Dr Chris White

antarctic climate & ecosystems cooperative research centre

cooperative research centre

Senior Lecturer

Dr Chris White

Dr White is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the University of Tasmania, and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow within the Climate Futures program within ACE CRC. Chris’ research bridges the disciplines of earth, climatic and engineering sciences. His research covers hydrological and climatic natural hazards and extremes (notably flooding, coastal inundation and heatwaves), natural disaster risk assessment, extended-range weather prediction, and regional climate change prediction – both from a physical understanding and from an applied, risk management perspective. Chris works with State and national Government agencies and industry partners to advance the understanding and prediction of natural hazards, and to improve the development, application and use of risk-based climatic and natural hazard information for decision-makers.

Internationally, Dr White is a Vice President of the International Commission on Coupled Land-Atmosphere Systems (ICCLAS), one of the ten commissions of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) within the IUGG. He was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2013 and a Rossby Visiting Fellowship in 2015, and holds an honorary position at the University of Exeter’s European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH) in the UK. He has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and reports on the topics of climate change, long-range weather forecasting and natural hazards.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS

Vice President of the International Commission on Coupled Land–Atmosphere Systems (ICCLAS), one of the ten commissions of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) (2015-present)

AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS

Rossby Visiting Fellowship, Stockholm University (2015)

Churchill Fellowship, Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (2013)

Resilient Australia Award (as part of the Climate Futures for Tasmania project team), Australian Attorney-General’s Department (2012)

social & academic profiles

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Johnson, F, White, CJ, van Dijk, A, Ekström, M, Evans, JP, Jakob, D, Kiem, AS, Leonard, M, Rouillard, A and Westra, S, “Natural hazards in Australia: floods”, Climatic Change pp. 1-15. doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1689-y ISSN 0165-0009 (2016)

McInnes, KL, White, CJ, Haigh, ID, Hemer, MA, Hoeke, RK, Holbrook, NJ, Kiem, AS, Oliver, ECJ, Ranasinghe, R, Walsh, KJE, Westra, S and Cox, R, “Natural hazards in Australia: sea level and coastal extremes”, Climatic Change pp. 1-15. doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1647-8 ISSN 0165-0009 (2016)

Perkins-Kirkpatrick, SE, White, CJ, Alexander, LV, Argueso, D, Boschat, G, Cowan, T, Evans, JP, Ekström, M, Oliver, ECJ, Phatak, A and Purich, A, “Natural hazards in Australia: heatwaves”, Climatic Change pp. 1-14. doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1650-0 ISSN 1573-1480 (2016)

Walsh, K, White, CJ, McInnes, K, Holmes, J, Schuster, S, Richter, H, Evans, JP, Di Luca, A and Warren, RA, “Natural hazards in Australia: storms, wind and hail”, Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1737-7 ISSN 0165-0009 (2016)

Perkins, SE, Argueso, D and White, CJ, “Relationships between climate variability, soil moisture and Australian heatwaves”, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 120 (16) pp. 8144-8164. doi:10.1002/2015JD023592 ISSN 2169-897X (2015)

White, CJ, Hudson, D and Alves, O, “ENSO, the IOD and the intraseasonal prediction of heat extremes across Australia using POAMA-2”, Climate Dynamics pp. 1-20. doi:10.1007/s00382-013-2007-2 ISSN 1432-0894 (2013)

White, CJ, McInnes, KL, Cechet, RP, Corney, SP, Grose, MR, Holz, GK, Katzfey, JJ and Bindoff, NL, “On regional dynamical downscaling for the assessment and projection of temperature and precipitation extremes across Tasmania, Australia”, Climate Dynamics, 41 (11-12) pp. 3145-3165. doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1718-8 ISSN 0930-7575 (2013)