Ian Goodwin is the founder of ClimaLab and Principal Scientist, following a 40 year career in climate, marine and earth science, as university academic and researcher, government researcher and private consultant. He is a specialist in marine climatology, paleoclimatology, coastal oceanography, glaciology and coastal-marine geology. His multi-disciplinary approach has enabled him to develop ‘cross-over’ scientific thinking that make the link between modern processes and historical studies to understand the natural variability of the climate system and the marine environment. Ian has been at the forefront of the development of Quantitative Paleoclimatology, wind and wave climatology, decadal–scale coastal processes and coastal evolution. This background provides the perfect platform to unravel modern weather and oceanography problems through to future climate change and impacts across the Southern Hemisphere.

 

He has held positions at the Australian Antarctic Division, University of Melbourne, University of Tasmania, University of Newcastle and for the past 12 years as Associate Professor in Marine Climate Risk and Macquarie University, and at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. He has active research programs in Climate Science, Antarctic Science, and Coastal-Marine Science and now holds the positions of Adjunct Associate Professor at both the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales and the Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia. He has a broad relationship with the non-government and government sectors, including experience on scientific advisory boards. 

 

Atmospheric circulation, wind and wave climate, extreme storms (East Coast Cyclones) and sea-level studies have been at the centre of his research. His earliest Antarctic expeditions (1980’s) involved the observations in  Antarctic glaciology, meteorology and winds over large areas in East Antarctica;  (ii) the design of national and international ice core drilling arrays, through his co-leadership of the International TransAntarctic Science Expedition (ITASE); development of quantitative paleclimatology methods using ice cores and other high-resolution proxies to reconstruct atmospheric circulation and winds; (iii) the design and research of modern and paleo ocean wind and wave climatology, and their application to the study of coastal and shelf processes, including boundary currents and sea-level; and, (iv)  the design and application of proxy climate data/model assimilation schemes to reconstruct regional and Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation through periods of the Late Quaternary, Holocene and particularly the past millennium, with Research Associate Dr Stuart Browning - see www.paleor.org

Ian has completed 10 scientific expeditions to East Antarctica as glaciologist, glacial geologist and paleoclimatologist, and has served as field and scientific leader on most expeditions. His work, spanning 1984 to present, has resulted in the exploration, mapping, and glaciology of new frontiers in Antarctica. These include leader of the 1985-86 over-wintering Wilkes Land glaciological traverses, and summer, field programs in the Prince Charles Mountains, Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice Shelf, Law Dome and Windmill Islands, Mill Is, Shackleton Ice Shelf, eastern Wilkes Land, George V Land, northern Victoria Land, and participated in US Antarctic Research Program, NZ Antarctic Research Program, Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, and the US Coastguard. Ian served as Ice Specialist on the US Coastguard Polar Sea voyage in 2001. 

He has also served as Coastal geologist and oceanographer on land-based and ship-cruise, field expeditions throughout Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, Samoa, Cook Islands, Hawaii, South Africa, Chile, USA, and Baja Mexico.

He has produced over eighty-five scientific publications in international journals and forty consulting reports covering coastal geoscience, coastal and estuarine evolution, coastal ocean and sedimentological processes, coastal management, sea-level history, coral reef geomorphology, climatology, climate change and variability, Antarctic glaciology and glacial geology, and remote sensing.

 

Over the past twenty years, Ian has conducted many consultancies for local and NSW, Victorian and Tasmanian state government agencies, private clients in Australia, Samoa, Cook Islands, and South Africa, legal firms, insurance companies, and national and international private clients on coastal processes, natural hazards, rainfall, flood and drought variability, extreme events, extreme storm meteorology and impacts, wave climate and climate change impacts, studies on chronic coastal erosion problems. Ian’s work to develop paleoclimate reconstructions and to define climate and coastal risks over the pre –instrumental era has produced new benchmarks for natural hazard assessment, and for regional climate change impacts in NSW.  Ian’s research has included the development of the most detailed paleoclimate database for south-eastern Australia, which is now the central source of data for hindcasting past climate change and evaluating projected climate change impacts on NSW.  From 2010 to 2012 Ian conducted a study of extreme waves along the NSW coast with Water Research Laboratories; and a novel reconstruction of East Coast Storm magnitude and frequency over the past millennium. From 2012 Ian has been a principal scientist on the Eastern Seaboard Climate Change Initiative (https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/Impacts-of-climate-change/East-Coast-Lows/Eastern-Seaboard-Climate-Change-Initiative). He has produced research data and reports on Extending the extreme East Coast Low climatology over the past millennium, Coastal System Response Of Extreme East Coast Low sequences in the geohistorical archive (https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/Impacts-of-climate-change/East-Coast-Lows/Past-East-Coast-Lows), coasts and sea level rise (https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/Impacts-of-climate-change/Coasts-and-sea-level-rise) and mapping the sand resources on the NSW continental shelf and sand supply to the NSW coast for the NSW Office for Environment and Heritage (OEH) through the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS-OEH Coastal Processes and Responses Hub (https://www.sims.org.au/page/87/flagship-projects). Ian’s research in wave climate change and sea-level rise, extreme storm climatology and coastal processes and hazards has contributed directly to NSW OEH climate change risk management and are publicly available on the OEH Adapt NSW website. 

 

Ian is also an experienced ‘Expert Witness’ for Extreme Weather and Coastal Impacts cases. He also works as a Polar Guide and Science Presenter in Antarctica and Chile.

 

He is currently working on a new book: Synoptic Paleoclimatology. Natural Archives to Southern Hemisphere Climate, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.