Understanding and adapting to our changing climate: Climasens

Why Melbourne?

Our location inner Melbourne is ideal because it provides us with direct access to other climate innovators and investors in and around Melbourne. We get to strengthen our network by catching up in person rather than just online. The exciting dynamic of Melbourne certainly plays a part in building our business.

Challenge

Extreme heat kills more people in Australia than bushfires, cyclones or any other weather event. Heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. Decision-makers need access to accurate, easily understood data so they can intervene as early as possible to help keep people safe and infrastructure functioning effectively.  

Solution

Developed by Climasens, HeatSens is the world’s first geospatial analytics platform designed to assess heat-related risks at scale. HeatSens is currently being trialled by the City of Melbourne and the Australian Red Cross at a national level. 

By combining historical data, real-time forecasts and future climate scenarios, HeatSens provides organisations with AI-driven, actionable climate intelligence to help plan, prepare and respond to climate extremes. 

For example, by understanding how severe the temperature may be in specific CBD locations, the City of Melbourne can now intervene ahead of time to protect the health of people in the city. This includes introducing measures like keeping libraries open longer so people with nowhere else to go can escape the heat. 

Result

“Working with Climasens allowed us to identify really vulnerable cohorts throughout the state and begin to overlay that data with heat risk. Being able to identify where people are geographically, we can actually begin targeting those areas with community outreach.”  

- Eilish Maguire, Australian Red Cross 

Heatwaves in urban spaces like Melbourne’s CBD can be more extreme due to what is called the ‘urban heat island effect’, which makes built-up environments up to eight degrees Celsius hotter than rural areas. 

“Trialling HeatSens in the CBD help us understand more about our municipality and how we can provide the most effective, time-critical support during heat events, for people and essential services like power and transport.” 

- Tiffany Crawford, Director, Climate Change and City Resilience and Co-Chief Heat Officer, City of Melbourne