Deputy Director ANU Climate Change Institute
(College of Medicine, Biology and Environment)
Project Leader: Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation in Canberra and the SE region : an integrated Biophysical, Policy and Governance Approach

BA(Hons)

HDipEd

PhD(Witw)

Professional Background
Janette is the Deputy Director of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, and Associate Director (Education) of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. She obtained her Honours degree in Geography, Postgraduate Teaching Diploma and Doctorate in statistical and dynamical climatology from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She came to ANU in 1993, where she continues to work in atmospheric science and climatology.

Research and Teaching Interests
Janette's principal research interests are in climatic variability during the period of instrumental record, and investigating climate change impacts and vulnerability. Her current research focuses on low-frequency fluctuations in Australian rainfall in the context of the El Niño Southern Oscillation and other large-scale climate system influences, including the potential for deterministic and dynamical seasonal forecasting. Janette's climate vulnerability research focuses on the climatological aspects of bushfires in Australia, and temperature and rainfall trends and extremes. She also contributes to informing the policy debate on drought.

In Janette's undergraduate and postgraduate teaching she aims to develop students' understanding of atmospheric processes, weather and climate, and the role of climatic variability and change in Earth system processes and human affairs.

Janette chairs the Atmosphere Reference Group for the ACT Region State of the Environment Report, and have been President of the Canberra branch of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. I am a member of three professional meteorological societies, and am on the editorial boards of two international journals.

Notable Publications
Lindesay, J.A. 2004. Climate and drought in the subtropics: the Australian example, in From Diaster Response to Risk Management: Australia's National Drought Policy, Botteril, L.C. and Wilhite, D.A. (eds), Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 15-36.

Lindesay, J.A. 2003. Fire and climate in Australia, in Australia Burning: Fire Ecology, Policy and Management Issues, Cary, G., Lindenmeyer, D. and Dovers, S. (eds), CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 32-40.

Reason, C.J.C., Allan, R.J., Lindesay, J.A. and Ansell, T.J. 2000. ENSO and climatic signals across the Indian Ocean Basin in the global context: Part I, Interannual composite patterns, International Journal of Climatology, 20: 1285-1327.

Hobbs, J.E., Lindesay, J.A. and Bridgman, H.A. (eds). 1998. Climates of the Southern Continents: Present, Past and Future, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 297 pp.

Allan, R.J., Lindesay, J.A. and Parker, D.E. 1996. El Niño Southern Oscillation and Climatic Variability, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 405pp.