Rate My Professor Hamish McGowan

Professor Hamish McGowan serves as Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences in the School of the Environment within the Faculty of Science at the University of Queensland. He obtained his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science (Research), and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Canterbury in 1995. McGowan leads the Weather and Climate Science Research Alliance and has engaged in collaborations with numerous institutions, including the Centre for Atmospheric Research at the University of Canterbury, Byrd Polar Research Centre at Ohio State University, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, Geological Survey of Israel, CSIRO, and various fire services across Australia. He coordinates and lectures courses such as GEOS2100, GEOS2101, GEOS3108, and supervises honours and PhD students.

McGowan's research specializations include severe weather phenomena such as thunderstorms and bushfire meteorology, Earth surface-atmosphere energy and trace gas exchanges, aeolian processes involving meteorological controls on wind erosion, dust transport, and their impacts on regional and global climate dynamics, palaeoclimate reconstructions, and mountain meteorology and hydroclimate. His contributions encompass advancements in understanding foehn winds in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys, air-sea energy fluxes over coral reefs like Heron Reef, and drivers of climate variability including mega-droughts and bushfire plume dynamics using mobile radar systems. Key publications include 'Evidence of ENSO mega-drought triggered collapse of prehistory Aboriginal society in northwest Australia' (Geophysical Research Letters, 2012), 'Unprecedented wind erosion and perturbation of surface geochemistry marks the Anthropocene in Australia' (Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 2014), 'Holocene dust deposition rates record the interplay between aridity, position of the mid-latitude westerlies, and a major agriculture induced wind erosion in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia' (Quaternary Science Reviews, 2011), 'Insights into the Australian mid-Holocene climate using downscaled climate models' (Climate of the Past, 2024), and 'Observations of a frontal–trough merger over a wildfire, Queensland, Australia' (Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2025). With 244 works documented, his research informs climate dynamics, severe weather forecasting, and environmental management.