Dr Nicola Maher

Contacts

Research/DECRA Fellow
Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Research interests

My research uses global coupled climate models to investigate the dynamics, impacts and future changes modes of climate variability. My research interests lie in the following areas:

  1. Single Model Initial-Condition Large Ensemble (SMILE ) modelling -investigate the forced response to greenhouse gases and internal variability
  2. Develop/leverage new tools - machine learning/artificial intelligence (e.g. neural networks, long-term short-term memory network, ensemble classifiers)
  3. Understand future projections - particularly projections of internal variability and extreme events
  4. ENSO research - dynamics, teleconnections and ENSO itself in a warming world

Groups

  • Maher, N, Jnglin Wills, R, DiNezio, P et al. 2023, 'The future of the El Ni�o-Southern Oscillation: using large ensembles to illuminate time-varying responses and inter-model differences', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 413-431.
  • Malagon-Santos, V, Slangen, A, Hermans, T et al. 2023, 'Improving statistical projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change using pattern recognition techniques', Ocean Science, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 499-515.
  • Maher, N, Kay, J & Capotondi, A 2022, 'Modulation of ENSO teleconnections over North America by the Pacific decadal oscillation', Environmental Research Letters, vol. 17, pp. 1-13.
  • Maher, N, Tabarin, T & Milinski, S 2022, 'Combining machine learning and SMILEs to classify, better understand, and project changes in ENSO events', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 1289-1304.
  • Ward, B, Pausata, F & Maher, N 2021, 'The sensitivity of the El Nin�-Southern Oscillation to volcanic aerosol spatial distribution in the MPI Grand Ensemble', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 975-996.
  • Vietinghoff, D, Heine, C, Bottinger, M et al. 2021, 'Visual Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Trends in Time-Dependent Ensemble Data Sets on the Example of the North Atlantic Oscillation', 2021 IEEE 14th Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis 2021), ed. Lisa O'Conner, IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services (CPS), Online, pp. 71-80.
  • Suarez-Gutierrez, L, Milinski, S & Maher, N 2021, 'Exploiting large ensembles for a better yet simpler climate model evaluation', Climate Dynamics, vol. 57, pp. 2557-2580.
  • Milinski, S, Ludwig, R & Maher, N 2021, 'Large ensemble climate model simulations: Introduction, overview, and future prospects for utilising multiple types of large ensemble', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 401-418.
  • Maher, N, Power, S & Marotzke, J 2021, 'More accurate quantification of model-to-model agreement in externally forced climatic responses over the coming century', Nature Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1-13.
  • Maher, N, Lehner, F & Marotzke, J 2020, 'Quantifying the role of internal variability in the temperature we expect to observe in the coming decades', Environmental Research Letters, vol. 15, no. 5.
  • Lehner, F, Deser, C, Maher, N et al. 2020, 'Partitioning climate projection uncertainty with multiple large ensembles and CMIP5/6', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 491-508.
  • Milinski, S, Maher, N & Olonscheck, D 2020, 'How large does a large ensemble need to be?', Earth System Dynamics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 885-901.
  • Perry, S, McGregor, S, Gupta, A et al. 2020, 'Projected late 21st century changes to the regional impacts of the El Ni�o-Southern Oscillation', Climate Dynamics, vol. 54, pp. 395-412.
  • Fiedler, S, Crueger, T, D'Agostino, R et al. 2020, 'Simulated tropical precipitation assessed across three major phases of the coupled model intercomparison project (CMIP)', Monthly Weather Review, vol. 148, no. 9, pp. 3653-3680.
  • Maher, N, Milinski, S, Suarez-Gutierrez, L et al. 2019, 'The Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble: Enabling the Exploration of Climate System Variability', Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 2050-2069.
  • Maher, N, Matei, D, Milinski, S et al. 2018, 'ENSO Change in Climate Projections: Forced Response or Internal Variability?', Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 45, no. 20, pp. 11,390-11,398.
  • Griffiths, R, Maher, N & Hughes, G 2011, 'Ocean stratification under oscillatory surface buoyancy forcing', Journal of Marine Research, vol. 69, no. 4-6, pp. 523-543.