Dr Andreas Schiller

Andreas Schiller is an Honorary Fellow of CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere. Here retired from CSIRO in July 2021.

After completing his doctorate at the University of Kiel in Germany, Dr Schiller moved to the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Hamburg where he worked on climate change issues before joining CSIRO in 1995.

Dr Schiller pioneered with colleagues at the Bureau of Meteorology the development and implementation of the first coupled ocean-atmosphere model for seasonal climate prediction in Australia (POAMA) which went operational at BoM in 2003. Predictions from this model enable the agricultural sector and other industries susceptible to climate variations to better prepare for climate variability.

He headed CSIRO's involvement in the initial phase of the BLUElink project, which delivered the first operational ocean forecasting system in the Southern Hemisphere. The BLUElink project combines state-of-the art ocean observing systems – satellite altimetry, satellite SST, autonomous Argo floats – with the latest modelling and data assimilation technology to estimate the three-dimensional ocean circulation around Australia.

From 2009 to 2017 Dr Schiller co-chaired the international GODAE OceanView Science Team.This group of 35+ leading scientists is the international body that coordinates scientific efforts in the rapidly growing area of ocean forecasting and supports the development and operational implementation of physical, biogeochemical and ecosystem ocean forecasting systems.

Until 2017, Dr Schiller chaired the Global Ocean Observing System Regional Alliance in the Indian Ocean, called IOGOOS. IOGOOS is an association of 29 marine research and operational agencies from 17 countries in the Indian Ocean region. It coordinates and oversees the implementation of the Indian Ocean coastal-to-basin-scale multidisciplinary observing system and supports the development of national ocean monitoring and forecasting capabilities.

Dr Schiller has published more than 80 research papers, reports, book chapters and invited conference papers on topics such as: the impact of ocean tides on large-scale ocean circulation and water-mass properties in the area of the Indonesian Throughflow; the design of an ocean-observing system for the Indian Ocean; accurate simulation and interpretation of intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) in the ocean (relevant to El Niño phenomenon and monsoon rains over India); and the stability of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation on climate change time scales.