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Showing posts with the label Monash University

Antarctic ice sheet warning

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Alarming stories from Antarctica are happening more often than ever before; surface ice is melting, floating ice sheets are collapsing and glaciers are flowing faster into the ocean. Antarctica will be the biggest source of future sea level rise. But scientists don’t know exactly how this melting will happen as the climate warms. Our latest research looks at how the Antarctic ice sheet has advanced and retreated over the last 10,000 years. It holds strong warnings, and perhaps some hope, for the future. Current imbalance Future sea level rise presents one of the most significant challenges of climate change, with the expected economic, environmental and social impacts on coastal communities around the world. Although it may seem like a distant problem, change in Antarctica will soon be felt at our doorstep, in the form of rising sea levels. Antarctica is home to the single largest ice mass in the world: the Antarctic ice sheet. This glacier’s ice body is several kilometers thick, l

iTWire - Australian Union develops 'world's first' self-calibrated photonic chip

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Melbourne-based research has led to the creation of a self-calibrated photonic chip. Research led by Monash University and RMIT in Melbourne has found a way to replace bulky 3D optics with silicon chips. “We have demonstrated a self-calibrating self-programmable photonic filter chip featuring a signal processing core and an integrated reference path for self-calibration,” explains Monash University’s ARC-winning lead researcher Professor Arthur Lowery. “Self-calibration is very important because it makes tunable photonic integrated circuits useful in the real world; applications include optical communication systems that redirect signals to destinations based on their color, very fast similarity calculations (correlators), scientific instrumentation for chemical or biological analysis, and even astronomy. “Electronics saw a similar improvement in radio filter stability using digital techniques, which led to many phones being able to share the same slice of spectrum: our optical chips h