carbon & climate

Climate Dogs: Graeme Anderson DPI’s Senior Specialist for Climate will talk about the influences on Australian climate with the aid of the now famous Climate Dogs. The award winning Climate Dogs series, which is part of DPI’s climate program, was developed to better explain the latest scientific insights into the key drivers of Victoria’s seasonal rainfall variability. While the four existing Climate Dogs - ENSO, INDY, SAM and RIDGY (El Nino Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole, Southern Annular Mode and Sub-tropical Ridge) - are the key climate drivers that affect Victoria's seasonal rainfall, bringing wetter or drier conditions, in East Gippsland their effect on annual rainfall can often be masked by East Coast Lows. The new Eastie animation was a collaboration between DPI Victoria and DPI New South Wales, who worked with scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology to come up with this clever cartoon.

Climate Institute/ Jigsaw Farms: Mark Wootton with his wife, Eve own and manage Jigsaw Farms. Located north of Hamilton, Jigsaw Farms is a mixed operation of beef and wool with various combinations of biodiversity and agroforestry plantings which act as a carbon sink. They are building into their farming practices ways to lessen the impact of climate change. Mark is Chairperson of the Climate Institute and is a board member for the Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation. Mark is also Chair of the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Authority.

Soil Carbon:  Camperdown Composts will talk about putting the life back into soils: increase efficiency of water usage; reduce reliance on fertliser inputs; understand the role of beneficial biology in plant growth; integrate biology into your fertility management.