Professor Thomas Lyons

Room: EnvSc/3.047

Research

Air-surface interaction; applied boundary-layer meteorology, air pollution.

Projects

Land-atmosphere interaction.

Long term meteorological records indicate that rainfall in the south-west of western Australia has decreased significantly in the later part of this century. Various studies suggest that the decrease is related to large scale circulation changes as well as the impact of land clearing for agriculture. In particular, low level aircraft observations have identified significant differences in the fluxes of heat and moisture from agricultural land compared to that from native vegetation. This is a collaborative project with the University of Alabama and offers the opportunity to analyse field data being collected at Merredin and Sturt Meadows in conjunction with satellite data and meteorological model output.

Lightning and deep convection

(In collaboration with Dr Jennifer Robinson)

Murdoch now collects routine data on the distribution of lightning across Australia and there is an opportunity to relate the occurrence of lightning with satellite and synoptic analyses to develop a more complete understanding of the climatology of lightning and ultimately deep convection. Of particular interest is the relationship between deep convection and the land surface.

Urban air pollution

Within urban areas, the major source of air pollutants is from motor vehicles and its prediction requires an understanding of vehicle kilometres of travel. Comparison of data across a large number of cities has led to the development of a simple predictive relationship for vehicle kilometres of travel for any city and this project will extend that model to a simple air pollution/ human health model for any city with particular emphasis on the exploding megacities of the third world.

Remote Sensing of Evapotranspiration

Within the arid zone, the availability and use of water is a major determinant for an ecosystem. The X-Band reception of MODIS data through Aqua, Terra etc satellites provides an opportunity to utilise satellite information in better understanding the spatial and temporal variations within the environment. In particular, time series of satellite information can be used to estimate changes in key variables. In this project with Agriculture WA changes in daily surface heating will be compared to measured and modelled changes in soil moisture. This project is also looking at explaining the spatial variation of greening as the season develops and providing real tools to assist farmers and other agricultural managers.

Environment, Management and Compositional Quality of Fruit and Wine of the grapevine, Chardonnay.

Factors thought to be important in determining composition and quality are:

• Yield in relation to supporting leaf area
• Canopy efficiency (exposed leaf area)
• Endogenous disease status (virus and phytoplasmas)
• Water relations during particular phases of fruit development
• Nutritional status of the vine, especially nitrogen nutrition
• Climate, light intensity, minimum and maximum temperature
• Soil conditions and temperature
• State of maturity at harvest

Methods available to assess these parameters include web-based, radio-linked data-loggers and climate stations, soil water by neutron moisture measurements, capacitance probes, plant water use by sap flow monitoring, ICP analysis of mineral nutrients, portable photosynthesis meters, digital analysis of canopy density either at the vine or vineyard scale (GIS of airborne spectral camera data or satellite data). A particular challenge is to increase spatial sampling density and to enhance compatibility with existing tools such as canopy density, soil and yield maps.

A joint project with the University of Western Australia funded under the ARC Linkage program. For further details see http://www.cs.uwa.edu.au/~david/chardonnay/chardonnay.html

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