26 November 2025
Uncovering the future of drought through Australia’s climate history
Dr Georgina (Georgy) Falster is a climate scientist whose work is helping Australia prepare for future extreme rainfall events, such as droughts and floods. Supported by a prestigious ARC DECRA fellowship at the University of Adelaide, Georgy’s research focuses on the water cycle and how it’s being influenced by human-caused climate change, with a particular emphasis on drought risk.
To understand what lies ahead, Georgy looks to the past. Her research combines modern weather observations, climate model simulations, and natural archives such as tree rings and ice cores to build a holistic picture of Earth’s climate system. These palaeoclimate proxies offer vital clues about how droughts have behaved over past centuries, helping scientists better prepare for what’s coming—including the risk of naturally occurring ‘megadroughts’ whose impacts could be worsened by climate change.
Whilst urgent, Georgy’s work is far from doom and gloom, with a fundamental belief underpinned by evidence that every action - no matter how small - reduces the impacts of future climate change. This belief in the power of collective action fuels Georgy’s commitment to her work, providing the information needed to minimise the impacts of extreme weather events on Australia in the future.
Georgy’s research has been published in top-tier journals including Nature, Nature Geoscience, and outside of her immediate research Georgy co-leads the international research network PAGES 2k which is focused on understanding the climate of the past 2,000 years.