Today, CSIRO formally announced the environment research job cuts including the sacking of roughly one-third of the ACCESS (Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator) climate model team. This is a terrible loss — not just for CSIRO, but for all Australians.
ACCESS is the only global climate model developed and maintained in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the only climate model that focuses on the intricacies of Australia's delicate climate system. CSIRO believes that other members of the community can simply pick up where it has stepped back, yet no other organisation in Australia has the resources or mandate to develop and maintain the deep-seated knowledge required to build, develop and pioneer a global climate model. Once this knowledge is gone, it is gone forever.
Losing ACCESS places Australia squarely on the back foot in terms of our ability to adapt to a future climate. While we know the climate is warming, there is still much to be done in understanding the complexities of future high-impact weather events — which is where the impact of climate change is ultimately felt. Any significant reduction in ACCESS's capability impinges on our adaptive capacity, and in this case, CSIRO has sorely and needlessly let the team down. AMOS is incredibly disappointed that CSIRO pushed on with the cuts, despite a $387 million federal government injection and extensive pushback from the Australian climate community and beyond.
AMOS sincerely supports all those affected by the cuts, and their families.
Your sincerely,
Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick
AMOS, President
Further information:
https://theconversation.com/csiro-is-cutting-climate-science-jobs-this-is-whats-at-stake-for-australia-283370
https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/csiro-job-cuts-statement/
