1] Near-surface wind speeds (u) measured by terrestrial anemometers show declines (a 'stilling') at a range of midlatitude sites, but two gridded u datasets (a NCEP/NCAR reanalysis output and a surface-pressure-based u model) have not reproduced the stilling observed at Australian stations. We developed Australia-wide 0.01°resolution daily u grids by interpolating measurements from an expanded anemometer network for 1975 -2006. These new grids represented the magnitude and spatialvariability of observed u trends, whereas grids from reanalysis systems (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE and ERA40) essentially did not, even when minimising the sea-breeze impact. For these new grids, the Australianaveraged u trend for 1975 -2006 was À0.009 m s À1 a À1 (agreeing with earlier site-based studies) with stilling over 88% of the land-surface. This new dataset can be used in numerous environmental applications, including benchmarking general circulation models to improve the representation of key parameters that govern u estimation.

Rapid radio intra-day variability (IDV) has been discovered in the southern quasar PKS 1257−326. Flux density changes of up to 40% in as little as 45 minutes have been observed in this source, making it, along with PKS 0405−385 and J1819+3845, one of the three most rapid IDV sources known. We have monitored the IDV in this source with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at 4.8 and 8.6 GHz over the course of the last year, and find a clear annual cycle in the characteristic time-scale of variability. This annual cycle demonstrates unequivocally that interstellar scintillation is the cause of the rapid IDV at radio wavelengths observed in this source. We use the observed annual cycle to constrain the velocity of the scattering material, and the angular size of the scintillating component of PKS 1257−326. We observe a time delay, which also shows an annual cycle, between the similar variability patterns at the two frequencies.We suggest that this is caused by a small (∼ 10 µas) offset between the centroids of the 4.8 and 8.6 GHz components, and may be due to opacity effects in the source. The statistical properties of the observed scintillation thus enable us to resolve source structure on a scale of ∼ 10 microarcseconds, resolution orders of magnitude higher than current VLBI techniques allow. General implications of IDV for the physical properties of sources and the turbulent ISM are discussed.

The Class A pan evaporation rates at many Australian observing stations have reportedly decreased between 1970 and 2002. That pan evaporation rates have decreased at the same time that temperatures have increased has become known as the “pan evaporation paradox.” Pan evaporation is primarily dependant on relative humidity, solar radiation, and wind. In this paper, trends in observed pan evaporation in Australia during the period 1975–2004 were attributed to changes in other climate variables using a Penman-style pan evaporation model. Trends in daily average wind speed (termed wind run) were found to be an important cause of trends in pan evaporation. This result is a significant step toward resolving the pan evaporation paradox for Australia. Data inspection and interstation comparison revealed that some of the significant wind run trends were discontinuous or spatially uncorrelated. These analyses raised the possibility that some of the changes in observed wind run, and by implication some of the significant changes in pan evaporation, may represent changes in the local environment surrounding the observing stations. Daily pressure gradients and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis wind surfaces were analyzed in an attempt to identify any climatological wind run trends associated with large-scale changes in atmospheric circulations. Unfortunately, the trends from the two data sources were not consistent, and the challenge remains to conclusively identify the cause or causes of the changes in observed station wind run in Australia.

[1] Climate change has the potential to reduce water resource availability in the Nile Basin countries in the forthcoming decades. We investigated the sensitivity of water resources to climate change in the Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia, using outputs from global climate models (GCMs). First, we compiled projected changes in monthly precipitation and temperature in the basin from 15 GCMs. Although the GCMs uniformly suggest increases in temperature, the rainfall projections are not consistent. Second, we investigated how changes in daily temperature and precipitation might translate into changes in streamflow and other hydrological components. For this, we generated daily climate projections by modifying the historical data sets to represent the changes in the GCM climatologies and calculated hydrological changes using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The SWAT model itself was calibrated and validated using the flows from four tributaries of Lake Tana. For the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A2 scenario, four of the nine GCMs investigated showed statistically significant declines in annual streamflow for the 2080-2100 period. We interpret our results to mean that anthropogenic climate changes may indeed alter the water balance in the Lake Tana Basin during the next century but that the direction of change cannot be determined with confidence using the current generation of GCMs.

We present the first results of a circular polarization survey conducted with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). We demonstrate the ability to make circular polarization measurements with a standard error of only 0.01 per cent, and have detections from both blazar and non‐blazar active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our results show that, as a group, BL Lac sources and quasars have systematically higher circular polarization than radio galaxies. We demonstrate the association of high levels of circular polarization with total‐intensity variability and flat/inverted spectral index as further evidence that circular polarization is associated with blazar activity. We also include preliminary circular polarization monitoring data and the detection of circular polarization from the GHz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) source PKS 1934–638, and discuss possible implications.