WAMSI Node 2.2 - Dynamics and impact of the Leeuwin Current on the marine environment off Western Australia

The aims of this study are:

• to identify the variability and long term trends in the eastern Indian Ocean and in the Leeuwin Current system, and their relationships to climatic forcing, using historical data and models;
• to understand the dynamics of variability and long term trends;
• to project future changes in the Leeuwin Current system from available coupled climate models
• to develop the capability to downscale the relatively coarse products from climate models to the Leeuwin Current spatial scale (10 km); and
• with Node 2.3 to project the climate changes onto the continental shelf at smaller scales.

Observational data sets will be used to create models that achieve these aims.