest it attracts both encouraging and, at times, limiting: it is not always possible for him to speak frankly, even on matters that are scientifically interesting and correct, without attracting accusations of being politically motivated. 

“Almost everybody has an opinion about climate change but almost nobody knows anything about it,” he says.

The simple climate model which Dietmar hopes will redress this problem is still a little way off, although the scientific basis is complete.  In the meantime, his main work on climate variability continues, funded by the Australian Research Council for seven years as part of a Centres of Excellence project.

What causes the climate to change?  Why are there decades of drought and decades of wet weather? What causes ice ages? Why was there so much rain in Queensland last year? These are the kinds of questions Dietmar wants to answer through his development and analysis of computer models.

He is also particularly interested in the climate pattern we know as El Nino, and has recently published a paper raising the possibility that, contrary to accepted wisdom, El Nino could exist without influence from ocean dynamics.  His move to Australia last year from his native Germany brings him closer to the physical manifestation of that phenomenon, and he also says that Australia, as a relatively dry continent surrounded by ocean, is a very interesting place from a climate scientist’s point of view. 

The aim of Dietmar’s work is not to determine whether the climate is changing (“What’s in the political discussion is not really interesting for me because it’s not new science,” he says), but why, how and how much.

He studies the past as much as possible for insights, but in this young field of study there are only 20 to 30 years of solid data to work with; older information becomes increasingly sparse and unreliable. In the next few decades, however, he expects that many uncertainties will disappear and we will know, for example, not just that the world is warming but whether it is doing so by two degrees, or by six.

Forecasts of future climate conditions are likely to become more accurate with increased understanding of what causes changes, but Dietmar warns that “climate is quite chaotic – there is chaos in the system that cannot be predicted”.  And though the likely impact of warming on everyday life is a complicated question that goes beyond his field, he sounds a warning there as well:

 “The only thing it is safe to say is we should be careful,” he says. “We should be assuming the worst – we don’t know if it will happen, but we should assume the worst.”

Keywords

large scale circulation, climate variability, climate change

Qualifications

DOCTOR IN GEOSCIENCES
Institution: University of Hamburg
Year awarded: 2000

Publications

Journal Articles

Dommenget, D., 2012, Analysis of the model climate sensitivity spread forced by mean sea surface temperature biases, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 25, issue 20, American Meteorological Society, Boston USA, pp. 7147-7162.

Dommenget, D., 2012, Comments on "the relationship between land-ocean surface temperature contrast and radiative forcing", Journal Of Climate [P], vol 25, issue 9, American Meteorological Society, Boston MA USA, pp. 3437-3440.

Frauen, C., Dommenget, D., 2012, Influences of the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans on the predictability of ENSO, Geophysical Research Letters [P], vol 39, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC US, pp. 1-6.

Dommenget, D., Floter, J., 2011, Conceptual understanding of climate change with a globally resolved energy balance model, Climate Dynamics [P], vol 37, issue 11-12, Springer, New York USA, pp. 2143-2165.

Dommenget, D., 2010, An objective analysis of the observed spatial structure of the tropical Indian Ocean SST variability, Climate Dynamics [P], vol 36, Springer, Germany, pp. 2129-2145.

Frauen, C., Dommenget, D., 2010, El Nino and la Nina amplitude asymmetry caused by atmospheric feedbacks, Geophysical Research Letters [P], vol 37, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC USA, pp. L18801-L18806.

Semenov, V., Latif, M., Dommenget, D., Keenlyside, N., Strehz, A., Martin, T., Park, W., 2010, The impact of North Atlantic-Arctic multidecadal variability on northern hemisphere surface air temperature, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 23, issue 21, American Meteorological Society, Boston USA, pp. 5668-5677.

Dommenget, D., 2010, The slab ocean El Nino, Geophysical Research Letters [P], vol 37, issue 20, American Geophysical Union, USA, pp. L20701-1-L20701-5.

Hannachi, A., Dommenget, D., 2009, Is the Indian Ocean SST variability a homogeneous diffusion process?, Climate Dynamics [P], vol 33, issue 4, Springer, New York USA, pp. 535-547.

Dommenget, D., Jansen, M., 2009, Predictions of Indian ocean SST indices with a simple statistical model: A null hypothesis, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 22, issue 18, American Meteorological Society, USA, pp. 4930-4938.

Dommenget, D., 2009, The ocean's role in continental climate variability and change, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 22, issue 18, American Metereological Society, Boston Massachusetts USA, pp. 4939-4952.

Jansen, M., Dommenget, D., Keenlyside, N., 2009, Tropical atmosphere - Ocean interactions in a conceptual framework, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 22, issue 3, American Meteorological Society, Boston USA, pp. 550-567.

Dommenget, D., Latif, M., 2008, Generation of hyper climate modes, Geophysical Research Letters [P], vol 35, issue 2, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC USA, pp. 1-5.

Moller, J., Dommenget, D., Semenov, V., 2008, The annual peak in the SST anomaly spectrum, Journal Of Climate [P], vol 21, issue 12, American Meteorological Society, Boston USA, pp. 2810-2823.

Dommenget, D., 2007, Evaluating EOF modes against a stochastic null hypothesis, Climate Dynamics [P], vol 28, issue 5, Springer, New York USA, pp. 517-531.

Dommenget, D., Semenov, V., Latif, M., 2006, Impacts of the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans on ENSO, Geophysical Research Letters [P], vol 33, issue 11, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC USA, pp. 1-4.

Lorbacher, K., Dommenget, D., P., N., A., K., 2006, Ocean mixed layer depth: A subsurface proxy of ocean-atmosphere variability, Journal of Geophysical Research [P], vol 111, issue 7, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC USA, pp. 1-22.

Postgraduate Research Supervisions

Current Supervision

Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Ocean-atmosphere coupled modes of decadal variability in the southern hemisphere.
Supervisors:
Dommenget, D (Main), Jakob, C (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The dynamics of sea surface temperature variability at midlatitudes and its climatic impacts.
Supervisors:
Dommenget, D (Main), Clarke, S (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The land-ocean temperature contrast in natural variability.
Supervisors:
Dommenget, D (Main), Reeder, M (Joint).