Rate My Professor Nathan Bindoff

Nathan Bindoff is Laureate Professor of Physical Oceanography in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, part of the College of Sciences and Engineering. A Tasmanian native, he completed a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics in 1981 and a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Geophysics in 1984 at the University of Tasmania. He earned his PhD in Geophysics from the Australian National University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989-1990 and another with CSIRO alongside John Church upon returning to Tasmania. His career trajectory includes a six-year research position at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre focused on the Southern Ocean, leadership of the Climate Futures program within that centre, directorship of the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing, and role as Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. He previously served as Head of the Oceans and Cryosphere Program at IMAS and led the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership from 2020 to 2024.

Professor Bindoff's research expertise lies in physical oceanography, particularly documenting climate change impacts on ocean properties such as temperature, circulation, salinity—providing the first evidence of shifts in the Earth's hydrological cycle—and oxygen content across the Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Southern Oceans. He was Coordinating Lead Author for the ocean chapter in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which stated that global warming is unequivocal, and the Fifth Assessment Report (2013), and contributes to the Sixth Assessment Report. Key publications encompass IPCC contributions like 'Observations: oceanic climate change and sea level' (2007, cited 2,170 times), 'Changing ocean, marine ecosystems, and dependent communities' (2019, cited 1,561 times), 'Detection and attribution of climate change: from global to regional' (2014, cited 1,361 times), 'The unprecedented 2015/16 Tasman Sea marine heatwave' (2017, cited 698 times), and 'Decadal Changes along an Indian Ocean Section at 32°S' (2000). In 2024, he received an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship valued at $3.443 million for precision climate tracking of emission reduction responses. His scholarship garners over 84,000 citations on Google Scholar, profoundly shaping understandings of oceanic responses to climate change.