Professor Andy Hogg has been appointed as inaugural Director of the Australian Community Climate Earth System Simulator-National Research Infrastructure (ACCESS-NRI).  

Enabled by a recent $7.6 million grant from the Commonwealth Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), ACCESS-NRI will transform and make available a suite of software models, known as the Australian Community Climate Earth System Simulator (ACCESS). 

ACCESS currently supports critical modelling and research that contributes to IPCC reports, Bureau of Meteorology seasonal forecasting, and climate adaptation policy among other uses. 

Prof Hogg joins ACCESS-NRI from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, where he researches the physical processes governing the ocean and climate. He is a Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx).

"I am extremely pleased to be able to lead the ACCESS suite of models to the next level. Climate models are the best tools we have to predict the future of our planet and make better environmental decisions," says Prof Hogg.  

"This initiative will build new modelling tools, make them accessible, and will create communities of practise to use these tools."  

Prof Keith Nugent, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), congratulated Prof Hogg on his appointment. 

"Andy is a leading researcher in ocean and sea ice modelling, and he has been a core part of the ACCESS community over a number of years," he says. 

"We're delighted to have Andy come on board to lead ACCESS-NRI and bring the Australian climate and weather modelling community together to provide the best possible platform for all Australian researchers." 

ACCESS-NRI brings together the weather and climate observations, research and modelling capabilities of the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), CSIRO and the Australian university sector, in collaboration with key international partners.   

Five Australian universities - ANU, Monash University, the University of Tasmania, University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne -  have joined with BoM and CSIRO as founding collaborators. 

Prof Hogg will also work closely with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), located at ANU and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx). 

ACCESS-NRI will provide a merit-based, open access platform for Australian researchers to implement the ACCESS models in climate, weather and Earth Systems research across all time scales, from paleo-climate simulations to daily and seasonal weather forecasting, to multi-decadal future climate simulations. 

For more information, email info@access-nri.org.au or visit access-nri.org.au