New Head for ANMRC [Doug Gauntlett]

The Centre, run jointly by CSIRO and the Department of Science, is involved with the development of numerical models simulating atmospheric behaviour in an effort to improve the accuracy and time scale of weather forecasts and understanding of the distribution and variation in climate.

When he announced Dr Gauntlett's appointment, the Minister for Science, Senator Webster, said he was regarded very highly by the international scientific community associated with numerical meteorology.

"In 1974 Dr Gauntlett was selected by the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Atmospheric Sciences to serve on a specialist international working group in numerical weather prediction," Senator Webster said.

"He has travelled extensively on a professional basis throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the USSR; presented papers it several international conferences; and in 1968/69 successfully completed, on behalf of the Bureau of Meteorology, an extended research project at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in the United States."

"This project involved a review of two of the most advanced weather prediction models available at the time and the subsequent construction of a sophisticated model suitable for research and application in Australia."

Senator Webster said Dr Gauntlett had graduated a Bachelor of Science from the University of W.A. in 1961, had been awarded a Diploma of Applied Science (Meteorology) from the Royal Melbourne institute of Technology in 1962, and had gained his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1974.

He joined the Bureau of Meteorology in 1962 and then CSIRO in 1975.

In 1973/74 he was Acting Officer-in-Charge of the Centre.

Commenting on his new appointment Doug said the centre was actively pursuing the possibility of constructing higher resolution numerical models both for operational applications and for interrogating basic atmospheric processes such as cyclone formation and decay.

"There is an important need for ANMRC to become more aware and more involved in tropical applications," he said. "We are using data from the GMS to feed into numerical models to help with this research."

Doug is pictured on the back page examining a chart plotter in ANMRC

Bureau of Meteorology