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School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences |
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Research Interests:
Bushfire Risk Management, Geometry, Mathematical Physics
Biography
Jason graduated with a BSc in 1995 and a B. Math. (Hons) in 1996, both from the University of Newcastle. He then completed his PhD in pure mathematics at the University of Canberra. In 2001, Jason was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (ANU) where he worked on the spatiotemporal analysis of climatic variables such as rainfall and evaporation. In 2006 Jason moved to the School of PEMS where he worked on the Bushfire CRC’s HighFire Risk Project. Since 2008 Jason has been working as a research assistant on the ARC funded project entitled “Analysing instabilities in complex combustion models for different geometrical configurations”.
Research
Instabilities in complex combustion models:
The main aim of this project is to systematically investigate the stability of flame solutions arising from reaction schemes with complex kinetics. Particular attention will be paid to reduced kinetic schemes, i.e. those with only a few reaction steps. This research is applicable to a number of industrial processes where combustion instabilities can lead to undesirable or dangerous situations. Particular reaction schemes considered include:
- Chain-branching and recombination schemes
- Sequential and parallel schemes with endothermic stages
HighFire Risk Project:
The imperative for this project arose from the disastrous alpine fires of 2003. HighFire Risk was concerned with better understanding and quantifying the key processes that operate in high country landscapes and that contribute significantly to fire behaviour and bushfire risk. This project used a multidisciplinary approach that spanned field data collection, analysis of fire data, fuel structure and risk management methodologies. The research conducted as part of this project has resulted in a more complete picture of bushfire risk in high-country landscapes that can be used to better inform prescribed burning practices and resource allocation during major fires. The research has also shed light on the conception of bushfire risk in the high-country and as such has allowed better understanding of how to integrate the various facets of bushfire risk management in these regions. The project involved:
- Fire weather analysis –This part of the project involved the placement of multiple portable automatic weather stations (PAWS) across high-country landscapes. Areas monitored included Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (ACT) and Brindabella National Park (NSW). The PAWS units captured transects of meteorological variables, including temperature, relative humidity and wind speed and direction, which provided information on the variation of fire weather over complex terrain.
- Analysis of fire data –This part of the project involved analysis of fire data obtained through sources such as Sentinel and Linescans flown during major fire events. Analyses of these data, combined with terrain and fuel information have lead to a better understanding of the role of complex terrain in determining fire regimes.
- Risk management methodologies –In this part of the project we considered a fire size class transition model - a new conceptual framework for modelling the risk posed by a bushfire. It is a Markovian process model in which the transition probabilities have to be estimated through research into the key processes that cause escalation or decay of a fire. Methodologies allowing for the various facets of knowledge to provide decision support for bushfire risk management will also be investigated.
Spatiotemporal analysis of climatic variables:
Geometric methods and mathematical modelling:
Research Collaborators
Harvinder Sidhu (UNSW@ADFA), Rodney Weber (UNSW@ADFA), Jason Evans (UNSW), Vladimir Gubernov (Moscow State University), Rick McRae (ACT Emergency Services Agency), Graham Mills (Centre for Asutralian Weather and Climate Research)John Dold (University of Manchester), Domingos Viegas (University of Coimbra).
Publications
Book Chapter
Dovers, S., Hutchinson, M.F., Lindenmayer, D., Manning, A., Mills, F., Perkins, P, Sharples, J.J., White, I. (2008) Uncertainty, complexity and the environment. In: Uncertainty and Risk: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. Eds. G. Bammer and M. Smithson. Earthscan, London.
Journal Papers
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. A procedure for identifying erroneous data in Australian monthly precipitation records. Australian Meteorological Magazine, under review.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O., Wilkes, S.R. Wind-terrain effects on the propagation of large wildfires in rugged terrain: fire channeling. International Journal of Wildland Fire, under review.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. Wind characteristics over complex terrain with implications for bushfire risk management. Environmental Modelling and Software, under review.
Sharples, J.J., Mills, G.A., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. (2010) Foehn-like winds and elevated fire danger conditions in south-eastern Australia. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, accepted for publication.
Sharples, J.J. (2010) Coordinate transformations and metric extension: a rebuttal to the relativistic claims of Stephen J. Crothers. Progress in Physics, 1, L1-L6.
Sharples, J.J. (2009) An overview of mountain meteorological effects relevant to fire behaviour and bushfire risk. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 18, 737-754.
Sidhu, H.S., Gubernov, V.V., Mercer, G.N., Kolobov, A.V., Polezhaev, A.A., Sharples, J.J. (2009) Travelling waves in a two-step chain branching model with heat loss. Chemical Process and Product Modeling, 4(3), DOI: 10.2202/1934-2659.1437.
Sidhu, H.S., Gubernov, V.V., Kolobov, A.V., Polezhaev, A.A., Mercer, G.N., Sharples, J.J. (2009) Oscillatory combustion waves in a chain branching model. The ANZIAM Journal, 50, C1017-C1032.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O., Gill, A.M., (2009) A simple index for assessing fuel moisture content, Environmental Modelling & Software, 24, 637-646.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O., Gill, A.M., (2009) A simple index for assessing fire danger rating, Environmental Modelling & Software, 24, 764-774.
Sharples, J.J. (2008) Review of formal methodologies for wind-slope correction of wildfire rate of spread. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 17(2), 179-193.
Hennessy, K.J., Whetton, P.H., Walsh, K., Smith, I.N., Bathols, J.M., Hutchinson, M.F., Sharples, J.J. (2008) Climate change effects on snow conditions in mainland Australia and adaptation at ski resorts through snowmaking, Climate Research, 35(3), 255-270.
Sharples, J.J., Pezzey, J.C.V. (2007) Expectations of linear functions with respect to truncated multinormal distributions – with applications for uncertainty analysis in environmental modelling. Environmental Modelling & Software 22, 915-923.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. & Jellett, D.R. (2005) The horizontal scale of elevation dependence of monthly Australian precipitation. Journal of Applied Meteorology 44, 1850-1865.
Sharples, J.J. (2005) Local existence of quasispherical space-time initial data. Journal of Mathematical Physics 46, 052501.
Sharples, J.J. & Hutchinson, M.F., (2004) Multivariate spatial smoothing using additive regression splines. ANZIAM Journal 45 (E), C676-C692 .
Sharples, J.J., (2004) Linear and quasilinear parabolic equations in Sobolev space. Journal of Differential Equations 202, 111-142.
Papers in Conference Proceedings
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., Gill, A.M. (2009) A simple method for assessing fuel moisture content and fire danger rating. In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 2377-2383. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. (2009) An empirical probabilistic study of wind directions in complex terrain. In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 2377-2383. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8.
Sharples, J.J., Mills, G.A., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. (2009) Fire danger anomalies associated with foehn-like winds in southeastern Australia. In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 2377-2383. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8.
Sharples, J.J., Gubernov, V.V., Sidhu, H.S., Towers, I.N., Kolobov, A.V., Polezhaev, A.A. (2009) Behaviour of combustion waves in one-step and two-step models. In Anderssen, R.S., R.D. Braddock and L.T.H. Newham (eds) 18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, July 2009, pp. 2377-2383. ISBN: 978-0-9758400-7-8.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., Mills, G.A. (2008) HighFire Risk: Weather anomalies in the high-country I: Nocturnal low-level jets. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., Mills, G.A. (2008) HighFire Risk: Weather anomalies in the high-country II: Subsidence Inversions. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O. (2008) HighFire Risk: The thermal belt in Australia. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D. (2008) HighFire Risk: Analysis of lee-slope eddies. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O. (2008) HighFire Risk: The role of rugged landscapes. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., Gill, A.M. (2008) HighFire Risk: A simple approach for assessing fuel moisture content and fire danger rating. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O. (2008) HighFire Risk: Fire crew watch-outs arising from our research. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O. (2008) HighFire Risk: Violent pyro-convection – an international study. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 1 - 3 September, Adelaide.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., (2007) Wind-terrain effects on rugged landscape fire propagation: lee-slope channelling. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 19-21 July, Hobart.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., (2007) A simple fuel moisture index for eucalypt litter. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 19-21 July, Hobart.
Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O., McRae, R.H.D., Mills, G.A. (2007) Elevated fire danger conditions associated with foehn-like winds in eastern Victoria. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 19-21 July, Hobart.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J., Weber, R.O. (2007) Are big fires inevitable? Perspectives from the HighFire Risk project. Proceedings of the Joint AFAC/Bushfire CRC Conference, 19-21 September, Hobart.
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J. (2006) Advancing bushfire risk management in the high country. Proceedings of the Bushfire 2006 Conference. 6-9 June 2006. Brisbane.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. (2005) Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Climatic Data Using Additive Regression Splines. Proceedings of the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation 2005. Zerger, A. & Argent, R.M. (Eds), 1695-1701.
Dovers, S., Hutchinson, M., Lindenmayer, D., Manning, A., Mills, F., Perkins, P., Sharples, J. and White, I. (2005) Uncertainty, complexity, and the environment. In: Proceedings, The Challenge of Uncertainty: Learning from Diverse Disciplinary and Practice Approaches, Canberra, 12-13 April 2005.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson , M.F., (2003) The horizontal scale of topographic dependence of monthly Australian precipitation. Proceedings of the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation 2003. Post, D.A. (Ed) Volume 1, 130-135.
Technical Reports
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. (2009) HighFire Risk Project Research Report for Stakeholders: Evidenced-based operational and policy guidelines for fire risk management in and around Australia’s high-country. Bushfire CRC Draft Report, 78 pp.
Hutchinson, M.F., Dovers, S., Lindesay, J., Letcher, R., Mills, F. and Sharples, J. (2005) Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts. Report on a consultancy for the Australian Greenhouse Office.
Hennessy, K.J., Whetton, P.H., Smith, I.N., Bathols, J.M., Hutchinson , M.F. & Sharples, J.J. (2003) The impact of climate change on snow conditions in mainland Australia. CSIRO Atmospheric Research, ii +47 pp.
Other publications and publications in prep.
Sharples, J.J., Mills, G.A., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. An analysis of anomalous dewpoint temperatures in the south-eastern Australian high country. To be submitted to the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O. Evaluation of two methods for estimating terrain modification of surface winds. To be submitted to Environmental Modelling and Software.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F., Kesteven, J.L. Spatially coherent temporal trends in pan evaporation over Australia. To be submitted to the International Journal of Climatology.
Hutchinson, M.F., Sharples, J.J. Interpolation of alpine precipitation using partial additive regression splines. To be submitted to the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Weber, R.O., Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Chapman, J.S. The significance of ruggedness for lightning ignition. To be submitted to the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
McRae, R.H.D., Sharples, J.J. Observations of the thermal belt in southeastern Australia with implications for bushfire risk management. To be submitted to the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
Sharples, J.J., Dold, J.W., Viegas, D.X., Gill, A.M., Weber, R.O. The trench effect in a wildfire context: flame attachment and eruptive fire behaviour. To be submitted to the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D. A conceptual framework for assessing the risk posed by extreme bushfires. To be submitted to the Australian Journal of Emergency Management.
Sharples, J.J., (2001) Introduction to abstract spline functions. Lecture notes. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU.
Sharples, J.J. (2000) Multivariate calculus and complex variables. Lectures notes. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canberra.
Sharples, J.J. (2001) Spacetime initial data and quasispherical coordinates. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canberra.
Sharples, J.J. (1995) Maxwell solutions from conformal Killing-Yano tensors: with applications to multipole fields. Hounours Thesis. Department of Mathematics, University of Newcastle.
2010: Australian Academy of Science, Scientific Visits to Europe Program grant for project entitled: Analysing complex combustion processes: combustion wave stability and eruptive behaviour of bushfires.
2000-2002: Indigenous Researchers Development Scheme grant D00002861 for project entitled: On the existence of initial data sets for the Einstein equations in the quasispherical gauge.
1996: Australian Postgraduate Award for Ph.D. research in mathematical general relativity.
1994: University Medal for Mathematics, University of Newcastle.
1995: Dean’s Medal, Faculty of Science and Mathematics, University of Newcastle.
1994: Ivan Lincoln Rose Prize in Applied Mathematics, University of Newcastle.
1994: Level 300 Mathematics Prize, University of Newcastle.
1993: George Arkla Harle Memorial Prize in Physics, University of Newcastle.
1992: Apollo Commemorative Prize in Physics, University of Newcastle.
1991: Donald Peterson Prize in Chemistry, University of Newcastle.
Australian Mathematical Society
Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM)
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS)
Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MODSIM)